Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - 2nd MVP Straw Poll - Late Surges Enough For New MVP? + Possible Tanking Solution?

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to react to Bontemps’ 2nd MVP Straw Poll of the season including some possible paths to first time winners, the brilliance of SGA and if Jokic can get enough games in. Plus, we break down some possible tanking solutions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Hello and welcome to the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Thursday evening, joining us from New Orleans, Louisiana. I don't know why he's there.

Tim Bontems. Hello, everybody. I actually do know why, but I'm going to let you say. Yeah, I'm down here for the pro basketball negotiation competition that Stephen Mervis from the Magic and a bunch of other executives have put on for a long time. Our guy, Bobby Marks down here. Good to see him. fund a couple days. Sat into some negotiations this morning on Mark Williams' contracts,

which was interesting. Mark Williams is getting his contract negotiated there? Well, the way it works is there's law students from all over the country, and they all come here and compete, and they are the team and the agent or different teams, depending on what the negotiations about. And the prop this morning was to come up to do an agreement on Mark Williams' contract this summer. It's interesting to see how they went about it.

What was the agreement that they were reached? We can compare it to the real thing later. One, the first group couldn't come to a deal, and the second one came to a deal. I want to say it was four years for $92 million, I think, with a team option. Joining us from Dallas, Texas is Ban McMahon. Howdy, partners, I don't get invited those high-flute and academic conferences.

I'm not sure why Bond Timps does either, to be honest with you. Probably Bobby needed somebody to care. his briefcase around. How well do you think Bontamps would do in a negotiation? Not well because there'd be no conversation. He'd just interrupt all the time, so there's no way a deal could get agreed to.

You want to talk about celebrities here. There's one celebrity here, and there's our guy Bobby Parks. He is the number one guy in the building. Everybody wants to see him. As he should be. As he should be, no question. And hello, everybody.

I didn't get that in before. Speaking of, I don't remember why I was thinking about Matt Isbio. You said something that made me think of Matt Isbio. Well, he had the anti-tank week today. Mark Williams is on the sun, so that's probably why. I was thinking about Mark Williams. You're right. I was thinking Matt Ispia should have should get the notes from those negotiations.

I love, like, look, I respect when owners come out and go do things on the record. I love it. I want it to keep continuing. I love it. You know, Mark Cuban the other day, you know, you know, He was now just a part owner, basically came out and said that tanking is a good thing. Let's celebrate tanking. Was his move?

I was like, okay. He's the guy who's paid more fines for tanking than any owner in NBA history. Of course he's pro tank. Well, I'll say this. I'm not going to read all of Ishpia's tweet because it's long, but I will read a couple of key sentences. And I will just say, he said tanking is losing behavior done by losers. This is much worse than any prop-bets scandal. This is throwing games strategically.

Horrible for fans that pay to watch and cheer for their teams. Awful behavior that Adam Silver and the NBA will need to stop with massive changes. And I have complete confidence that with his confidence and leadership, he will fix it. I respect all of those comments. I appreciate he said it on the record. Having said that he's traded control of his draft for the foreseeable future. So I just want to say those two things. Both things can be true.

He came in and basically said, We will never tank. And if you don't believe me, watch this. Go all the picks. Okay. And I believe him. I want to tell you, I believe Matt Ishpia. Actions over words.

His actions are, we will never tank. And I agree with the vast majority of his statement, except for the done by losers part, there are some champions who have tanked to become champions. There's dynasties that have tanked. to set the foundation for a dynasty. So, you know, I'm not going to, it is losing behavior.

I mean, technically, it absolutely is losing behavior. The done by losers' parts that might only quibble with that whole thing. Well, that's my whole thing. The reason I really don't want to talk about tanking in the individual tanking things, when I made my plea last week, I didn't want to talk about individual tanking moments,

is because I don't think it's done by losers. I think it's done by good people. And I didn't want to target what I think are good people. And so I just, I'm giving them all a pass. I'm not doing what Madishbia did. Also, some of the people, you know, some of the franchises that aren't happy about it now have benefited from it before. So it's, again, it is on Adam Silver and the competition committee to get this thing

figured out to make the incentive structure different. I have some breaking news we don't need Shams for. Humans will act in their own interest. they will be they will not be objective and act in their own interests that's why i wrote a column for dot com on thursday about my proposed fix to fix the problem which is going to be proposed by an executive in the league which gets to the heart of that which is to give teams incentive to win and that proposal is to have wins not losses count towards your lottery seating at some point in the schedule could do it starting today

after the All-Star break. You could do it starting after the trade deadline. At whatever point around this time in the schedule, you go from having teams trying to lose to teams trying to win. And if we were sitting here today on Thursday afternoon, going into this Wizards Pacers game on Thursday night with Vita Zubotch, making his debut for the Pacers and Pascal Seaccom playing and Trey Young playing and Anthony Davis on the way back and Jaron Jackson Jr. playing

in his return to Memphis for the Jazz today. and all those games had meaning, that would be super exciting for people who like watching basketball like us. And it would give us a lot of stuff to talk about instead of what we have now, which is a third of the league, not interested in playing for the next two months. And as I thought somebody put well in the, when I was talking to him about this idea,

we currently have this situation where for a big chunk of the league, there's just this slow drift away from the sport for the next two months, where there's really not a reason to be engaged or pay attention, whereas if every game counted for wins towards getting a high pick right now or making the playoffs, you'd have everybody incentivized to be trying these next couple months no matter where their team was at. And that would lead to the best possible product,

by the way, at a time of the schedule when after the Super Bowl, everybody starts paying attention instead of it just being about all these teams not caring and not trying and guys not playing and getting shut down with injuries and all this other stuff that we are going through right now. Well, at a certain point, it's about the product, and the product is severely damaged by this. And as much as Cuban wants tanking to be celebrated and whatever,

he was still charging full prices for tickets when the Maix were tanking, and it is not a full-priced product. He said their fans loved it. Well, they love getting Luca as a result of it, but they sure's hell didn't love the season before that or even the season before that. Well, they had to trade up for Luca. They didn't get it. They didn't have lottery luck.

