The 2010-2011 Super Basketball League season came to a consummate end with the annual awards ceremony that took place at the Le Meridien Taipei yesterday afternoon.
Foreign players dominated the individual honors, with Pure Youth Construction’s Rashad Jones-Jennings coming away as the biggest winner, claiming the coveted regular-season Most Valuable Player (MVP) award along with the regular-season rebounding title (21.1 rebounds a game) and a spot on the All-SBL Team.
The big American man, who surpassed several rebound records during the season, including most rebounds in a single game, as well as a half, was the main reason that the Builders leaped from their fourth-place finish last year to a second-place finish during the regular season this year.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
Even though they were not able to advance into the Championship Finals as they had hoped, Jones-Jennings’ impact on the team was rightfully acknowledged by the MVP honor.
The other big award winner was Taiwan Mobile Leopard forward Marcus Dove, who took home the top honor for most steals a game (2.3 steals) and most blocked shots a game (1.9), to make him the unanimous choice among the members of the Chinese Basketball Writers’ Associations for the Defensive Player of the Year honor.
Shawn “the Hawk” Hawkins was the third hired gun to claim an individual award on the day as he won the scoring title for the second straight season with 27 points a contest for Kinmen Kaoliang.
Doing his country proud was the Yulon Luxgens’ Chen Chih-chung, who topped the assists category with 4.1 dishs a game to earn himself a spot on the All-SBL team.
Rounding out the All-SBL team were Kinmen Kaoliang guard Chen Jing-huan, Bank of Taiwan forward Chen Chuen-shiang and the Dacin Tigers’ Tien Lei.
Snagging the Sixth Man of the Year award was the Builders’ Chien Jia-hong, whose offseason conditioning program helped him shed at least 10kg by the start of the season and made him one of the toughest players to defend against in the league.
Also making his way to the winner’s podium for the Builders was skipper Hsu Jin-tseh, whose exceptional leadership in guiding his team to back-to-back postseason appearances earned him the nod from members of the voting press as the top man in his line of work. The selection also made Hsu the first to have won the Coach of the Year award twice.
For the first time in league history, the Rookie of the Year honor was not awarded, as the voting members failed to agree on a clear selection among the several candidates.
Last, but not least, was the Most Improved Player of the year award, which went to Kinmen Kaoliang’s Chang Rong-hsuen, whose unexpected surge to stardom was one of the most talked-about subjects during the season.
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