Since the NBA All-Star Game on Feb. 19, we have reached the halfway point of the NBA’s regular season. With that, we went around York asking people what they thought of the NBA season so far, and who they thought would win awards by the end of the season. We surveyed students, asking them about some the biggest awards of the season such as Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year, and who would win each conference.

The first award, and arguably the biggest that we asked about, was Most Valuable Player (MVP). Since 1955, the NBA has given out an award to the best player of the regular season. Bob Pettit was the first winner, and since then, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has won the most with six over his 20 seasons in the NBA with the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers. 

This year, however, the race seems to mainly be between the two superstars: Russell Westbrook and James Harden. While ESPN currently has James Harden as their favorite, York seems to disagree, and it’s not very close either. Westbrook is a clear favorite by York, receiving about 55 percent of the vote. While Harden tied with Lebron James in second, receiving about 10 percent of the vote each. Other contenders were Jimmy Butler (seven percent), along with Isaiah Thomas and Kevin Durant each getting four percent. While York seems to be certain on who they think is the best player in the NBA this year, we will have to wait until the end of this season to find out if they are right or not. 

The next award we asked about was Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY). The NBA has given out this award since the 1982 season, in which Sidney Moncrief was the first winner. Since 1982, two big men have each won the award four times, Dikembe Mutombo who did it with three different teams (Denver, Atlanta and Philadelphia), and Ben Wallace who won it four times in a five year period. 

This year however York seems to like the Spurs’ Kawhi Leonard (62 percent of votes), who has won the award the past two years. Leonard quickly emerged as one of NBA’s biggest stars for the Spurs, since he has come into the league in 2011, he has been a two time all star, three time all defensive team, and in 2014 he led the Spurs to their fifth championship and was the finals MVP. 

In second place was the Warriors’ Draymond Green, who received just 14 percent of votes. Following him was the Clippers’ DeAndre Jordan who got 10 percent of the votes. Lastly, the Heat’s Hassan Whiteside got seven percent of the votes. While York seems to be set on Kawhi Leonard, don’t sleep on the other candidates, for in reality this should be a close race.

Finally we asked York for their Finals matchup prediction. For this we asked which team students thought would come out of each conference. Currently, the standings in the NBA show it as the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors leading their conferences, respectively. However, the races are tight, and there’s still a lot of basketball to be played. 

In the Eastern Conference, York seems to like the defending champion Cavaliers. Cleveland currently holds a three game lead over the Boston Celtics for the top seed in the East. Following Cleveland is Boston, receiving about ten percent of the votes, and lastly Chicago and Toronto each got seven percent to finish atop the East. Currently every team that received votes would be in the playoffs if the season ended today, which makes for quite some race for the top seed. 

Out West the story is a little different. The Golden State Warriors have a four game lead on everybody else, and don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. The San Antonio Spurs are in second. Following them, eight games out of first, are the Houston Rockets. 

Surprisingly, York has predicted a closer race in the Western Conference than in the East. York is sticking with the favorite Warriors to come out on top in West, but Houston (who got 24 percent of votes) could make a comeback in the second half of the season and claim the top seed. Along with San Antonio, who has been known to make late season comebacks over the past few years. Regardless, the race out West looks like it could be a very close one.  

For the most part, the majority of York is staying mainstream and predicting the favorites; however, there’s still a lot of basketball to be played and nothing is for sure yet.