The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - NBA MVP Rankings: Giannis & Paul George rising, Luka falls, Joel Embiid "clear #1"

Episode Date: January 20, 2024

Jason Timpf shares his NBA MVP rankings including Paul George and Giannis Antetokounmpo's dominant performances for the Clippers and Bucks, Luka Doncic falling on the list with his injuries and the Mavericks' recent struggles, and Anthony Edwards becoming an "alpha dog" for the Timberwolves. Later, Jason discusses Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's sensational year and why Joel Embiid is a "clear #1" for MVP given his dominance with the 76ers this season.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes.

Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of tauntons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith ruling. of two. Listen to Stuff to Bole Your Mind on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The volume. The NBA season is in full swing, and when I can't get enough of the action on the

court, I spice things up by betting on Draft King's Sportsbook, an official partner of the NBA. Right now, new customers can bet five bucks and get 200 instantly in bonus bets. I was looking at the lines for making the playoffs today, and you can get the lake at plus 115 to make the playoffs. And the Warriors, check this out, at plus 205 to make the playoffs. Download the Draft King Sportsbook app with code Hoops. That's H-O-O-P-S. New customers can bet five bucks on the NBA and get $200 instantly in bonus bets.

Only on Draft King's Sportsbook with code hoops. That's H-O-O-P-S. The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler or visit www. 1,800 gambler.net. In New York, call 8778 Hope N. or text Hope N.Y to 467-369.

In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-889-77777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. 21 plus age varies by jurisdiction, void in Ontario, Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. See dkng.com slash basketball for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms, and responsible gambling resources. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Friday, everybody.

Hope all of you guys had an incredible week. Here's a quick breakdown of how this weekend is going to go, because as you know, I'm leaving to go to Breckenridge tomorrow, and I'm not getting back until Wednesday. Today's show is just going to be our MVP rankings. Then later this afternoon, I'm recording with a number. nerd sesh guys. We picked 11 teams that are my top tier of contenders plus some of the teams that are kind of on the fringe. We're going to play a game of higher or lower, whether or not we're higher on the team than we were to start the season or lower on the team than we were

to start the season. We're recording that today. That'll be released over the course of the time while I'm gone. And then I'm also recording the mailbag today. That'll be running while I'm out of town. So Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. We'll have lots of mailbag content. and we're going to be doing a check-in, basically a mid-season check-in on all of the contenders with the nerdsash guys. But in this episode, just covering our MVP rankings. You guys know the joke before we get started, subscribe to our brand-new YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos.

It mean a lot to me if you guys would take a second to scroll down and hit subscribe. Don't forget about our podcast feed if you're more into that format. You can find that wherever you get your podcast under hoops tonight. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT so you guys don't miss show announcements as well as the film threads that I do in the morning. And the last but not least, keep dropping mailback questions in the YouTube comments so we can hit them throughout this season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So I'm dropping three guys out from our list two weeks ago.

Deer & Fox, because the Kings are on a four-game slide, things are looking really bleak out there in Sacramento. Tyrese Halliburton, just because he's injured. And so I want to use this list to kind of highlight other players. Obviously, if he comes back, he'll rejoin the list. And with Pascal Seacom here in Indy, I shouldn't say here there in Indy, I would expect. him to be back on the list before too long. And then lastly, Kauai Leonard, I'm dropping out. Not because Kauai is not doing very well, but simply because Paul George has been the Clippers best player for the last few weeks. And so I just want to highlight him specifically. Obviously,

I still view Kauai as an MVP candidate, but for the purpose of this list, I want to highlight Paul George today. All right, let's get started. Number 10, Donovan Mitchell. The calves are red hot. They've won 11 of their last 14 games. Donovan Mitchell in that span 30 points, five rebounds and seven assists per game on 49% from the field, 37% from 3 and 88% from the line. But it's the defensive end that I want to highlight in this particular segment. That's where I've been most impressed by him this season. He's having the best defensive season of his career, in my opinion. His speed makes him really useful, especially in helping recover situations. Obviously, they're using Isaac Acoro more on the ball.

But what Donovan Mitchell can do is he can dig down on a post player, dig down into a driving lane, while also having the speed to chase shooters off the line. It's made him really useful. And here's the thing. The Cavs have lost two of their top four players, and they've been trucking right along. And that mostly has to do with Donovan Mitchell. All right. Number nine, Jalen Brunson, the Knicks, have won eight out of their last 10 games, and some

quality wins in there. They beat the Minnesota December Wolves. They also beat the Philadelphia 76ers with Joel Embed in the lineup. And Jalen Brunson has just been a steady force for them all season, 28 points per game, four rebounds and eight assists in this 10-game span on 59% true shooting. Here's a crazy stat for you guys. Jalen Brunson has a 76% effective field goal percentage on unguarded catch-and-shoot jump shots this season. We always think about him on the ball, but he's been one of the best off-ball players in the league this year.

