‘Tis the season for the IBN awards, but in order for a player to win, we first need players to be nominated.  That’s democracy, my friends.

We’re looking for the best players from 2008, and only accomplishments that happened in 2009 (need help remembering? click here and take some Ginko). Hurry, post your nominations in our 2008 nominations thread, as we will only accept nominations until December 25th.

* Player of the Year: (any country)
* NBA Player of the Year: (any country)
* Euroleague Player of the Year: (any country)
* International Player of the Year: (non-US)
* U22 Player of the Year: (Under 22-years-old, must not have turned 22 in 2008)
* African Player of the Year: (African-born player)
* Asian Player of the Year: (Asian-born player)
* European Player of the Year: (European-born player)
* Latin American Player of the Year: (Latin American-born player)
* North American Player of the Year: (US/Canadian-born player)
* Oceanic/Australian Player of the Year: (any Oceanic/Australian-born player)

You may nominate three teams for the following category: * Team of the Year (any)

You may nominate players for the world team (these will help to determine the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd teams):
* All-World Guards of the Year (nominate 5 from any country)
* All-World Forwards of the Year (nominate 5 from any country)
* All-World Centers of the Year (nominate 3 from any country)

Will Yao Ming win the Asian Player of the year category again?  The 7-6 center will be hard to defeat as his homeland was the hosts of the 2008 Olympics though he was given quite a run by Fadi El-Khatib last year, and will have to deal with a breakout year by Hamed Ehaddadi of Iran.

Dirk Nowitzki and Manu Ginobili always seem to factor in the equation.  And between an Olympic silver medal and getting to his first NBA finals, Pau Gasol had had a very successful 2008.

Ricky Rubio has been on everyone’s lips in 2008, and he did have a great year, but are his accomplishments enough to yield an award?  Team Cameroon participated in tournament games despite promises being continually broken, for that they should get some consideration for Team of the Year.

Some other potential nominees: Kobe Bryant, Rudy Fernandez, Carlos Morais, Sun Yue, Andrei Kirilenko, Nikola Pekovic, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Felipe Reyes, Marko Tomas, Patrick Mills, Theo Papaloukas, Anderson Varejao, Ioannis Boroussis… so who is on your list?

Links and Resources: 2008 Interbasket Award Nomination Thread, What Happened in Basketball in 2008 (Wikipedia), Patrick Mills Olympic Breakout (Interbasket), Ricky Rubio Breakout (Interbasket), Sun Yue Breakout (Interbasket),