They traded up. All right. This is one of our favorite days in the podcast. By the way, one quick thing, I don't want to talk more about tanking, but I was talking to the lead executive today, and he said to me, this is after, you know, Darren Peterson had 23 points in 18 minutes. And after we've seen some other top guys had big time games over the last like four or five days. Darius Haycuff with 49 last night. Is that what he had? He's what? He's projected what, top five? He's not even like top three, right? It's like I've seen them like ninth. Okay. Anyway, I had executive tell me the number one pick this year is worth $100 million, that if you gave the opportunity to buy that pick,

they would, teams would pay $100 million for. And so keep that in mind when the jazz refined $500,000. Okay, it's a big day because it's time for the second edition of the Bontemps poll. Oh, we love the Bontemps poll. Hold on. These get feisty. I've come prepared. Hold on just a second. Oh, God, this would be good.

You guys tend to go at each other. So I've got my referee jersey on and I'm ready to roll. Let's go. Okay, first off, yeah, so McMahon, for those not watching, McMahon just unveil. I thought you were zipped up a little higher than normal. Yeah, yeah. I sensed a wardrobe situation. McMahon's wearing a referee jersey.

Can let me just say, that's fine. You want to be the referee, fine. But you two have ganged up on me. number of times. So if you're the referee, you can't. Technical foul on windy, bitching too much.

Wait, let me Scott Fawkes. Gave me a little tea. You got to get a little tea. Little tea. Little tea. Our referee friends list of this pot are going to be very insulted. They get,

you're on here wearing a referee jersey after all your slander of. It's an, it's an amateur one. It's not the NBA gray. It's, it's the old stripes. I can say you're an amateur in a few other ways, too. I need to get,

I need to get the hokas because all those little short munchkin rest where those thick hokas. See, what are you doing? Why are you doing? You taking shots at the rest today. I'm a reporter. I report facts. Okay.

Would you wear the laniered or no lanyard? Because, you know, when we had the refs on last year, James Capers and Tyler Ford, like, got into borderline, you know, verbal fisticuffs. I'm going to tell you something. I'll be real honest. I've not been doing real well as far as getting on that elliptical. I need a lanyard because I'm going to run out of breath if I can run up and down. Well, I will just say that you know the person. penalty for losing your whistle, which is that you buy the drinks.

And I've seen some of those rest drink. That's who. I know you're not like to buy, though you're looking for a free drink. He definitely doesn't like to buy drinks. We know all about that. Yes. I'll get you on scholarship, though. Yeah. It's the thing about about McMahon. He went to school, went to college for many years, was never on scholarship. But now that he's out of college, he's got to catch up. He's got to catch up on the scholarship. All right. Contempts, I turn the floor over to you. Yes.

Here we are. Second straw poll of the year. We will start at the bottom like you're usually doing work a way up. Okay. I want to just point out, even though I turn the floor over to you, 100 likely MVP voters from all 30 markets. This is a... And internationals. And internationals.

This very much mimics the actual poll itself, which is why it has proven to be so predictive. Okay. Go ahead. All right, so we'll just start right off in 11th place by himself, eight points, four total votes, a third place, and three fifth place votes. I think one thing I'll say off the top, in a sign of how I think open this is for a couple of reasons, every single person who got a vote, all 11 of them got at least one third place vote. So I think, you know. Really? Wow, that shocks me because I think there's four clear cuts and then we can.

I think the debate goes for that fifth spot. Well, that's not how I would say the voting unfolded. And it is interesting and I think indicative a little bit of how the games played this year has wreaked some havoc, I think, with the voting. So now I'll say who it is. So with one third place vote, three fifth place votes, four total votes and eight total points. And 11th place is the most, what did Brian describe him? The most underrated American person in sports or something this week. Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolds Guard.

I can't remember actually what you said. What was the, what were you? I think he's the old Sunday-Rad star in basketball. I don't know if he's underrated. Denis Avida? I mean, what are we? Well, no, I just couldn't remember what the clip was from Get Up earlier this week with Matt Barrett. I mean, he's not exactly an anonymous guy.

Why is he underrated? I just think that, you know, first off, like his jersey sales were like seventh. Okay. You know, we have some internal metrics at ESPN that I'm not going to get into. that indicate he's not, you know, people don't follow him as much as they do other players. And I think he should be the centerpiece of like, I think he should be like top three or four in terms of building primetime games around him. Because, you know, I would say there's a couple of players in the league. It's a very small amount that almost guarantee that they will do something in every game.

Like you go watch this guy play and he will do. something in that game that you will remember. Like, that was LeBron for decades. That is Victor Wimbunyama. That is, in my view, Ann Edwards. Cooper flags on the watch list for that, by the way. He's not quite there yet. Ant's no doubt one of the most entertaining players.

You know, as far as like the click stuff and the TV viewership, I don't think market size matters as much as it used to in a social media world, but it does still matter. I think it's pretty popular. I think he's properly rated. We'll see. We've got an ant jersey in this house. It's a, you know,

middle schooler, but we've got an ant jersey. And he's got some unbelievable commercials. The Adidas commercials, they've done an incredible job, in my opinion, with those. They're awesome.

You should have seen, they built a whole ant village in L.A. for all-star. Did you go in there? No, I watched them build it. They built it oddly at the wrong arena. They built it at crypto arena.

I thought that was kind of strange, but. There was a, I don't know, downtown L.A. versus middle of nowhere, Englewood. I know, but were people coming to downtown L.A.? Outside, like, footlocked that whole, like, complex thing going on outside of crypto. Was the, uh, that's where I got this? Just kidding. Was the jam session at the convention center?

Is that why maybe it was there? I don't know. I couldn't tell you. Yeah. I got out there before All for a weekend really started. Me too. So, Anthony. Edwards was 11th for context in the

in the first poll. More hoop collective podcast after this. Next up, 10th place, one third place vote, one fourth place vote, two fifth place votes, the four total votes and ten total points. Down from seventh in the first poll is Philadelphia 76 star Tyrese Maxie.

