Why do you think the NBA is waiting until after the finals to announce the MVP this year?

It's being done for TV. All the major awards will be handed out during a live prime-time broadcast on TNT. You can expect all the big names to be there, so the event will draw a lot more attention than a boring press conference.

The other issue is that in previous years, the MVP was sometimes announced after his team had been eliminated from the playoffs. I remember it happening in 2007, Dirk was announced as MVP after the Mavs had been bounced from the playoffs by the Warriors, which made things pretty awkward. The same thing could have happened this year, since Houston and OKC are meeting in the first round of the playoffs.

Agree with baudkarma.

Maybe to change things back a bit, it could be something temporary. But it will interesting to see who wins it this year because all of the top 5 candidates are in the playoffs.