{"id":105309,"date":"2025-08-29T12:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T12:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/105309\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T12:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T12:02:09","slug":"2026-nba-award-favorites-sleepers-and-wild-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/105309\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 NBA Award Favorites, Sleepers and Wild Cards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">The Favorite: Bennedict Mathurin\/Andrew Nembhard, Indiana Pacers<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">At least one of Mathurin or Nembhard will need to go off on offense for the Pacers to navigate the regular season without Tyrese Haliburton. Mathurin could get the edge after head coach Rick Carlisle revealed to <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zTkNAb3Bvd0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Caitlin Cooper of Basketball, She Wrote<\/a> that he&#8217;s going to start. But Nembhard should have more control over running the entire offense and might just make #PlayoffNembhard his default.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">The Sleeper: Trey Murphy, New Orleans Pelicans<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">New Orleans has done a bang-up job of burying Murphy in the pecking order with the additions of Jeremiah Fears, Derik Queen and Jordan Poole. Zion Williamson isn&#8217;t going anywhere, either.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Given this team&#8217;s propensity for injuries\u2014Queen is already hurt\u2014Murphy should still get tons of opportunities. Don&#8217;t rule out a Tyrese Maxey Year 3-to-Year 4 scoring jump from him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">The Wild Card: Reed Sheppard, Houston Rockets<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Just <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.statmuse.com\/nba\/ask\/players-to-win-most-improved-player-in-their-second-year\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">seven second-year players<\/a> have won Most Improved honors. It hasn&#8217;t happened since Monta Ellis did it in 2006-07.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Houston&#8217;s offseason has nevertheless unfolded like its banking on Sheppard assuming a major role. Kevin Durant should lead the team in scoring, but he&#8217;s not hard-wired to run the offense. Sheppard should get plenty of cracks at directing the show. If he performs well from the outset, it could set the stage for more minutes and a breakout sophomore season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Favorite: Bennedict Mathurin\/Andrew Nembhard, Indiana Pacers At least one of Mathurin or Nembhard will need to go&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-105309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}