Derrick White of the Boston Celtics is the NBA’s Sportsmanship Award winner for this season, as selected by his fellow players across the league.
White got 20% of the first-place votes from the 386 players who cast ballots. TJ McConnell of the Indiana Pacers — who actually got more first-place votes, almost 22% — was second, while Harrison Barnes of the San Antonio Spurs was third and Al Horford of the Golden State Warriors was fourth.
Barnes and Horford both got 19% of the first-place votes that were cast.
Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat (11% of first-place votes) was fifth and Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — the only repeat finalist from last season — was sixth after getting just under 10% of the first-place votes.
White will receive the Joe Dumars Trophy, named for the Basketball Hall of Famer, a two-time champion and the inaugural winner of the sportsmanship award after the 1995-96 season. Dumars now leads basketball operations for the New Orleans Pelicans.
Each of the NBA’s 30 teams nominated one player for the sportsmanship award, and that list was narrowed to six finalists — one from each division.
The sportsmanship award is the fourth award to be announced by the NBA since the end of the regular season. The others:
— San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama — just 22 years old — became the youngest Defensive Player of the Year, and the first to win the award in a unanimous vote.
— Gilgeous-Alexander nearly became the first unanimous winner of the Clutch Player of the Year award. He got 96 of a possible 100 first-place votes.
— San Antonio’s Keldon Johnson topped Miami’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. for Sixth Man of the Year, getting 63 first-place votes.
The league’s Most Improved Player — either Atlanta’s Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Portland’s Deni Avdija or Detroit’s Jalen Duren — will be announced Friday.
Other announcements that have yet to be scheduled include MVP (either Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama or Denver’s Nikola Jokic), Coach of the Year (either Detroit’s J.B. Bickerstaff, San Antonio’s Mitch Johnson or Boston’s Joe Mazzulla), and Rookie of the Year (either Philadelphia’s VJ Edgecombe, Dallas’ Cooper Flagg or Charlotte’s Kon Knueppel).
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