Not really too surprising with the way their team has fallen off a little bit, but he's still had a great year. Obviously started as an all-star starter. this year. A bit surprised he's ahead of Ant, but ants apparently drastically underrated. It's their, yeah. I mean, that's also four votes each. I mean, they're basically tied. All right. This was,

this was one of the more interesting ones in here. In ninth place, one third place vote, three fourth place and three fifth place votes for seven total votes and 17 total points down from fifth in the first poll is New York Nick Star, Jalen Brunson. Hmm. Okay. I think I put Jalen fifth in my last ballot and he was not on my ballot here. So I contributed to that. I might have done the same.

I did not have him. I think he was fifth in my last one. I didn't have him on this one either. I don't think he is playing poorly or anything. No, I think he's a second team all-N-B-A guy, which doesn't get you on the MVP ballot. Fair. Or get you ninth in the voting. It also should be noted this was the first ballot ever or the first drop-hole ever since 2017

when it was the first one that Janus wasn't on because Janus isn't eligible anymore. By the way, it's a hell of a run, you know, nine years or whatever. Yeah, I've done like 17 of them, I think. over the years in that whole span. He's the only guy that had been at least one vote on everyone. There's a reason why his wishy-washy, not a trade demand, not a trade request, but maybe I'd like to leave Saga gets so much attention.

That's like you're 100% right on that front. Okay, so this was a pretty fascinating one, I thought. In eighth place, not on the first ballot, three third place votes, one fourth place vote, two fifth place votes, six total votes and 20 total points. You guys want to guess? Didn't get a vote the last time? Didn't get a vote the last time.

That's an interesting one. I think it should be a pretty good hint, Sarah, the way he's played recently. The way he's played recently. I give up. You got to guess, Brian? Musa Diabate. A moose.

Wait for you to get Bus City killers in here. There are no Bus City killers on the list. It's a shame. No, it's the guy who scored, I think, 31 points in a row or what it felt like in the Oster game. That's interesting. Oh, all right, boy. I was looking, I made the mistake of only looking at the top six in the standings.

I mean, I don't say. Clippers are, they're in 10th place. I mean, listen, as Vinnie, I think correctly said, as Vinny correctly said on the pod the other day, he's arguably been the best player in the league in the last couple months. He's been unbelievable. Yeah, he said that and I sort of rocked back. And then I was like, do I have a strong, you know, contest for that? Not strong.

He's playing as well as he ever has, but, like, sorry, to be on. on an MVP ballot, your team needs to be above 500. Well, listen, that's why I thought it was interesting. And it's just the further curse of Kauai with the clippers that, as Brian said the other day, the way he's playing now that the team has now got no chance to do anything at all. All right. In seventh place, 27 total points, one third place vote, three fourth place votes, six fifth place votes, so 11 total votes.

And up from 10th in the last one is our. favorite Cavs Corner, straw pole guy, Donovan Mitchell. Well, I will tell you that the calves have been not like irritated, but like calling for Donovan to get more attention because they believe he's been as good this year

as he was last year when he was first team all-in-b-a. Which is fine, and they've been winning lately, and that's going to help. When they were down in playing territory, Donovan wasn't going to get that kind of consideration. Their fourth in the east now, with just a game and a half out of seconds. So they keep winning.

His case keeps improving. His, I mean, his stats are as good as they've ever been, that's for sure. And as we've talked about, they got a chance to resume up the same. So I misspoke on that. He had one second, one third, three, fourth. One second is aggressive. Whoa. Oh, windy.

What are you thinking? Six-fits. It was not window. It was not window. Okay. In sixth, with five third place of, votes, 12 fourth place votes, 26 fifth place votes for 43 total votes and 87 total points up from ninth in the last one is Boston Celtics forward, Jalen Brown.

And to show you where Jalen is compared to where he's been in the past, I believe before this year he had three total votes ever in the straw poll. In the last one, he had 11. and in this one he's got 43. Before this year he wasn't the best candidate on his team. No, I agree. I'm not saying he should have gotten a lot of votes. It's just it's a credit to the way he has played and carried this team that he's got a real shot,

particularly if there is some injury issues to be a top five MVP vote getter, which is not something I ever thought I would say. All right. Well, you know, our guy Perk has been pounding the table saying he's his number one. and he has been saying that for a month. It wasn't like he said it after he had one good game a few weeks ago. I think number one is aggressive, but certainly... Who's the table-penter?

I don't make an argument for... Perk. Oh, Perk. Perk doesn't delve too deeply into the advanced stats. Oh, don't you dare. He doesn't. I'm just saying, like, the case against is the, like, the advanced... He's not an advanced stats darling.

It has never been an advanced stats darling, to put it mildly. Can I pull the curtain back a little bit on the countdown show? You know our guy's stats, William? We do know. Love Stats Williams. We got Matt Stats Williams, who by the way, we all call him stats, but Michael Malone has given him a new nickname. Oh, really? I haven't heard this. And it's a cool nickname.

It's a bit of an ironic nickname if you know him, but it's such a cool nickname that I might have to go that direction. Stats is like his first name anyway, so you can have a nickname with the nickname. He calls him Maddie Ice. Maddie Ice. Oh, like that. The reason he calls him Maddie Ice, so here's the thing. He is like at the ready at any time for us on countdown. So not only does he like prep us, but like if there's like serious like a 30 second lull, like he will immediately get you an answer.

Malone will be like, Maddie Ice. And he comes in. What's up, coach? Who was third place in right-handed drives in 2024? It was Jalen Brown, coach. All right. And, you know, and he's, you know, so we have great research folks at ESPN, but Maddie Ice is, is, we've got Michael Schwartz, who we call Schwartz Center. That's right.

And Jason Joseph, we called Jay Joe. Though he's having a renaissance this year with the sons. Those are the guys that are topping the, you know, the stats nerds straw pole. That's right. We've got Jason Joseph who goes by Jay Joe, and he recently suffered an ACL tear. Oh, no. He's recovered. Well, he's recovered.

But, like, you can go to him on, like, knee injury stuff. He's like, you know, you can give you stats and knee injury stuff. So. One stop shopping. That's right. All right.

