METAIRIE – The NBA will begin handing out its annual awards Monday night.
The league announced finalists for its seven biggest awards Sunday – Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player, Sixth Man of the Year, Clutch Player of the Year and Coach of the Year.
It will distribute additional individual awards as well as name All-NBA, All-Defensive and All-Rookie teams.
No New Orleans Pelicans were among the finalists for the major awards, though Jeremiah Fears and Derik Queen figure to be candidates for All-Rookie Team honors and Deandre Jordan has been named one of 12 finalists for the Teammate of the Year Award.
It’s worth recognizing that if the NBA had an award for Comeback Player of the Year the Pelicans would have a strong candidate in forward Saddiq Bey.
The Associated Press selects a Comeback Player of the Year in the NFL and both the National League and the American League name a Comeback Player of the Year in Major League Baseball.
Those awards more often than not go to a player that overcame a significant injury to excel, though bouncing back significantly from a sub-par season is sometimes a contributing factor in the winner’s selection.
Bey, whom the Pelicans acquired in a trade with the Washington Wizards last off-season, had exactly the type of season that such an award is designed to recognize.
He was selected No. 19 in the first round of the 2020 NBA Draft and traded immediately to Detroit, earning second-team all-rookie honors in the first of his two full seasons with the Pistons. During his third season he was traded to Atlanta and in his first full season with the Hawks (on March 10, 2024) he suffered a torn ACL in his left knee in a game against (ironically) the Pelicans.
Bey, who was averaging 13.7 points and 6.5 assists when he was injured, missed the remaining 18 games of that season and after signing with the Wizards as a free agent he missed all of last season while recovering from the knee surgery.
New Orleans acquired Bey in a three-team trade that featured the Pelicans receiving Bey, Jordan Poole and a 2025 second-round draft choice that produced Micah Peavy.
Former Pelican CJ McCollum and Poole were widely viewed as the principals in the transaction, but Pelicans Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Joe Dumars dismissed any perception that Bey was “a throw-in.” In fact, at his end-of-season news conference last Tuesday, Dumars said the trade hit a snag, suggesting it was because of New Orleans’ insistence on Bey being included and Washington’s reluctance to include him.
But eventually the Pelicans got Bey, who went on to be one of their most important players by bouncing back to become his new team’s third-leading scorer (17.7) and average 5.6 rebounds and 2.5 assists.
His toughness, physicality and ability to score consistently from the low post, mid-range and beyond the three-point line earned him 64 starts in 72 appearances, though he wasn’t a projected starter coming out of training camp.
“If you would ask me, ‘what do you want in a player?’ Just look at him,” Dumars said. “He’s about his business. He’s going to compete hard every night. He never complains, shows up the same way every day. He embodies everything I believe that that we should be here in New Orleans.”
Bey spoke regularly during the season about his spiritual side and how his closeness to God was the prime mover in his ability to come back and play as well as he did. He said in his end-of-season interview last week that he was “filled with gratitude.”
“Being out for a year and a half, I didn’t necessarily know where the light at the end of the tunnel was going to be at,” Bey said. “But I knew if I was just healthy enough to play, I was going to give it my all.
“From the first game to the last game of the season, I just felt myself getting better and my body, my mind, my spirit, my soul feeling better.”
Bey has always been a self-described “lunch pail guy” and that nightly work ethic quickly endeared him to Pelicans fans. He said he avoids social media during the season so his interaction with fans was “genuine” whether it was out in public or inside the Smoothie King Center.
Bey has one year left on the contract he signed in Washington and has earned a hefty raise over the $6.5 million he is due next season. Dumars was non-committal about a possible extension this summer, but definitely sounded like someone who won’t let Bey get away.
As for the Comeback Kid, who turned 27 years old on April 9, he wants to keep coming back to the Crescent City.
“I just love the atmosphere,” Bey said. “I love New Orleans in general. I want to be here as long as possible.”