The National Player of the Year race wasn’t always a two-man affair (we miss you Ben Simmons, Jarrod Uthoff and Kris Dunn), but as we enter postseason play this week, there’s little denying the simplicity of the choice facing voters: Valentine or Hield. We asked Chris Stone (@cstonehoops) and Alex Moscoso (@alexmoscoso) — writers for the Big 12 and Big Ten microsites, respectively — to make a case for their league’s best players as the most deserving NPOY this season.
The Case For Hield
This season’s battle for National Player of the Year has become a two-man race between Michigan State‘s Denzel Valentine and Oklahoma‘s Buddy Hield, as the other primary candidates have faded into the background with lackluster late season performances from their teams. Thus, Valentine and Hield appear to stand alone as the two players with first-class season-long resumes on Final Four contenders. The case for Sparty’s Valentine is understandable. He’s one of the sport’s most versatile players — a quintessential jack-of-all-trades. But despite all of Valentine’s individual achievements and his oversized role on a national title favorite, the Sooners’ Hield is the player who should be this season’s National Player of the Year.
Buddy Hield is a deserving National Player of the Year. (Mandatory Credit: USATSI)
Hield is not a jack-of-all-trades like Valentine; rather, he’s a master of one. The senior guard is a transcendent scorer, so good that he’s drawn comparisons to Stephen Curry from multiple national analysts. Hield is the nation’s second-leading scorer at 25.3 points per game, and he’s done it while playing in the country’s most challenging conference (according to KenPom‘s adjusted metrics). What’s more impressive, though, is the efficiency with which the Oklahoma guard scores. Hield’s true shooting percentage — a statistic that measures all aspects of shooting, including three-pointers and free throws — is an astonishing 66.3 percent this season. Scoring that many points in such an efficient manner makes Hield’s NPOY case. Only two other players since the 2009-10 season have averaged 25 points per game on a true shooting percentage higher than 60 percent (min. 400 minutes) — one of those, Creighton’s Doug McDermott, won the Naismith Award himself in 2013-14. Hield, who spent much of this season flirting with a 50/50/90 shooting line, is the most efficient of the bunch.
Hield emerged as the favorite for the NPOY award in early January after the Sooners’ rolled to an undefeated non-conference record and played a triple-overtime classic against Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse, a game where he scored 46 spectacular points. However, as Oklahoma slogged through the meat of its Big 12 schedule, Hield’s stock slipped slightlyeven as he averaged 23.3 points per game in February. At a time of the season when Valentine’s supporting cast began hitting its stride (the Spartans have won 10 of their last 11 games), Hield’s running mates have correspondingly struggled. Still, the senior has been a constant all season long in powering one of the nation’s top offenses (along with a top 15 defense). Interestingly enough, both Hield and Valentine’s marquee performances came against Kansas. Valentine tallied a triple-double during a Champions Classic win against the Jayhawks back in November, but Kansas head coach Bill Self summed it up best after his team’s 109-106 win over the Sooners. “Denzel put it on us pretty good, but we guarded our ass off against Buddy.” And Buddy still got 46.
The Case For Valentine
As the regular season ended over the weekend, the race for National Player of the Year — an award that all but belonged to Buddy Hield in mid-February — has become a coin flip between the Oklahoma senior and Denzel Valentine. The road traveled by the Michigan State star is not one usually taken by Naismith Award winners. The Lansing, Michigan, native was originally discovered by current NBA All-Star and former Spartan Draymond Green in a high school game. After Tom Izzo watched one of his high school games, the longtime head coach told Valentine he wasn’t yet good enough for a scholarship to Michigan State. An eventual scholarship and four years of continuous improvement later, Valentine has positioned his team for another deep run thanks to a historic senior season. This is why Denzel Valentine deserves to be the National Player of the Year.
Denzel Valentine should be this year’s National Player of the Year (Photo: Spartan Avenue)
The debate between Valentine and Hield is a classic argument about which kind of player is more valuable: an electric, prolific scorer (Hield) or a player with a flawlessly complete game (Valentine). The early front-runner for the NPOY award after several stellar non-conference performances, Valentine lost momentum when he was injured for a few weeks in late December and early January. It was at that time that Hield emerged as the front-runner after scoring 46 points in a triple-overtime loss at Kansas. The Oklahoma star continued his dominant scoring ways through the Big 12 schedule, as his combination of size and shooting ability is admittedly unmatched in college basketball. Chris Stone makes a reasonable case for Hield as NPOY, but Valentine’s more historically unique season positions him as the better choice for this year’s most outstanding player award.
The Spartan senior’s season has been eerily similar to a past NPOY winner from the Big Ten who also put up historic numbers — Ohio State’s Evan Turner. Much like Turner, Valentine is a point-wing combo who impacts every facet of the game. Turner averaged 20.4 points, 9.2 rebounds, and 6.0 assists per game in the 2009-10 season; Valentine has averaged 19.3 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 7.3 assists per game this season. The two players have similar numbers but it is also noteworthy that the Michigan State senior will be the first player to EVER to average at least 19 points, seven rebounds, and seven assists per game over the course of an entire season. Additionally, Valentine has been the more efficient player. Six years ago, Turner shot 54 percent as an effective field goal percentage (which included 36.4 percent shooting from beyond the three-point line) for an offensive rating of 111.2; Valentine’s effective field goal percentage is 57.9 percent (he is also shooting 44.2 percent from three-point range) and he boasts an outrageous offensive rating of 126.8 — notably, five points better than Hield. All in all, Valentine is outperforming even Turner’s historic NPOY season, not to mention Hield’s outstanding campaign this year. For developing into one of the most complete players in modern college basketball history, Denzel Valentine has earned the nod as the 2015-16 National Player of the Year.