Sorry. Go ahead. Was that to say something else? Oh, you were just to pull it back the curtain was just to give stats his nickname on the show? Yeah. Okay. I didn't know if there was something else.

I don't remember what I was doing. Don't call me. The other day, seriously, that sounds about right, folks. I listened back to the, so real, talk here. I listened back to the pod I did the other day. And I took NyQuil, like actual like hardcore NyQuil, not like the blue, you know, whatever, the Aqua pill or whatever. I hadn't had that in like a decade. And even though it was like many hours before I did the podcast,

I was still feeling it in my head. I was not 100%. So anything that I said on that podcast, because I said it, when I listened back, I said a few things that I was like, I didn't say that. And like, I think you guys actually kind of general. Hold on a second. Are we supposed to have like a confessional every time that we do a podcast that we might be slightly impaired? Well, I'm just saying I don't do this. I'm just saying I was under the influence. I have to do it every pod. Hold on. Here's a disclaimer. I didn't sign up for that. There was just times where I was like my head was just floating a little bit. Like it hit me hard. So, you know, it sort of indicates my life. level of drug usage is when NyQuil knocks me for a loop.

But, all right, sorry. Go ahead, Pontems. Yeah. That's the first and maybe last windy drug update. I feel pretty confident about that. All right. In fifth place, two second place votes. What are we got?

Oh, there's. I just, I have halls. Oh, halls. Okay. I don't have any good stuff with me. We're as usual. We're in a highly professional outfit here on the Who Collective. In fifth place, final person to not get a first place vote.

Two second place votes. 17 third place votes. 23 or no, sorry. Yeah. Two second place votes. 17 third place votes. 19 fourth place votes and 21 fifth place votes. This is fifth place?

Fifth place? Can I guess? 177 total votes or total points. Yes. I'm going to ask both you to guess. Victor Wimbunyama. Motorcade Cunningham. You both wrong.

What? Luca. Los Angeles Lakers, Gar. Uh-oh. Luca. Dotchich. Wow. Oh.

Okay. There's going to be some grumbling in the West Coast there. Oh, boy. Again, I think part of the thing here, I would guess, is we're getting into the games played situation. And you have. a lot of these guys at the top who have already missed a lot of games. Luke has already missed, I think, 12 or 13 games.

Producer Devon, a resident Laker fan here, is pissed. Oh, he's pissed. A big part of, you know, and this gets back to why Tim has the referee jersey on, I mean, a part of the debate on this award at times in the past

has been how many games have people played. And I think especially with, you know, people bumping up against the eligibility numbers, you know, it's obviously going to have an impact if guys aren't eligible. And it's also, I think, factoring into people's minds that guys are close to not being eligible. So I would also say the top of this list is pretty loaded. So I don't think it's a huge insult to be fifth either. It's loaded.

And he has the worst record among the guys that are going to be, or the Lakers have the worst record among the guys who, you know, are left here. I mean, I had them a little bit higher. The reason the Lakers have the record that they do is largely because Luca has been so great. Yeah, they're 27 and 15 when he plays. He is leading the league in scoring. You know, an average eight rebounds, almost nine assists.

Also, honestly, Luca gets a lot of the blame for the Lakers' defensive issues. There's a lot of blame to go around on that. Yeah, I would say he's part of the problem, but there's a blame pie. He can have a slice of it, but there's plenty to go around there. Luca likes pie.

Luca was third and the last one. He is fifth in this one. So we now know the top four. I think it's safe to say. You guys guessed two of them, so we will see what order they're in. I'm going to say those guys are going to be the next two. Well, we'll see.

Wendy, where did you have Luke on your ballot? Hold on. Four. Oh, okay, sorry, Bontov. We just discussed Luca so we can say where we had him. Why another homer vote from you on Luca? Technicloom bond tempt. I'm in charge.

Wow, we got a whistle. Look at that. Yeah, I'm in charge. Oh, yeah, you're in charge. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. All right, so in fourth place with three first place votes, three second place votes, 19 third place votes, 23, fourth place votes, and 27. fifth place votes, so 75 total ballots and 242 total points.

Who do we think it is? I'll go with Victor. I'm going to guess Cade. Okay, so you guess Cade and Brian guess Victor. Brian is correct. Victor is up from 8th in the last poll when he had 8 votes all the way up to 75. And I will say right now, I think the most, I'm tempted to say the most likely person to win MVP that's not Shea is Victor. because this reminds me a lot.

This reminds me a lot of... He calls this stuff. I'm just going to say, like, this reminds me a lot of the year when Embed won. And at the start of the year, Embed had an injury early in the year

and missed some time and wasn't, I don't think he had a single vote or he had maybe one vote in the first poll. And he was very grumbly about it at the time. And I just said, hey, if you keep playing games and you're healthy, it's probably going to work out okay.

And then the second one, he got up the third behind Janice and Yokic. And then obviously, famously in the last one, he ended up two points ahead of Yokic, and he goes on and wins a narrow vote to win the award. And, you know, our guy of the machine, Kevin Pelton, called me after listening to the pod on Wednesday and wrapped my knuckles because I hadn't really looked at the standings. The machine wraps your knuckles. It's painful. Well, the machine was immediately like, have you looked at the standings lately?

And I said, yes, I looked at it after the pod because I sort of just said that the spurs are going to have to get through Denver and Oklahoma City at the first two rounds. The spurs are only a couple of games back of the Thunder. Yeah, three games back with obviously the tiebreaker. And obviously the tiebreaker. And if Victor continues to play like he is and the Spurs get past the Thunder and have the best record in the Western Conference, that is a formula for Victor Womenyama to be the MVP. And it is certainly within the bounds of possibility based off where. where things sit right now. Well, Jackson says that the Draft King's odds right now for Victor are 35 to 1.

That's a pretty good bet. I wouldn't say it's a good bet, but there's value. There's value. Well, there's not a lot of value in MVP voting in general, in my opinion, because usually people pick all these long-shot people that have no chance to win. What I would say is there should not be anybody at 35-to-1 who has a real chance to win, and I think Victor does. Yeah, and it's gone from a two-horse race.

to more of an open field. Like, I feel like any of these top five guys at least have a legitimate chance. Because, look, I don't think Luca can win. If he leads the league in scoring and the Lakers end up as a top four seed. What if Shea, what if Shea, I mean, a factor here is what if Shea misses, I know he's missed only like maybe nine games so far? I think he's missed four. No. No, he's missed more than that.

