Detroit Pistons: Best candidates for 2018-19 NBA awards

MVP: Blake Griffin

In each of the four major American sports, the Most Valuable Player is the most hotly-debated award. Everyone has their own definition of “valuable,” plus no one can come to a consensus on whether the award should go to the most valuable player or the best player.

Thanks to that ambiguity, along with the fact that the media decides who wins MVP, the narrative that takes shape during the season is often as important to an MVP candidate’s campaign as anything else.

All of that is to explain why the Pistons’ best candidate for league MVP in 2018-19 may not necessarily be their best player.

One could easily argue that center Andre Drummond is Detroit’s top talent. He was an All-Star last season and he led the league in rebounding. But the Piston most likely to contend for MVP is power forward Blake Griffin — who hasn’t made the All-Star team since 2015 and has never led the league in anything except for maybe most highlight-reel dunks during his early days with the Los Angeles Clippers.

Similar to Steve Nash and Shaquille O’Neal‘s battle for MVP in 2004-05, Griffin’s MVP campaign would focus on how he arrived in Detroit and quickly helped the franchise turn its fortunes around. Nash won his first MVP because he came to the Phoenix Suns and immediately helped them become one of the league’s best teams. Shaq finished second in the MVP race that year because he joined the Miami Heat and helped make them legitimate title contenders when they previously were not.

Griffin actually came to the Pistons via trade in February, but he only played 25 games with the team last season. This will be his first full season in Detroit, and his addition to the roster is still the biggest on-court change the Pistons have made in 2018.

Drummond has been with the Pistons since 2012. He’s been a mainstay through their current rough patch. So if the team makes a significant improvement this season, Griffin will get a lot of the credit.

Remember when Paul Pierce endured the tough times in Boston, then Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen showed up and helped turn the Celtics into an immediate contender? Garnett was the one who finished third in league MVP voting and was largely credited with “changing the culture” in Boston. That is the narrative model Griffin could follow this season.

For that to happen, however, the Pistons need to get a lot better — probably a top-three playoff seed in the Eastern Conference — while Griffin has to stay healthy and put up some career-best numbers.

Odds: Unlikely, but don’t rule it out entirely