FOUR players remain determined to catch Melbourne United’s Shawn Long at the top of the Draft Central (DC) Medal leaderboard, with the center siting three votes clear of his nearest rivals following Round 6 action. The DC Medal is a 3-2-1 vote award we give for every game to determine our Most Valuable Player (MVP) for the National Basketball League (NBL) and Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL) this season. In its inaugural year, it is United recruit, Long who leads all-comers with 17 votes having picked up an additional two votes in Round 6.

Chomping at his heels are Brisbane Bullets’ Lamar Patterson, South East Melbourne Phoenix’s Mitch Creek, Illawarra Hawks’ LaMelo Ball and Perth Wildcats’ Bryce Cotton all on 14 votes. That quartet have a three-vote lead on last year’s NBL MVP in Sydney Kings’ Andrew Bogut, which makes the top six on the leaderboard from different sides. Bogut’s teammate, Jae’Sean Tate comes in at seventh with 10 votes, before it gets contested in the mid-table votes.

Long is averaging 18.3 points, 9.1 rebounds, 1.3 assists and 1.5 blocks per game, shooting at 55.6 per cent from the field. The others have also had big starts to the year, with Patterson (18.1 points, 6.4 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.2 steals), Creek (21 points, 7.1 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 1.1 steals), Ball (14.6 points, 7.0 rebounds, 6.0 assists and 2.0 steals) and Cotton (22.5 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 1.2 steals) all prominent.

Still with plenty of time left in the season, there will be many opportunities to catch Long, with the amount of talented players showing just how even the competition is.

DC Medal Leaderboard:

17 – Shawn Long (MU)
16 –
15 –
14 – Lamar Patterson (BB), Mitch Creek (SEP), LaMelo Ball (IH), Bryce Cotton (PW)
13 –
12 –
11 – Andrew Bogut (SK)
10 – Jae’Sean Tate (SK)
9 – John Robertson (SEM), Cameron Oliver (CT), Melo Trimble (MU), Casper Ware (SK)
8 – Scott Machado (CT)
7 – Nick Kay (PW), Corey Webster (NZ)
6 – Daniel Johnson (AD)
5 – Aaron Brooks (IL), Scotty Hopson (NZ), Eric Griffin (AD), Terrico White (PW), Brad Newley (SK)
4 – Nathan Sobey (BB), Chris Goulding (MU)
3 – AJ Ogilvy (IL), Sek Henry (NZ), Brandon Ashley (NZ), Dario Hunt (PW), Dane Pineau (SEM), Didi Louzada (SK)
2 – Matt Hodgson (BB), Jason Cadee (BB), Sunday Dech (IH), David Barlow (MU)
1 – DJ. Newbill (IL), Majok Deng (CT), Anthony Drmic (AD), Craig Moller (SK)