I think he's missed like eight or nine. I think he's missed eight or nine. I think he's missed four. No. I'll double check. No chance. He had missed three before this injury. He's played 49 games, and the Thunder have played 50.

They've played 50. Oh, yeah, they've played 56, so he's missed seven. Yeah, so he's missed seven. All right. All right. And you've got, you've got Joker right on the, you know, close to the edge. Wemby's right close to the edge. I'm just saying, C'd, if the Pistons continue to be the number one seed in the Eastern Conference.

Well, let's just get to C'd. Kate is next. But the same thing with Wimby. If you just said before the season, hey, the Spurs is the number two seed in the West. You're the first dollar than, damn, Wimby might be the MVP. Yep.

We talked about that before the season. The Spurs are in the top six. It'd be Victor's going to be first team all NBA. And certainly that's headed that way if he stays healthy. So Kate Cunningham is third, as you correctly predicted, man, they're the next two guys. One first place vote, nine second place votes, 38 third place votes, 37, fourth place votes.

eight fifth place votes, 93 total ballots and 382 total points, up from third, up from fourth, I should say, in the last one. The reason I don't think

Luca can win is, I mean, part of it's, I just don't think the Lakers are realistically going to get, going to be able to stay up with these teams in the top four. I guess if they do,

that's one thing. And I think if there is injuries at the top, Cade is the one I think that's in position to win the award. As a guy who's led the pistons from wire to wire in the east to it, potentially the best record in the league, you know,

I certainly think he's got a stronger case, and he's not really very close to the injury stuff. I think it's hard to see him falling below, barring a freak injury. McMahon, where did you have Cade on your ballot? I had Cade fifth, and, you know, I'm not going to, like, I don't have a problem with people having them.

Third, you know, I feel like there was kind of double the most third place votes of any other person. So it was pretty clear third choice. I had Wimby third. No, I'm sorry. I had Luca third, Wimby fourth, Cade fifth.

And look, obviously the record is the biggest thing in Cade's favor over Luca. Luca's stats are significantly better. You know, he's got better stat. Cade's averaging one more assist per game.

You know, Wimby's significantly better rebounder. score significantly more points, et cetera, et cetera. So that was my logic there. But again, you know, I don't have any issue with people having K'd this high in their ballot. He's unquestionably a first team all-N-Ba player. Well, do you have any issue with having Kade second?

Because that's where I had him. I still think there's two lead horses, but I'm not going to rip you. Well, here's the thing. You guys know how I feel about the way Yokic was playing this year. It was one of the most, I voted for Yokic first in the last ballot. And I very welcome into putting Jokic first on the final ballot and the real ballot if I get a vote. We don't know yet, but if I get a vote because I think he's fabulous. However, with the missed games, and since he's come back, he's just slipped a little bit.

He's had some good stat games, but by his standards, he hasn't quite been at the level. And guys, when you watch the Pistons play, they have a form. for how they win. And Cade is driving that bus. And especially in a close game, they go to him, and he just carries them home time after time after time. I wouldn't say the team 100% reminds me of them, but in terms of the makeup of the team,

but the season that the Pistons are having right now is reminiscent to me of the season that the Bulls had in 2011. when LeBron went to Miami and there was sort of a shakeup of the power in the Eastern Conference. And Dwayne, or Derek Rose won the MVP that year. And on the back of, the Bulls won like 61 games that season.

And they weren't overpowering. They were obviously great defensively, Tibbs first year, I believe. But basically, they defended like crazy. They rebounded like crazy. And when the games got close, they handed the ball with their point card. He carried them home.

game after game after game. And the Pistons probably, I don't have it looked up, but I'll bet the Pistons have a much better net rating than the Bulls did that year when they were the number one seed in east. But Kate has carried this team to victory after victory after victory. They just go to him and he just gets it done. And so, you know, at this moment in time, and, you know, I'm going to be honest with you.

I think overall at ESPN, and I'm as guilty of this as anybody, we haven't done a good enough job in highlighting the Pistons. We're going to be doing a little bit more coming up. They're on national TV next week. We're doing an all-access game with them. They play the Cavs next Friday. But I also just kind of want to give him a nod, and sort of the whole team a nod.

And so I thought about it for a while, but I decided to go with them second. Obviously, there were nine people that did that. And one first place vote? One first place vote, yep. And I really, I like the comp to that Bulls team, I think, is a really apt one. had a 7.8 net rating. Obviously, the offensive defense were both way lower because of the time,

the era the game was. But they had a 7.8 net rating in Detroit has a 8.3 net rating. You know, so it's pretty similar. And they're very similar styles. And there are teams that were led in a similar way, where it was Derek Rose and a bunch of lunch pale guys doing the work around them. And that's certainly what this Pistons team is. Now, obviously, that team lost in the conference finals. If the Pistons losing the conference finals, that's going to be an incredible season for them. We'll see if they can go farther. We'll see if they can get there. But certainly now that we've gotten through the All-Star break in Detroit sitting there, they've got a bunch of big games coming up, including that Cavs game.

You know, they're going to continue to get tested. And like I said, if they stay wire-to-wire atop the east, especially with these injuries, Cade's going to have a shot. Now, Cade, by the way, is 14-1. Right. And Victor being 35-1 to 1 is crazy. I know he's missed a bunch of games, but he should definitely be in that. that's the other thing. He sprains his ankle. He's going to... That's fine. If he doesn't sprain his ankle, he could win the award. So I think 35 to 1 is a pretty crazy line for him. In second place, 98 of 100 ballots, right?