In fact, he's been the very best spot-up player in the league, minimum 100 possessions. He's converting spot-up possessions at 1.5 points per possession. Absolutely insane. He is the best player on a team winning 60% of their games in an NBA that's not easy to win 60% of your games in. Number 8, Luca Donchich. He's played in just three games in the last 14 days as he works his way back from this ankle injury, and the Mavs have lost three out of five. so I'm dropping him down to eight just for right this moment.

Number seven, Anthony Edwards, really starting to cook. He averaged just 23.6 points per game in his first 20 games this season on 44% shooting and 37% from three in his last 18 games, 29 points per game, 49% from the field and 39% from three. And most importantly, just in terms of his attitude and the way he carries himself on the court, he's really starting to feel like an alpha dog in this league. We kind of saw this at first at Team USA, right? We just kind of ascended above the group,

not just in the way he played, but in the way he carried himself. But that was mostly B-list NBA stars, right? Now we're starting to see that against the best players in the league. Like all of that span, that last 18 games, that encompasses that stretch where the wolves played awesome teams every single night. And he's been insanely good in that stretch

going toe-to-to-to-with the best players in the league. They're outscoring opponents by seven points per 100 possessions in this span with him on the floor. They have a 120 offensive rating with him on the floor, all against quality opponents, right? 62% true shooting. So, Ants super efficient at that position, which has been an issue for him in the past. And again, all against a gauntlet of insanely good opponents. The rise of Anthony Edwards that we predicted on this show before the season is happening right before our eyes. Number six, Paul George, really gone up in aggressiveness.

since the new year. In his last eight games, 28 points per game to go with five rebounds and six assists, on 69% true shooting. He's been the best player on his team in the last month or so. Dominating on and off the ball, the shot creation stats are insane. A Paul George post-up has been worth 1.35 points per possession. That is the third best mark in the league, minimum 50 possession. So lower volume than the normal list that I pull for all the big centers that run hundreds of post-ups every single year. But for like the relatively low volume guys, minimum 50 possessions, that's third best in the league.

By the way, for those of you who are curious, number two, Jaime Hockes Jr. on that list. And Khras Porgas at number one, he's at almost a point in a half. Khrastops has just been insane just like he was last year, beating switches in the post. Paul George is also getting 1.1, 2 points per ISO. That's 6th out of 18 players to run at least 150. So he's been one of the best high volume ISO players in the league this year. And really good pick and roll player too. 1.03 points per pick and roll, including passes.

That's 27th out of 65 players to run at least 250. So been one of the best on-ball guys in the league, but he's also been one of the best off-ball guys in the league is, you know, one of the beautiful things about bringing James Hardin on board is he's just getting a lot of advantage situations where a guy's closing out at him. It's funny, when I work with my young kids, the high school kids that I coach, we always work on King of the Court, but from the standpoint of attacking close-outs.

Because, you know, it's not that you don't want to work on one-on-one, stuff, but primarily at that high school level, I think one of the most important development aspects for a young player, especially if you want to play at the next level, because most college coaches, they're not just going to let a dude cook an ISO all night long, right? Like, they're running an offense and they're trying to generate advantages so that a guy can play. And that's a huge, play with an advantage. And that's a huge element to what makes a score a good score is you get 20 shots in a game for a top tier score. And we always think about post-ups isos and pick and rolls, but a real good offense has flow.

You're playing with five other players, and the ability to attack with an advantage is so important. And so I set up these kids with like, you know, they're throwing the ball out and closing out. So they're still playing king of the court, but they're working on offense on individual moves that you'll actually use in a real basketball game more frequently than not, right? And this is an interesting stat for you. 1.29 points per spot up possession from Paul George. Fourth, out of 45 plus, players to run at least 150. So he's been one of the very best spot-up players in the league this year. You give Paul George a defender sprinting at him. He's going to knock down the catch and

shoot shot if you close out short. And if you close out hard on him, he's got all of those close-out attacking moves, that higher-level ISO attack with the defender sprinting at him, which just makes him such a useful player on a team that has Kauai Leonard and James Harden. If they need him to initiate offense, he can do so. But when he's off the ball, while Kauai has it, while Russ has it, while James Harden has it, he's one of the best offensive players in the league in that type of setting, which has made him super, super useful and valuable on the Clippers. He's been the best player on that team for the last month or so. Number five, Jason Tatum. When he's missing his pull-up three, he's kind of like just below that top tier of superstars, right? Just because he

hunts that shot so much. It's like a third of his offense, right? But when he's making it, he looks like one of the best players in the league, and he is making it right now. In the Boston Celtics last 10 games, Jason Tatum has made 22 out of his 45 pull-up threes. That's 1.47 points per shot. His effective field goal percentage on pull-up shooting has been ticking up all season. He's up to 46% in effective field goal percentage on the season now. He clearly views that shot as his go-to move. He actively hunts it.

We saw that in the Minnesota Timberwolves game the other night. He gets Carl Towns on a switch, and he's not looking to drive past him. he's looking to set him up for a pull-up three. And if he can make it at anything close to that clip when they get to the playoffs, just forget about anything else. They're just going to win the title. If Tatum's making 40% of his pull-up threes in the playoffs, the Celtics are winning the title.

