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Using Time magazine’s “for better or worse” criterion, who is your choice for NBA Person of the Year for 2017?
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David Aldridge: Good question. I’m going to take a different tack and say Kyrie Irving. Think about everything that went haywire because one guy — Irving — decided he didn’t want to play with LeBron James any more. Everybody wants to play with LeBron James. But in part because of Irving’s decision, the Cleveland Cavaliers weren’t able to add Jimmy Butler or Paul George, and Cleveland had to ship its 25-year-old future to its biggest Eastern Conference rival to get anything approaching equal value for him. Does anyone doubt that LeBron would have already extended in Cleveland by now if Irving and either or Butler or George were there with him? As I said at the time, I thought Irving was nuts for demanding to be traded — but I’m not 25, and I didn’t hit the shot that brought Cleveland its first major sports championship in 50-plus years. From his perspective, I kind of understood why he wanted out, and his play so far in Boston proves his point — he would have never had this kind of freedom, both on the court and to lead his team, in James’ shadow in Cleveland.
Steve Aschburner: An obvious choice would be LeBron James for how he stands astride NBA world in matters on the court and off. Isaiah Thomas embodied much of what players face, good and bad, from performances worthy of Kia MVP consideration to the tumult of getting traded to the disruption of careers and goals by injury. But I’ll go with Kevin Durant as 2017’s “Person of the Year” for having his hand in so many storylines. He won himself a ring, without earning respect or enhancing his reputation because of how he got it — about as bloodlessly as buying a bunch of Apple stock. His departure from OKC ignited Russell Westbrook, which culminated in the calendar year with Westbrook’s historic triple-double season, a Kia MVP award and a long-term commitment to the fans Durant left. There’s Durant’s growing game and climb toward James’ status as the league’s best player. And there’s his increasingly prickly attitude, which makes him less nice as a guy but maybe interesting as a case study of success.
Shaun Powell: Kevin Durant walks away with this prize. He combined brilliance and a championship with polarization. The best player on the floor in The 2017 Finals was also mocked in some public corners for hitching a ride on the Warriors train and being hypersensitive to any and all criticism. Inside the body of a true superstar is a nice guy who is desperate to be loved. In his entire charmed basketball life, Durant never heard the level of boos and hisses that followed his departure from OKC and it rattled him to the bone.
John Schuhmann: Mike D’Antoni. The 2016-17 season was the most efficient offensive season we’ve ever had, and ’17-18 is on track to top it. In The Finals, with the traditional bigs on the rosters seeing their playing time reduced as the series went on, the Cavs and Warriors combined for an effective field goal percentage of 57 percent (a mark higher than any team has ever recorded in a season in NBA history) over the final four games. Teams are spacing the floor better and shooting 3-pointers more than ever before. There are a lot of people who have pushed that trend along, but none more than D’Antoni, architect of the seven-seconds-or-less Suns and coach of the team that’s now taking more than half of its shots from beyond the arc.
Sekou Smith: As much as this year was about Kevin Durant finally cashing in his chips for a title and the Warriors winning it all again, I can’t help but think about the year LeBron James has enjoyed/endured. Some 15 years deep into his unbelievable career and he’s still sitting atop the heap. He doesn’t need team (Durant and Stephen Curry took care of that) or individual hardware (Russell Westbrook snagged that) to validate his position, either. That is pretty remarkable in our what-have-you-done-lately era of sports (and life in general). The seventh straight trip to The Finals and the summertime break up with Kyrie Irving stick out as well. The fact is, LeBron’s impact on and off the court, his influence on the game and his reach and position in the culture beyond the game transcendent. His fearlessness when it comes to speaking his mind on social and political issues is perhaps the most memorable thing he’s done this year, the thing history will highlight most in retrospect.