18 first place votes, 65 second place votes, 12, 3rd, a 4th, and 2 5th, and 700 total points is Nicole Yolkich from the Nuggets. and so in first place with 78 first place votes, 22nd place votes, two third place votes, the only person on 100 ballots, 930 total points, four straight ballots leading the poll,

which hasn't happened before, is Shiguel Saqzander from the fund. Wait, how many ballots is Joker not on? Two. He's averaging 29, 12, and 11. Well, again, I think that goes back to. I think it goes back to having missed 16 games. I'm not, I would have had him on my ballot to be clear,

but I think, you know, like he's on the verge of not being eligible. T's on those two voters for sure. I'm sorry. If he plays every game the rest of the season and it reigns eligible, my suspicion is it'll be back up to 100 ballots. You know, interestingly on Shea, like, Shea's obviously having an MVP caliber season. He is statistically having a better, having a better season even than he did last year.

I mean, his efficiency and shooting 55% from the field is crazy as a guard who takes a lot of chuppers. Yeah, as a 30, what, 32 point per game scoring guard? That's incredible. The efficiency is absolutely insane. And the three point efficiency is way up. He's shooting 39% from three this year, you know, which is up from last year. There's no question he's having the MVP caliber season. The first straw poll, one of the big things to me, and I voted Shea first in this one, too,

but one of the big things that separated Shea in the first straw poll and made it a much easier decision to me was the fact that at the time, the thunder were on pace to set an NBA record for wins. you know, they're not going to have more wins than they did last year. Now, they've lost 14 games now. You know, at the time, well, they maybe only had one loss the time we did the first draw, poll. It was something ridiculous like that. So he's not going to have the 70-plus win tiebreaker or, you know, weight to his case.

The rest of his case is still pretty strong on its own, though. Do you have the data? I should have asked you about this, Bontemps, where he was in the second poll last year, Yep. We pull it up right now. Oh, Bontips is at the ready. He, last year in the second straw pole, I mean, he was winning, if I can get this to load. So you said 77 first place votes, right? It's 78. He had 78 and Yokic had 18. Last year in the second one, he had 70 and Yokach had 30.

Yeah, he's, and I remember. Wow, he was stronger. I remember last year, you felt that it was a genuine toss up at the second straw pole, even, or, Or maybe you didn't think a genuine toss-up. You felt either of them could win it at this point last year. Yeah, I thought Shea was going to win, but I thought, you know, I was emphasizing that 70 to 30 in first place votes sounds like a landslide and it's really not. I remember you saying that.

It only takes a handful of people to flip their vote around and all of a sudden, in a binary choice, it can flip the other way pretty fast. I think the funny thing is, like you said, McMahon, when we did this one in December, I felt pretty strongly. I mean, part because Yonkis never, gets hurt and I didn't expect him to have a 16 game absence with a bone bruise in his knee, that if the thunder fell off, Yokic would win because Yokic's numbers are completely insane. And Che being up there was in large part, both because he's incredible.

And his team was having this undeniably incredible start to the year. It is really interesting. I think I sort of wonder if people are aware, like sort of to Kevin's call to me, how close the Western Conference standings are. And I do think there's a chance for things to get upset pretty quickly if, you know, let's say the Thunder continued to scuff a little bit with these injuries and the Spurs win nine in a row and end up ahead of them. Like people then are going to go, whoa, look at that. Or if even Detroit, which is now, I think, percentage points actually ahead of the Thunder. Detroit has the best winning record or winning percentage in the league right now.

So like if Detroit rips off, you know, if they win that Cavs game on the All-Axas day next week, they play the Nix Thursday night. By the time you listen to this pod, the game will have happened. I think the game, want to say that games at the garden? There's a good wager. So the Pistons have outscored the Nix by 67 points this year. Yes. The Nicks have had to listen to that for the last two, three weeks. They get him coming out of the break.

What do we think is going to happen in that game? Well, listen, no Isaiah Stewart, no Jalen Duren if the Nix can't win that game. Oh, that's why the suspensions. Oh, I forgot about that. But listen, I mean, they didn't have Jal and Dern during the first two games. I know. You didn't have Jalen Dern either of the first two games. That's true.

You know, like, but yeah, so like Detroit, I think you're to your point, like, people are going to start to really clue in on Detroit right now. I think even more than they have been. So, yeah, like, Shea's got a really big lead, obviously. I think he's the very clear favor to win, particularly with the injury stuff in play for Yokic. Like, it's more likely than not Yokich won't be eligible. Now, you told me he played every game the rest of the season. Yeah, I could see that. But like the chances of them having some knock

over the next couple months is at least plausible enough to make it a real possibility. But I would also say there's a reason he came back with a little bit of a cushion. Oh, no question. Listen, if you asked me to truly bet, is Nicole Oak's going to play the rest of the season? I would say yes, because the guy never has gotten hurt before.

So, but it's close enough to at least leave the open the real chance. Also, the nuggets have been so banged up. They've just, they've needed them. Well, and people used to one, whether Joker cared about MVP, he does. And that became clear late last year. Malika did a really nice job in an interview with Yokic and asked him. I retweeted earlier, it's on social media.

I'm sure anybody you can find it. She asked him about this idea that people don't care. And I was glad that finally, after all these people have acted like Yokic doesn't care about anything. He was like, yeah, of course I care about things. Why wouldn't I care about all this stuff? It's like, yeah, no kidding. This guy came from Serbia and became one of the 10 or 15 best players

of all time and he didn't care about basketball, really? He doesn't care about like, that's the narrative we're going to create. Statistical categories, like relative to other players. He cares about statistical categories, too. It's why he averages, average a triple double. I know, but not like, he doesn't stat. He cares. He's not a blatant stat chaser.

Well, he was like even before they changed the rule on the heaves, he was heathed in every opportunity. He broke the record for heaves last year. Because in all honesty, he just did the math. He did the math and he felt that the chance of making a he was more important than a few percentage points. Also, he knows he's going to make a high percentage anyway. The Hive thing shows you how much he cares about winning.

