The National Lacrosse League (@NLL) today announced the finalists for its annual season-end awards honoring the best NLL players, coaches, and executives for the 2023-24 regular season.
Highlighting the major awards is the NLL Most Valuable Player honor, with two Buffalo Bandits – Josh Byrne and Dhane Smith — joining the Toronto Rock’s Nick Rose as finalists.
The award winners will be announced in advance of the 2024 NLL Finals.
Most Valuable Player
Rookie of the Year
Goaltender of the Year
Offensive Player of the Year
Transition Player of the Year
Defensive Player of the Year
Sportsmanship Award
Les Bartley Award (Head Coach of the Year)
General Manager of the Year
Executive of the Year
Tom Borrelli Award (Media Person of the Year)
*denotes 2023 winner
Each NLL team had the opportunity to nominate and vote for each of the awards with the exception of Teammate of the Year, as each NLLPA Player Representative nominated a player from their team for this honor that was voted on by the NLLPA and its 15 Player Representatives. The Teammate of the Year will be announced with all awards’ winners.
The League added Offensive Player of the Year to the lineup of awards this year to align with the other position-based honors: Defensive Player of the Year, Transition Player of the Year, and Goaltender of the Year.
Once nominations were finalized, each NLL team cast three ballots for each award and select media were eligible to vote for all awards except Teammate of the Year and Executive of the Year.
Voting members selected their top five choices for each award among all nominated persons. Points were distributed for each first through fifth place vote as follows:
The person that accumulated the most points will be announced as the winner, while the top three in each category are designated as the award finalists. The All-NLL and All-Rookie teams are determined by the top vote getters in each position-based award. The All-Rookie team will be made up of six rookies, regardless of position. The All-NLL First Team and All-NLL Second Team will be made up of six individuals – two forwards, one transition player, two defenseman, and one goaltender – per team.