Bleacher Report’s Ultimate 2016-17 NBA Re-Draft: Season Results & Awards

You’ve seen the detailed explanation of the B/R NBA re-draft’s first 30 picks. You’ve pored over the 13-man rosters for each of the league’s new-look squads and formed your own opinions. 

If you haven’t yet, you should. We’ll be waiting here for you. 

But we haven’t revealed any winners and losers until now. We don’t know whether Stephen Curry is going to repeat as the league’s scoring champion. We’re uncertain about how Andre Drummond’s extreme rebounding chops will play in a new home. We aren’t sure which teams will rise to the top of the league-wide standings. 

To answer all of these questions and plenty more, we’re turning both to votes from our own panel of general managers and to our favorite simulation machine—NBA 2K17.

What follows are the league leaders in every major statistical category, the favorites for each significant award, the standings in each conference and the overall title chances, all of which are based upon a set of 50 single-season simulations run with our re-draft rosters. 

           

Stat Leaders Scoring Champion

A player averaged at least 30 points during only nine of the simulations, and Kyrie Irving was responsible for eight of those feats. The lone exception came courtesy of James Harden, who sparked the Los Angeles Lakers one season with 30.7 points per game. 

Six different scoring champions led the Association during various simulations, but Irving was the clear standout. With a ton of inexperienced options and a playmaking power forward surrounding him in the Timberwolves’ starting five (Terrence Ross, Gary Harris, Kristaps Porzingis and Boris Diaw), the offense depended wholly on his shot-creating. 

            

Assist Champion

Frankly, no one ever came close to John Wall or Chris Paul. 

A lack of turnovers made Wall the more impressive distributor in re-draft world, but Paul took the assist crown more often than not. Perhaps CP3 was just surrounded by more useful teammates, with Harrison Barnes and Allen Crabbe spacing the floor while he ran pick-and-roll action alongside Julius Randle and Steven Adams. 

              

Rebounding Champion

As it turns out, relocation to the bayou didn’t affect Andre Drummond. 

Health was the big man’s only issue, since he went down for a stretch in each of the six seasons in which he didn’t grab the most rebounds per game. His worst qualified year saw him average 14 boards; no one else posted more than 12.5 in any campaign.

               

Steals Champion

Chris Paul has led the league in steals per game six times during his real-life Hall of Fame career, most recently in 2013-14.

It’s too bad this can’t count in the here and now, since he ran away with the category and only had Russell Westbrook challenging him during most seasons.  

          

Blocks Champion

During three of the last five real seasons, it’s taken at least three blocks per game to win this title. But the re-draft world is a bit more sparse with rejections, presumably because of parity throughout the league and the diminished playing time created by more well-rounded benches.

Anthony Davis was the lone player to hit the threshold, averaging an even three swats for his New York Knicks during Season 14. At least Andre Drummond (2.9 in Season 29) came close. 

               

Field-Goal Percentage Champion

It’s impressive that DeAndre Jordan led the league in field-goal percentage during all 50 simulated campaigns, even making over 70 percent of his shots in Season 21. But it may be even more stunning that he never shot worse than 62 percent from the field. 

             

Three-Point Percentage Champion

Fifteen different players led the league in three-point percentage—10 of whom emerged on top in multiple simulations. The names ranged from the expected (Stephen Curry, J.J. Redick and Kevin Durant) to the opposite (Lou Williams and D.J. Augustin). 

It’s probably good news for the real-life Golden State Warriors that three of their superstars appear in these standings, and that two of them were among the few to top 50 percent in a season. 

           

Free-Throw Percentage Champion

No other statistical category provided a wider range of winners, but that should be a secondary focus. In terms of significance, even Stephen Curry’s 11 free-throw titles fall behind Karl-Anthony Towns’ ridiculous Season 42. 

The reigning Rookie of the Year went absolutely nuts for the Los Angeles Clippers, making 415 of his 419 attempts from the stripe. And that’s only part of an all-around-ridiculous line—22.2 points, 13.4 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.8 steals and 2.1 blocks per game while shooting 55.0 percent from the field, 42.9 percent from downtown and 99.6 percent at the line.

In that go-round, he won MVP, Most Improved Player and Defensive Player of the Year. 

             

Three-Point Champion

In 2015-16, Stephen Curry blew away his old three-point record (286) by knocking down 402 shots from beyond the arc.

No one in our re-draft world came close to that tally, but C.J. McCollum, James Harden, Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard, Curry and Isaiah Thomas each had at least one simulated season in which they displaced the baby-faced …

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