Grizzlies' Mike Conley Wins This Year's Sportsmanship Award
Injured point guard Mike Conley and his team, the Memphis Grizzlies may be done for the season, but at least he gets something that is quite rare these days: a second Joe Dumars Trophy for the NBA's Sportsmanship Award. After the league officially announced Conley as this year's winner, he immediately joined an elite and rare group of players who have won it at least twice. In fact, it is so rare that only two other players achieved the feat throughout the award's history – Grant Hill and Jason Kidd, who won the same distinction thrice and twice respectively.
Head coach Dave Joerger, via ABC News, had a lot of good things to say about his injured star. "He's very deserving as just a wonderful human being, a class act on the court, the way he carries himself and certainly all the things he does in the community," he said, adding that Conley has done so many positive things for the team and the community for the last nine years.
The award goes with the perk of choosing a charity that will benefit from a $10,000 donation from the league. For Conley, he chose the sickle cell center of the Methodist Healthcare Foundation.
In the road to getting the award, Conley got 58 of the 327 available first-place votes, while also receiving a total of 2,209 points from his fellow players in the league. The other finalists were Kyle Korver of the Atlanta Hawks, Pau Gasol of the Chicago Bulls, Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers, Shaun Livingston of the Golden State Warriors, and Luis Scola of the Toronto Raptors.
Aside from getting named as the player who signifies and symbolizes fair play and ethical behavior in the court and outside of it, Conley also happens to be the heart and soul of his team. When he went down with an Achilles tendinitis back in early March, his team was devastated, ending up getting swept by the San Antonio Spurs in their first round playoff encounter.
