With the regular season quickly approaching its conclusion, here are my award picks.
ESPN's Marc Stein also has made his selections and I'll list those as well.

MVP:
My pick: LeBron James.
First I'm gong to give myself credit for saying before the season that Dwyane Wade was a serious MVP candidate.
As good as Wade has been and as good as Chris Paul has been (I thought Paul should have been named MVP last year and he's been even better this year), LeBron has just been ridiculous. The Cavs have lost just once at home, LeBron is putting up one of the ten greatest statistical seasons in NBA history and he has become the most dominant player in basketball.
Wade, Paul and Kobe are right up there, but nobody has been at LeBron's level this season.

STEIN'S BALLOT
1. James
2. Bryant
3. Howard
4. Wade
5. Billups

MY BALLOT
1. James
2. Wade
3. Paul
4. Howard
5. Billups

COACH OF THE YEAR:
My pick: Jerry Sloan.
Sloan has never won this award. Never. That's mind-boggling. He's deserved to win other years, this year Stan Van Gundy probably deserves to win, but I have to give it to Sloan because he is due and because he did a hell of a job keeping Utah in contention without superstars Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer for huge stretches of the season.

STEIN'S BALLOT
1. Van Gundy
2. Karl
3. Adelman

MY BALLOT
1. Sloan
2. Van Gundy
3. Mike Brown
4. Spoelstra
5. Rick Adelman

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
My pick: Derrick Rose.
There's a lot of competition but Rose has righted Chicago's ship, so he gets my vote. Brook Lopez is a strong number two though. He was a steal by the Nets and looks to be an all-star centre.
Russell Westbrook has also been great, as has O.J. Mayo.
STEIN'S BALLOT
1. Rose
2. Mayo
3. Westbrook

MY BALLOT
1. Rose
2. Lopez
3. Mayo
4. Westbrook
5. Rudy Fernandez

SIXTH MAN:
My pick: Jason Terry.
Manu Ginobili got hurt, but Terry's been better than Ginobili this season and has been the second-best Dallas player after Dirk Nowitzki.

STEIN'S BALLOT
1. Terry
2. Lamar Odom
3. J.R. Smith

MY BALLOT:
1. Terry
2. Chris Andersen
3. Odom

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
My pick: Dwight Howard.
I can't argue with the league leader in blocks and rebounds. Howard is a monster that has lifted a suspect defensively cast of offensive stars into the rarified air of the NBA's best defensive units.
I actually agree completely with Stein's ballot on this one. Shane Battier has been awesome for Houston. With Battier, Ron Artest and Yao Ming, the Rockets will be a very tough team to play against in the playoffs.

STEIN'S BALLOT
1. Howard
2. Shane Battier
3. Kevin Garnett


MOST IMPROVED PLAYER:
My pick: Devin Harris.
Harris has gone from a sixth man with a rep as a great defender in Dallas to an inconsistent starter last year in New Jersey to an all-star who is often the best player on the floor for either side.
A lot of other players have taken big steps this season, Danny Granger, Jameer Nelson, Chris Andersen, Nene, Andrea Bargnani, David Lee and Rajon Rondo all merit mention, but Harris has taken his game up the most.

Granger, Paul Millsap and Kevin Durant are his toughest competition
STEIN'S BALLOT
1. Harris
2. Millsap
3. Granger

MY BALLOT:
1. Harris
2. Durant
3. Granger
4. Millsap
5. Nelson


As well, Jermaine O'Neal had some interesting things to say about his time with the Raptors and his unique relationship with general manager Bryan Colangelo.

A: It's definitely been a crazy year, starting off with finally getting traded from Indiana to Toronto. I had a great time there, great organization. Bryan Colangelo is unbelievable. Things just didn't go the way that we thought they would go.

I knew that [trade to Miami was coming] for a while. Me and Bryan Colangelo have been almost best friends, so I knew it was coming the whole time. Basically he tried to make some things work for the team to make a run for it, but myself, [Chris] Bosh and [Jose] Calderon … obviously we didn't get off to a great start. Then your team has to try to figure out how to make the best out of it.

A: The Toronto organization was great to me and even the city was unbelievable. The affection I've gotten, you would have thought that I played there for the last 13 years. I would have thought that I would have gotten off to a better start … obviously things went wrong from the start.

I think Bryan's thought process, with the way it was going, was to put himself in a great position to sign Bosh next [summer] and also bring some free agents in. We both came to the conclusion that the best move was to make that move to Miami.

I think he cared so much about me as a person. It was a strange situation, because our relationship went so much further than any management person that I've ever been involved with, even Donnie Walsh. And people know how close me and Donnie [were]. … That's rare. That's rare when you have that type of relationship.

We talked on the phone a lot, text messaged a lot. So I felt bad for him that it didn't really work. And I think he felt bad for me that it didn't work … It didn't work that way for the both of us. Miami was calling and I knew Miami was one of the teams interested in me even before I went to Toronto.