ESPN’s 15 Best Players by Category Will Make You Rethink the MVP Race

ESPN Analytics just dropped their end-of-season awards and it’s not what you’d expect. Dean Oliver used Net Points to crown kings in 15 different categories—and the results are wild. Some of the league’s biggest names are getting recognition in places you’d never guess, while dark horses are stealing shine in specific skill categories.

This isn’t your standard MVP conversation. Oliver’s framework breaks down everything: who has the best fadeaway, who dominates on defense, who runs the offense, who finishes at the rim. It’s granular. It’s specific. And it exposes exactly where each star’s game lives and breathes.

The Net Points metric measures actual impact per possession, which means the usual stat-padding gets filtered out. If you scored 30 points but turned the ball over constantly, the numbers know. If you held your man to nothing on elite defense, that registers too. This is about real, verifiable impact.

The takeaway? The MVP race might be even closer than we thought. When you break the game into 15 distinct skill categories, you realize superstars aren’t equal everywhere. Some dominate one area. Others are well-rounded. And some role players outshine All-Stars in specific lanes. That’s the beauty of this breakdown—it shows exactly why the best teams win: they have specialists who excel in their assignments.