Surprised to see Deron only with the third place finish.  I didn’t expect him to win it (I thought it would go to Martin), but I did think he would finish second.  But it wasn’t even close. 

Deron Williams went from, “Maybe we should have drafted Chris Paul,” to potentially a perennial All-star.  There’s no doubt he’s what makes the team so good.  You can imagine where the Jazz would have been without him.  I wonder how much of this award comes from lobbying from the players’ teams.

Great quite from the guy that runs http://www.retiresloan.com on the ESPN conversation beta:

RetireSloan (4/26/2007 at 1:17 PM)

Given the fact he sucked it up, plugged his nose, and put on the dead skin of John Stockton — as Sloan demanded — Deron Williams should have won this award by a landslide.

Not a big deal.  I’ve always seen this award as the “You didn’t suck as much as you did last year”  or the “Contract year” award.

Link to ESPN.com - NBA - Warriors’ Ellis is NBA’s most improved player