But yeah, he does. Like, there have been, and Joker's had a bunch of sombor doubles, as they call them, where he's like nine rebounds, nine assists. I've also seen him stay in to get a 10th rebound or a 10th assist a few times. That's also not a crime. I'm not saying that is some sort of crime. Like, it's totally fine. But of course, the guy's a maniacal competitor. Like, this has always driven me insane. You know, you would call it the sombor double.

doubles, or the Sondboard doubles, is that what you call it? Well, there's a lot of Akron doubles on that, too, because LeBron has had a bunch of near misses, and he's had also had a bunch where he chased it. For sure, sure. Checked out. By the other thing I thought was really interesting in that Maliki interview was Joker basically saying, hey, as long as I'm playing at high level, I'll be playing. Like, don't think I'm going to, you know, because there's this idea.

Again, I'm going to hang it up at 30. These people acting like he's going to hang it up at 32 and go back and like, you just wants to go be with the horses. Pretty sure the guy wants to continue to play basketball at the highest level possible. He can be with the horses when he's 47. And by the way, his game's going to age pretty well because he doesn't exactly rely on explosiveness as it is. He doesn't. Hey, you didn't mention the Nuggets health.

I got trimmed on NBA today this afternoon, so I didn't get to get my little Nuggets reporting in there. But I can give a quick little report on their two guys who are out with hammers. All right. Let's hear it. Aaron Gordon, they sent a trainer with him. He went to Orlando for the All-Star break. They sent a trainer with him. He participated some in practice yesterday, full court springs.

That's a great sign. He's dunking. He's playing one-on-one. They're going to be cautious, obviously. This is the second time this year. He's had a hammy also last year in the playoffs. The next step is getting three-on-three, four-on-four-on-five-five. They're looking at doing that after this road trip, so next week.

So he's still probably a couple weeks away. And then Peyton Watson's just a little bit behind that. You know, they're pleased with his progress. You know, they'll be cautious with him. With Watson, though, there's not the concern that there is with Gordon. That this, you know, Gordon's had a lot of these soft tissue injuries stack up on them the last couple of years where this is the first for Watson. All right. They're still going without him for a few weeks.

I would say those top four guys all have, I think, legitimate chance to win. I think the heavy favorite is Shea, and I'd be pretty surprised if Shea doesn't win. But like, because of the Yolkich injury question, I don't think it's a two-horse race. And I do think the door is, I think, legitimately open for those two young guys to potentially do with Derek Rose and change the narrative a little bit. Because, like I said, I think it will really jar people if the Thunder all of a sudden aren't leading the West.

or if the Thunder or if the Pistons like get a couple game lead and win these high profile national TV games. Like, wait a second, Detroit is the best record, the whole league, really, with this one guy as their main guy on offense? So what do you think the last time an American you felt had a chance after the second straw poll? You know, it's a good question. I don't honestly know if I've...

Not to like go full patron. I mean, James Hardin, probably. I was going to say, I guess the first two were James Hardin and Russ. So, I mean, I could go back and look. Let me, I have all of it right here. Well, that was the Hardin-Rust Kauai year. Well, the first year I did it was the, it was 2017 when you had the four, really the four horse race with James Hardin, Russell Westbrook, Kauai, and LeBron. The next year was then LeBron and Hardin.

And LeBron, or, yeah, LeBron and Hardin, then Hardin, Curry, Durant, LeBron, all in the top four. Then Yonis won the next two going away. and from then on it was, yeah, like, you know, it's been Joelle and Nicola, and then it's been Shea. So, yeah, I mean, it's been a, it's been a long time, probably seven, eight years. Victor's going to get, you know, he'll be an MVP, if not multi-time MVP. And I think Cade has got a very, I would say Cade is fourth on that list. I think Victor is more likely to win than Cade.

But again, Cade is, of those guys, Cade is. healthy and is far away from the injury threshold. So like, if the Pistons have the best record in the league, that is an awfully strong part of an MVP case, just like if the spurs end up atop the west for Victor, for sure. Good work, Bontemps, good analysis. Do you want to talk about this tanking story? I don't really want to kill the... I mean, I talked about it at the beginning a little bit when we talked about it, but I, you know,

long-time league executive who's proposed this in the past is pushing forward again this year. And, you know, it's got support in various places across the league. And essentially it's just to all these fixes we tend to talk about where it's removing draft odds or flattening the lottery or, you know, removing pig protections. All these, all these things tend to be focused on trying to deemphasize losing as opposed to emphasizing winning. And, you know, I've thought about this a lot since Pelton and I wrote a big story on tanking a year ago. And I just keep coming back to the only way to actually change the problem is to change the incentives. And I just think about where the league would be this year if this was in place and coming out of the All-Star break, you had all these bad teams make trades to get better.

And all these guys were coming back to play and you were going to be set up for this two-month stretch going into the playoffs where everybody was going to be locked and loaded and playing hard and competing every night. And you would have been going through the schedule going, man, which of the, hopefully there's all the 10 teams that are trying to lose or playing each other. So then everybody else is just playing. Like, it's just really made the final couple months of the season a real drag. And I think changing that to a system where everybody's incentivized to try to win these games when the most eyeballs are on the league and it's going into the playoffs and playoff race are being decided.

and there, like, there should be a lot of excitement about the second half of the season. Instead, it's just like we're sitting here today and got Adam Silver having calls with the GM saying, you know, we're going to fix this and we're not going to be able to do this anymore. And, like, you know, it's just a, it should be an exciting time of the schedule. And instead, it's kind of a dreary time in the schedule. And it's largely because of this stuff. And I think this would be a rule that would, you know, cause teams to really have to try now. And like, for example, we've talked.

talked about Janus having no reason to come back. Well, now Janice should have a reason to come back and play. And let's be honest, if Janus comes back, we will be critical of the bucks because it's a terrible decision for their franchise. And that sucks. That sucks. It sucks that we're sitting here talking about that. They won five of their last six games.

By the way, they've won five of their last six games and Janus wants to come back. And I'm like, boy, that's not going to help them. Right. It's that sucks. Like, that's just not fun. You know, again, like, we've, we've joked about Zubots, you know, coming back and Rick Carlisle, you know, get traded there. Rick Carlisle saying they had this ankle injury.

