We’re starting to get a pretty good picture of the NBA scene now that we’re two months into the 2004-05 season. We know the Suns and Spurs are great, the Hornets and Hawks are awful, and everyone else is somewhere in between. We know LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are the real deal, that Dwight Howard was worth the top pick, and that Mike Breen is a worthy successor to Marv Albert.

We can also start drawing some conclusions about this year’s award winners. A lot of water can – and will – go under the bridge between now and mid-April, but don’t expect the A-list of candidates to change much. With that in mind, here are our midseason award nominees, listed with their points per game, assists per game, and Player Efficiency Rating, which measures a player’s overall per-minute statistical contributions. The envelopes please…

MOST IMPROVED PLAYER The Candidates: Nazr Mohammed, Knicks (13.0 ppg. 9.5 rpg, PER 20.7); Drew Gooden, Cavaliers (14.1 ppg, 10.3 rpg, PER 20.3); Bobby Simmons, Clippers (15.6 ppg, 5.9 rpg, PER 16.3)

Simmons is the best story of the bunch but probably the least deserving candidate. His improvement seems much larger than reality because he’s playing so much more than he did last year.

Nobody could have guessed that Mohammed would be the better of the two players the Knicks got in the Keith Van Horn deal (Tim Thomas was the other), but he’s saved Isiah Thomas’s bacon by giving New York its first real center since Patrick Ewing.

As for Gooden, he’s stunned the masses by ably filling the void left by Carlos Boozer’s bait-and-switch move over the summer. Gooden couldn’t even earn a starting slot for the worst team in the league a year ago, but in Cleveland his per minute numbers almost exactly mimic Boozer’s.

The pick: Gooden.

SIXTH MAN The Candidates: Mehmet Okur,Jazz (12.1 ppg,7.2 rpg, PER 19.6); Antonio Daniels, Sonics (11.7 ppg,4.4 apg,PER 19.0); Tyson Chandler, Bulls (8.2 ppg, 9.4 rpg, PER 16.4)

With perennial candidate Bobby Jackson again DQed by injury, the field has opened up considerably. Big men don’t normally figure in the Sixth Man vote, but Chicago’s Chandler has been an energizer off the bench with his length and energy, while Okur has been Jerry Sloan’s offensive sparkplug in Utah.

It’s highly unlikely, however, that either will keep coming off the bench the entire season, what with stiffs like Antonio Davis and Curtis Borchardt starting ahead of them. That’s why the winner of this award is almost never from a bad team.

That leaves Daniels, as worthy a recipient as you’ll find in any season. He’s been a key to the Sonics’ surprising season, and as long as he doesn’t push his way into the startling lineup, it’s his award to lose.

The Pick: Daniels.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR The Candidates: Emeka Okafor, Bobcats (15.7 ppg, 11.4 rpg, PER 17.5); Dwight Howard, Magic (10.3 ppg, 9.9 rpg, PER 16.4); Ben Gordon, Bulls (13.5 ppg, PER 13. 8).

The Pick: Amazingly, the rookie crop turned out almost exactly as expected. The top three picks are the three best players, with Howard looking to have the most long-term potential but Okafor providing the most immediate value. Okafor’s amazing 19-game string of double-doubles has made him a virtual lock for Rookie of the Year, although this award is often prone to alteration by a second-half surge.

The Pick: Okafor.

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR The Candidates: Tim Duncan, Spurs; Bruce Bowen, Spurs; Tayshaun Prince, Pistons; Ben Wallace, Pistons

Voter fatigue and the Pistons’ disappointing season should prevent Wallace from taking the award home again, which is just as well since Detroit has slipped on that end of the floor this year. Prince could figure in the voting as a mea culpa from the press for leaving him off last year’s All-Defense team, which would be okay if it weren’t for the two Spurs.

San Antonio has been dominant at the defensive end this season. The club allows a full five fewer points per 100 possessions than any other team. Bowen is the catalyst, but Duncan is the greater force this year. His average of three blocks a game is awesome when you consider how rarely he gets caught in the air compared to other shot-blockers, and he’s virtually impossible to challenge one-on-one.

The Pick: Duncan.

COACH OF THE YEAR The Candidates: Nate McMillan, Sonics; Mike D’Antoni, Suns; Rick Adelman, Kings.

Adelman seems destined to finish third in this vote every year, and will do so again. His Kings have exceeded expectations despite a woefully thin bench, but he can’t touch what McMillan and D’Antoni have done.

D’Antoni’s Suns are 27-4 after winning just 29 games all of last season. That’s a tough hand to beat, but McMillan’s accomplishment is even more amazing. While the Suns made major changes to their lineup in the off-season, McMillan has the same guys who went 37-45 last year. Many thought Seattle would be the worst team in the West this year; instead, the Sonics are 23-6 and nobody can figure out how.

The Pick: McMillan

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER The candidates: Kevin Garnett, Timberwolves (23.9 ppg, 14.6 rpg, PER 30.2); Tim Duncan, Spurs (21.8 ppg, 11.9 rpg, PER 28.3); Amare Stoudemire, Suns (26.6 ppg, 8.6 rpg, PER 28.7); Steve Nash, Suns (15.6 ppg, 11.0 apg, PER 22.7)

Nash has been the catalyst behind Phoenix’s awesome attack, but it’s hard to vote him MVP when he’s not even the best player on his own team. Stoudemire is the most dangerous finisher in the game, but his board work is a bit shabby for an MVP and his defense still isn’t in the upper tier.

That leaves us splitting hairs between the two best players in basketball. Garnett has the slight statistical advantage on Duncan, but his gap isn’t as big as it was a year ago, and is offset on the defensive end of the floor. The T-wolves’ performance in that area has fallen off considerably, while the Spurs seem to increase their dominance each season. That might be unfair to Garnett since Duncan has better teammates, but there’s no question as to who is the better defender.

The Pick: Duncan.