That's just what's going to happen. Number four, Nicola Yokic. The numbers aren't super impressive by Yokic's standards since our last list. 23 points, 11 rebounds, and 9 assists per game. But he's shooting 70% from the field. And quite frankly, he doesn't really seem all that interested in winning MVP. In fact, I would argue you probably would be, I bet you if we could give him some truth serum, he'd be like, I'd prefer not to, right?

He took 12 shots total in a back-to-back, in two games against the Jazz and Pistons last week. Like, those are games where Embed's trying to score, trying to score, trying to score, and he's getting, you know, 40 points, right? And Nicole Yokic is like, oh, it's the Pistons. I'm just not going to shoot this game, and I'm just going to pass the ball around, right? But even with that, he's just too good at basketball to not be high on this list. So I still haven't met number four, even if he's not necessarily going after the award. Number three, Janice and Tenacumpo.

Basically the one big bright spot with the Bucks this year. The Bucks are weird. They're 28 and 13, which is the third best record in the league. Albeit they've played a super easy schedule. They've had the third easiest schedule in the league so far, and they have the eighth toughest remaining schedule. so we'll learn more about them in the long run. But they've had these super ugly, like lifeless losses,

and their defense can be downright embarrassing at time. Like imagine being the third best record in the league and you're a bottom 10 defense. Like that's not something you see very often in the NBA. But Janus is the reason they're 28 and 13. He's a nightly regular season wrecking ball, right? And he carries them through most of their issues. How about 31 points, 12 rebounds, and 7 assists on 60% shooting

since our last MVP list two weeks ago. Number two, Shay Gills was Alexander. I made my first regular season NBA bet in a while last night. I love to bet the NBA playoffs, but I dislike betting. I only place a handful of bets during the regular season because the wild swings and effort from every team from night to night between travel and who knows what they did last night,

if it was one of their teammates' birthday parties and they all went out or if they met with a friend in the city or something like that. It's just really difficult to kind of predict that kind of stuff, and those swings are much more easy to predict in the playoffs. So I love betting the NBA when we get in the playoffs. But I placed a bet on an NBA regular season game last night. It was the Oklahoma City Thunder on the road in Utah. I have this theory about the NBA regular season

that really young and fast teams that play hard every night just will rack up wins. Like we're literally seeing this with the calves as they're down a bunch of talent, but they're just young and they're fast, right? like Donovan Mitchell and Isaac Coro just bring this crazy straight line speed on both ends of the floor. We're seeing it with the Utah Jazz right now. Well, the Oklahoma City Thunder are the best version of that. The Jazz were 15 and 5 going into that game last night at home.

They had won nine in a row. But I just had a feeling like, yeah, but you're playing the Thunder. They're also young. They also play hard every night. They're also super fast and they're just better at it than the Utah Jazz. And it ended up being a little bit close because every single. time the thunder ended up going up by 10, 12 points. The jazz would just kind of battle back and chip away. But I ended up winning that one regular season bet. I just thought it was an

interesting kind of like example of that regular season dynamic that I'm talking about. But Shagos Alexander has gone for 30 plus in 29 of his 40 games this season. He's shot over 50% from the field in 26 of his 40 games this season. He's only shot below 40% from the field in three games this year. He is one of the most consistently productive and efficient scoring guards we've ever seen. And if it wasn't for Joe El-M-Beed, he'd be winning the MVP this year.

But we have a clear number one. Joel Embeddead. Straight up snatched the soul of the Denver Nuggets the other night. He's the first guy I've seen in years single-handedly discombobulate the Nuggets offense, specifically at the end of a game. Just by bullying Yokic off his spots and denying him the basketball.

He's the only guy in the league, big and strong enough to do it. We talk so much about his offense, but it was the defensive end where he blew up the nuggets in that particular game. On the offensive side of things, though, here's an absolutely crazy Joe Lambeed stat for you guys to close the show out today. It is more likely that Joel Embed scores 40 in a game than it is that he scores less than 30. He has eight 40-point games this year, including 250-pointers.

He has just five games below 30 points this season. He's a runaway MVP, in my opinion, halfway through the season. It's kind of bizarre because I was looking at Draft Kings this morning, and they have Yokic at plus 240 and Embed at plus 250. I was surprised by that. I think Embed is clearly the better MVP candidate right now, clearly wants it more. I just think it's very, very obvious that Joel Embedde is kind of headed in a freight

in that direction. If it's not for an injury, I think, Joel Embed is going to win the MVP this year. I think he's one of the most clear-cut number ones we've had midway through the season in a long time. So shout out to Joel Embed. All right, guys, that is all I have for this particular episode. Like I said, recording a bunch of stuff the rest of today that we're going to run throughout

the weekend. As always, I appreciate you guys. And I look forward to seeing you with the nerdsash guys here in a little bit. The volume. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of tauntons and wampas

on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to stuff to blow your mind on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.