High-level basketball games and events are full of exciting things, and that’s probably one of the reasons for the sport’s high number of views. And we don’t even have to go far in the post to see some examples. The 2022–23 season of the National Basketball Association (NBA) ended at the beginning of April 2023, with the postseason ending in June. And as always, it was full of great games and surprises.
Our article will list the most valuable, engaging, and unexpectedly impressive players of the last NBA season. We won’t provide general betting tips in this text; if you’re looking for one, it’s better to check other sources—for example, this one: https://betsbest.ke/. Instead, we will briefly mention how they managed to surprise us or while they were important for the games. We will also take a look at some of the games with clearly unexpected results.
Players
Basketball might be a team sport, but similarly to football, individual players can get popular, contribute to their team’s success the most, and gain a legendary reputation. The 2022–23 season has shown us how impressive some of them can be. In some cases, this was a surprising result from a less-known player, while in others, it was just an all-around great game by a star. Let’s take a look at some players.
Josh Giddey
Young and impressive, this 20-year-old Australian has taken a significant leap this year. While he was a solid and consistent player previously, this season has shown that this Oklahoma City Thunder player is a real superstar in the making. Just take a look at the Thunder-Pelicans game on April 12th. Giddey managed to score 31 points. And that’s on top of 10 assists and 9 rebounds, playing an important role in the win of his team.
Giddey is the youngest player on our list, but we’re sure that he has a bright future ahead of him. While his stats impressed everybody, many watchers, analysts, and bettors previously speculated that this young player would become a massive star. And his performance this season proves that they were right.
Jimmy Butler
Clearly one of the most valuable players of this season, and a rising legend in the world of basketball, Butler has shown a lot during this season. He’s a genuine superstar of the game, showing impressive stats during the whole season. The team he plays for, Miami Heat, has shown unbelievable results, and Jimmy definitely contributed. The most recognizable games of the Heat this season were the ones against the Boston Celtics. And in the majority of cases, the Miami team ended up winning, although sometimes the Celtics had shown their great results.
One thing that we and many other basketball fans found surprising is that he wasn’t chosen for an annual All-Star game, which was a strange decision in retrospect.
Joel Embiid
We can list the achievements of other players in this article for a long time, but the award for the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the 2022–23 season went to Joel Embiid. Yes, officially. The center player of the Philadelphia 76ers received it in May and is the first player in the team to get it since the 2000-01 season when Allen Iverson won that award.
Just looking at his stats for this season will be shocking: he averaged 33.1 points, 4.2 assists, and 10.2 rebounds. He’s the sixth-highest-scoring MVP in the history of the NBA. He’s clearly one of the best scorers in the league at the moment, although his defensive skills also receive praise!
Nikola Jokić
While Embiid was the MVP of the season, Nikola Jokić, a Serbian center for the Denver Nuggets, was named the finals MVP. Jokić already had two regular-season MVP titles, so this puts him on the list of such players with multiple awards, along with Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and other legends.
The title is well-deserved. Jokić has shown an out-of-this-world level of play recently. Just the fact that he became the first player to have a game with 30 points, 20 rebounds, and 10 assists in the finals when his team played against the Miami Heat.
Jamal Murray
Jamal Murray, a Canadian point guard for the Denver Nuggets, might not be the most impressive player during regular seasons. Still, in the playoffs, he managed to show an unprecedented level of play. Together with Jokić, they made a duo that was way too powerful for the Miami Heat players to compete against, especially in Game 3. It was actually the first time two players of the same team recorded 30-point triple-doubles in the same game.
Games
We listed the players with impressive performances this season, but what about the games? Let’s check out some of them that surprised us and will be remembered for a long time. There were plenty of them, but we will only list a couple.
Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Boston Celtics
When we talked about Jimmy Butler, we mentioned how the Miami Heat decimated the Boston Celtics, but the Heat is a powerful team, so this can be expected. But what about losing to the teams that are praised less often? For example, the Oklahoma City Thunder
There was a game that took place on January 12th. The Thunder defeated the Celtics by a whopping 33 points, with the final result being 150:118. What makes the game even more surprising is that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder’s usual top player, didn’t participate in the game. So yes, Josh Giddey led the match, scoring 25 points.
Memphis Grizzlies vs. Milwaukee Bucks
This game took place on December 12th, 2022. Here, both teams are equally impressive and considered to be the elite ones. This leads many viewers and bettors to believe that there would be a battle without serious point differences. And they were wrong! The game resulted in the Grizzlies winning by 41 points, with the total score being 142-101. The Grizzlies were led by Ja Morant, who scored 25 points.
Conclusion
Basketball is a sport full of events, and those can sometimes be unpredictable. Games and players alike can surprise us a great deal, and the 2022–23 season was no exception. Featuring enough unexpected things and some players taking great leaps, most notably Josh Giddey.
Our article provided information about the most active and valuable players of this season, including those that surprise us the most and are consistently great. We outlined their achievements in a quick yet informative manner. We also mentioned a couple of games whose results surprised us the most.
