The final rundown of the nightly awards:
The Mario - goes to anyone with under one minute of playing time
The Hamilton - goes to any big man who has more fouls and turnovers than points/rebounds/assists
The Fernsten - goes to anyone that comes into the game just to commit one foul
The Trillion - Anyone that comes into the game for over a minute and does absolutely nothing.
Suck Differential - goes to anyone that bricks a shot or free throw, commits a turnover or gets a tech without doing anything positive.
Jackass of the Night - goes to the man most responsible for costing his team the game
Hero of the Night - goes to the man most responsible in the miracle the Celtics actually win
Now for the end of the season awards:
The Mario - the man with the most Mario's
The Hamilton - the man with the most Hamilton's
The Fernsten - the man with the most Fernsten's
Richest Man in Basketball - the man with the most money made from trillions
The Ellison - the man who misses the most games due to injury
Bawful Player of the Year - the man with the most Suck Differentials
Jackass of the Year - The man who loses the most games
Plus there will be a new award just named yesterday. While the name is up in the air (to be settled after careful deliberation with some well known scholars) the award will be for the player that attains the most Did Not Play - Coaches Decision. For those who are unfamiliar with what that means, basically if you're on the active roster (the 12 man, not the injured list) but don't get in the game, it was the coaches decision to keep you out. It could be because the player sucks and the coach doesn't want to play him, or its a starter coming back from injury and simply couldn't go that night, or a player suddenly had massive diarreah before tipoff...bottom line is he's active but doesn't play.
So for example opening night there can only be 12 men on the active roster but there's 15 total, that means 3 need to be injured every single game. For example sake, let's say the 3 are Vitor Faverini, Dwight Powell and Phil Pressey tomorrow night. All 3 get credit for the Ellison Award. Now, let's say James Young doesn't get into the game at all. He'll get a DNP-CD next to his name in the boxscore. So there's the difference between being hurt and simply not playing. The name for the end of the season DNP-CD award is still up in the air but in the end, it'll be decided.
Are there any favorites for the upcoming awards? Not really. Again, this isn't like baseball where you can easily point to a pitcher giving up 7 runs or a batter striking out three times with the bases loaded. Someone has to truly utterly suck to be singled out in a basketball game. If the Celtics lose 122-120, Gerald Wallace may score 25 but his opponent he guarded could have scored 45 and his lack of defense would be a real big reason why they lost, but he did score 25 to keep them in the game. Evan Turner may have missed the last second 3 pointer, but what if he had 15 points and 6 assists in the game? See the problem there? Even if the Celtics lose 110-80, obviously more than one guy didn't score many points. Again, its not like baseball or hockey where a pitcher or goalie can carry the incompetent offense. Nor is it like football where the defense can win 7-0 and score the winning touchdown by itself on a pick six. Its the most team oriented game of all so more often than not its tough to choose one singular Jackass of the Night.
Remember Glen Davis' 0-10 performance against Miami in Game 4 of the 2011 playoffs? Its easy to blame him for the loss but remember the game went to OT when Pierce missed at the buzzer in regulation. Do you blame Pierce for missing the buzzer beater, Davis for going 0 for 10 or whoever was on the court in OT that allowed the Heat to score the winning points?
Remember Game 4 of the 1987 Finals when Magic hit the junior skyhook after McHale fumbled the Kareem missed free throw and Bird missed at the buzzer? Do you blame McHale for fumbling the free throw, Bird for missing, both of them for allowing the skyhook....or do you blame the bench for being totally useless or Danny Ainge and DJ for letting the Laker guards run through them like swiss cheese in the 3rd and 4th quarter? A lot of factors go into games which make singling out very tough.
Still, all that gum yapping was reserved for one award. The rest of them are plainly easy. A guy gets into a game for under a minute is a Mario, not hard to figure out. A team that's expected to fail has more opprotunities to be bawful than a team expected to go all the way. Again, as I pointed out in the past, the 1986 Celtics only had 15 jackasses but had all 82 games for bawful. Sly Williams would have won the Ellison (ironically the same year Pervis Ellison himself led Louisville to the NCAA title) if he wasn't released in December. I'm sure during garbage time some of the legends such as Sam Vincent and Greg Kite picked up a Mario or two. Danny Ainge once had a trillion in the 84 NBA Finals!
Bottom line is, this is going to be a fun season.
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