Like, it would be really fun if bad teams were incentivized to make trades at the trade deadline to get better and to make a push in the second half of the season. Like all the movement at the trade deadline this year was from bad teams trying to get better for 2027 in large part because the draft is a good in 2027, so nobody wants to tank, as opposed to the last two years when the draft has been awesome. There's all this turbulence on the private jets. Once they're traded or aggravated injuries that were healed. month before.

Sometimes before they even get on the jet. It's a pre-jet. Sometimes. Exactly. I just want to say three things. Oh. One. Okay.

I know the executive is who comes up with this and he would be on any blue ribbon panel to come up with a solution. And so I don't know if it'll work, but no one will have thought about it deeper. That's number one. Number two, the commissioner is now awoken on this. And you can argue about whether or not he's, He, A, has been sleeping at the wheel too much, and B, has the ability to impact behavior because it's not something that he has historically done. Well, they're going to impact behavior.

It's just a question of what they're going to do. They're going to do something. I can promise you that. They're at least going to impact the overt behavior. Covert's still okay. That's true. And let me just say that, you know, but now the commissioner is on the war path about it. You know, what that means, what that will lead to the massive outrage.

Yeah. The last time he was on the war path. about it was when Sam Hickey was doing this with the Sixers and they flatten the lottery odds. And look, I think you can make a fair argument to flattening the lottery odds. Well, I was just going to say, you can make a fair argument that flattening the lottery odds has made this a lot worse because you have now a lot more teams that are incentivized to dovetails perfectly into my third point, which is the first anti-tanking maneuver was the lottery

itself, which is 40 years old. Then they did five lottery changes. They altered the lottery five times. Then they installed the play in tournament, which is an anti-tanking measure. So that is seven maneuvers to curb tanking. I do not believe the eighth, whatever it is, is going to solve it, but it can slow the bleed. And that's why I do like the plan that Bontinch wrote about. because you're incentivizing winning down the stretch. We're teams that are... Well, you could argue, though, the plane incentivizes winning, but it incentivizes everybody winning.

Until the mask tanked the way out of the plan, right? Yeah. It's just... And frankly, yeah, because with the flattened lottery, again, like, this is where people saying, you know, I was on TV talking about this afternoon, and Ramona was on her pal, and she was like, well, you know, they should just flatten the odds

across the lottery and have everybody have an equal chance because then you'll never have a team trying to make the bottom to play in. Well, right. That's the problem is anything that gives more teams a fair shot at getting the number one pick is only going to cause more teams to be incentivized to get the number one pick, which again, I totally, like we've talked about before, and as you've said repeatedly, Brian, we know all the people on these teams doing this. It's not like the people on these teams doing this are thrilled to be trying to lose these games. Everybody wants to get in,

gets into this business because they want to compete and win the highest level. It's good people doing these things. That's what I keep saying. It's good people. Right. And the facts are that the incentives are set up right now for these teams to try to get one of these players

and what's an unbelievably good draft, at least on paper. We'll see how it pans out in the future. But, you know, again, The Spurs have basically done this three times in their history, and they got David Robinson, Tim Duncan, and Victor Wenbinoa. You can say everything else about Greg Popovich and R.C. Buford and all the other things the Spurs have done.

And I have immense respect for the Spurs. It's not meant as any sort of criticism. But the reason the Spurs have been probably the model franchise in the NBA for the past 35 years is because they got David Robinson, Tim Duncan, and Victor Wenbanyama in the lottery with the number one pick in the draft and not Michael Oloa Kandhi and Zachary Rishishay and Anthony Bennett. Oh, you could have at least come with three retired guys.

Don't tell him. I'm just saying, like, Risha She was between Cooper Flag and Victor Wenbanyama. That's tough. You know, but it's just true. Like, you know, there wasn't a guy. And like he's not, like this draft,

whoever gets the top pick or two in this draft has got a chance to get a guy who can fundamentally change a franchise. So again, the fix has to be about. Kansas who plays 18 minutes a night. You can't do that too. Already ready to load manage.

but he only manages load for him. He does it himself. That's right. But that's why the fix has, it's why I really, to your point, McBan, it's why I really like this idea, and I really hope it gets some momentum. Because it's the only one, like, Sean's put out a bunch of stuff that's been discussed.

All of it was about deemphasizing losing. None of it was about giving everybody full incentive to really compete down the stretch and care about these games. when everybody is tuning into the league for the first time. And by the way, there's this like, you know, these people who watch basketball while puffing on their wooden pipe with their sport coats that have elbow patches on them, there's this, oh, they should abolish the draft.

They should abolish the draft. Dude, you ain't getting 24 freaking owners to vote on abolishing the draft because there's about how many teams just going to be completely screwed. Well, I know who's going to vote against it. Every small market team. Spurs are going to vote against. Yeah. Well, hey, forget even that.

I mean, Stan Van Gundy, I don't know if he walks around with patches on his jackets. He is pushed for this. But I would just say, what do people really like trades? You want to know what generates trades around the league draft picks? They like cigarettes in the pokey. We have a draft show every year. How's great? As you're wearing your thing that could look like a jumpsuit there.

I thought that's where he got it. I thought that was my story. I also have this being orange. But yeah, so ultimately they just got to, they got to give teams full reason to want to be as good as possible and not give them reasons to be bad. Because if they do, they're going to lean into being bad.

We've seen that. Like, teams are going to do what's in their best interest. So make change that and they'll change their behavior. All right. This is a Bontem's poll pod. I'm calling quits to it, even if you're making good points. All right, Bontem, strong work. Thanks, bud.

McMahon, great, great voting. you did your ballot was great work. This is classic. Nice refereeing. Yeah, the superstar who kisses the referee's butt hoping he gets a favorable whistle. That's Wendy. Yeah, well, I learned by watching Luca. Wendy's like his boy, Luca.

Lots of complaint. Luca has not quite mastered the art of referee. That's true. He has a lot of skill that's one he needs to work on. Thank you to our producers, Tucker, Jackson, Devon, and Mark. Thank you to McMahon. Special thank you to Bontemps. some pods he gets less than a full thank you.

This one is special thank you. Like McMahon's honorable mention, honorable thank you. Thank you for watching the Hube Collective. We'll talk to you next week. Adios amigos.