NBA: The winners

The end of another long NBA regular season is in sight, which means it's time to hand out postseason awards.

It's hard to go vastly wrong this year, since each award category seems to have several worthwhile candidates. There are also several highly suspect candidates getting mention from the folks with national audiences, but that shouldn't come as a complete surprise, considering it was one of those national-audience types — ESPN.com's Frank Hughes — who predicted the Jazz would be the worst NBA team ever.

That has to rank up there with predictions like that made in 1927 by the head of Warner Brothers studio, who said nobody would want to hear talking movies.

Or the Decca Recording Co. executive who rejected the Beatles in 1962, on the grounds that guitar music was on the way out.

Lack of foresight aside, what we have here is choices for the top awards, along with the likely actual award winners and some honorable mentions.

Most valuable player

Who should win: Kevin Garnett, Timberwolves

Who will win: Garnett

Strong arguments could be made for Tim Duncan, without whom the Spurs wouldn't be a legitimate contender, or Pacers' Jermaine O'Neal, but Garnett has better numbers than those guys and the Timberwolves have the best record in far and away the league's toughest division. He has played every game, too. Kings' Peja Stojakovic would get more votes if he played defense, and Pistons' Ben Wallace might be a serious candidate if he was more of an offensive threat.

Rookie of the year

Who should win: LeBron James, Cavaliers

Who will win: James

James was going to win this on hype alone, but his late-season performance legitimately pushed him ahead of the Nuggets' Carmelo Anthony. Denver's recent struggles and Anthony's much-publicized refusal to re-enter a game have damaged his candidacy. Their stats are almost dead-even, so don't look to that to settle the debate. There were some other decent rookies out there, but nobody who seriously deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as these guys.

Coach of the year

Who should win: Jerry Sloan, Jazz

Who will win: Hubie Brown, Grizzlies