BY DAVID THORPE
What just happened? Was that an NBA season? Do we hand out awards when we don’t even know if there will be playoffs?
It just struck me: What we had of the 2019/2020 “season” was a camp. Many games that settled nothing. And that can be great! Camps are valuable. Early in my career, I traveled around America trying to work all 10 weeks of my summer break from teaching. I learned to coach as much from the summer basketball camp scene as I did the regular high school season. As we discussed with NBA player agent Bernie Lee this week, places like the famed Five-Star Basketball Camps were a chance for everyone—players, coaches, referees—to learn and develop.
And camps have awards. They tend to be a little different than the NBA season awards. Usually there is a Most Outstanding Player and a grab bag of others, reflecting the reality that a camp is not a season, nor is it a championship. It’s a glimpse. So here are TrueHoop’s 2019-2020 NBA basketball camp awards.