Awards are something that I find more interesting about five years down the road when the memories of the season become a little diluted through the passage of time. They absolutely merit their place, however, and here is an obligatory breakdown attempting to be as objective as possible.

Thankfully this season, there is no doubt who will win the big three individual awards with LeBron James, Dwight Howard and Tyreke Evans bound to unanimously or near-unanimously win the MVP, DPOY and ROY.

- Season FIC rank in parenthesis. Players on teams with fewer than 35 wins were not considered eligible.

All-NBA First Team

G: Dwyane Wade (5th)

G: Steve Nash (6th)

F: LeBron James (1st)

F: Kevin Durant (3rd)

C: Dwight Howard (2nd)

All-NBA Second Team

G: Deron Williams (12th)

G: Rajon Rondo (13th)

F: Dirk Nowitzki (8th)

F: Carlos Boozer (9th)

C: Tim Duncan+ (7th)

All-NBA Third Team*

G: Jason Kidd (11th)

G: Kobe Bryant* (24th)

F: Chris Bosh* (14th)

F: Josh Smith (15th)

C: Pau Gasol* (20th)

* Three of the five would have been higher if not for injuries.

+ I would like the NBA to eliminate the center distinction and allow both forwards and centers to be considered in one pool for three slots on each team.

Most Valuable Player

If LeBron James isn't the runaway 09-10 MVP, then William Shakespeare isn't the greatest playwright of the Elizabethan era. It isn't quite like the 1920 MLB season when Babe Ruth hit 54 homers and George Sisler came in second with just 19, but the gap between LeBron and everybody else is as mammoth as is plausible.

The difference in season FIC between James and the second ranked Dwight Howard is about the same in terms of percentage as it is with Howard and the 15th ranked Josh Smith.

If LeBron receives even one second place vote, he instantly becomes underrated in my book, which is something he might already be. In each of the past two seasons, he makes a 30-win supporting cast into a 60-win juggernaut. I don't think we have ever seen a single player add that much value to a team before.

Defensive Player of the Year

Dwight Howard had an advantage of more than 50 blocks compared to his nearest contemporaries while anchoring the fourth best defense in the NBA. The fact they are so good defensively is almost single-handedly because of his dominance as Vince Carter, Rashard Lewis and company are very average on that end of the floor to be kind. He had a dMULT of 0.586, compared to 0.713 for LeBron, 0.750 for Kevin Garnett and 0.783 for Kobe.

All-Defensive Team

G: Rajon Rondo

G: Kobe Bryant

F: LeBron James

F: Kevin Garnett

C: Dwight Howard

Most Improved Player

Kevin Durant's PER jumped from 20.8 to 26.1 and he went from a star with questions to a legitimate superstar on a playoff team. With all due respect to Aaron Brooks (12.9 to 16.0), Corey Brewer (11.2 to 11.9, albeit with eight times as many minutes), Andrew Bogut (16.2 to 20.8), David Lee (19.0 to 22.2) and maybe even Ben Wallace if this were the Comeback Award, this should be Durant's award.

Quick 10-11 Side-note: I like either Kevin Love or Jrue Holiday to win this award next season.

Sixth Man of the Year

Depending on the criteria, Manu Ginobili was the best player who primarily came off the bench in 09-10 by quite a big margin. He was 10th overall in PER at 22.5 while Jamal Crawford had a career high of 18.5, so there is little question who the better sixth man was this season. Crawford was one of the least efficient high usage scorers in his first nine seasons in the NBA, but in number ten on a good Atlanta team saw him hit 52.3% in eFG%, up from his career mark of 47.5%.

Coach of the Year

With nearly an identical roster, Scott Brooks took a team with a winning percentage under .300 and more than doubled it over .600.  Nate McMillan has done just as much with less and Jerry Sloan has been as excellent as always, while Scott Skiles also took the Bucks on a big turnaround, but Brooks gets the nod here.

Executive of the Year

This would be Jeff Bower's award if not for the Chris Paul injury, as he walked away from last year's draft with Darren Collison at 21 and Marcus Thornton at 43 from Miami, which was then followed by the Tyson Chandler for Emeka Okafor swap. It is tough, however, to give this to the GM of a team that doesn't make the playoffs.

Sam Presti deserves consideration for his body of work as the Thunder core have matured into a playoff ready unit, as well as the Eric Maynor steal, but his decision to let the Blazers get Marcus Camby when that was also a need proved costly.

Danny Ferry and Otis Smith both made significant moves since last year's playoffs, so I would ideally like it to go to whichever team advances out of the Eastern Conference between those two. Asked to get off the fence now, I'll say Ferry.

All-Rookie First Team

Tyreke Evans

Stephen Curry

Brandon Jennings

Darren Collison

Taj Gibson

All-Rookie Second Team

Jonny Flynn

Jonas Jerebko

DeJuan Blair

Marcus Thornton

Omri Casspi

Rookie of the Year

Tyreke Evans will finish behind Stephen Curry in terms of season FIC and FIC40, but I do believe this should go to the Sacramento rookie. He was an easy pick until the injury and when in doubt, it should probably go to the 20 per night scorer.

I was surprised to research that there have been 38 rookies to score at least 20 points per night insect the 70-71 season, including the man who drafted Evans, Geoff Petrie. There have only been four others since 99-00 with Elton Brand, Carmelo, LeBron and Durant comprising the list.

Chris Reina is the executive editor of RealGM. Click here to follow his Twitter feed.