The Pick and Roll's 2024 NBL Awards

With the NBL Awards officially being announced on Monday night, The Pick and Roll team has voted for their picks to win all of the top individual honours.

On Monday night, the NBL’s finest will be recognised at the league’s annual awards night, known more commonly as “The Gazeys”. Prizes like the Damian Martin Trophy, the Next Generation Award, and of course, the Andrew Gaze Trophy will be handed out, with a new crop of stars entering the history books.

Before that, though, comes an even bigger occasion — The Pick and Roll’s 2024 NBL Awards. We gathered five members of the PnR team — Tom Hersz, Adam Webster, Jordan McCallum, Tristan Prentice, and Jacob Doole — and asked them to cast their votes in each of the six main categories that will be recognised on Monday night.

Next Generation Award: Luke Travers, Melbourne United (10 votes)

Season stats: 12.0 PTS, 7.6 REB, 1.9 AST, 1.1 STL, 1.0 BLK

The Next Generation Award is still a fairly fresh concept, so let’s run over the criteria. Replacing the traditional Rookie of the Year category, it essentially recognises the best young player in the league; all players under the age of 25 at April 30 this year are eligible. That leaves some serious talent in contention, with some of the league’s out-and-out stars falling into that classification. Hell, there’s even a potential first overall pick to the NBA in the mix.

Even that type of talent isn’t enough to usurp one of Australia’s brightest young stars here, though. Luke Travers’ season might have flown under the radar a little — after all, some expected a seismic leap in usage and production when he first made the move to Melbourne, and he’s instead playing a complementary role on the deepest team in the league. Look past those expectations, though, and you’ll see one of the most versatile two-way players in the NBL at just 22 years of age.

In one of the most talent-rich seasons in the league’s history, Travers sits as the only player averaging at least one steal and one block per game. Those aren’t empty numbers, either — watch any Melbourne United game, and you’ll see him guard every position one through four, picking up the ball-handler in transition, switching onto a forward in the post, and drifting across as the held defender to contest at the rim.

Standing at six foot seven, with long arms, the mobility of a guard, and finely-tuned instincts, he’s one of the few players that truly can do it all defensively. That’s why he sits fourth in the league in Defensive Box Plus-Minus, per SpatialJam, and he’s played a big part in making United the league’s best defensive squad.

It’s a similar story at the other end of the floor, where he has been a perfect foil for Melbourne’s stars.