The Ringer NBA Show - Quarter-Season Awards Picks | Group Chat

Episode Date: January 26, 2021

Justin, Tjarks, and Rob are joined by The Ringer’s Chris Ryan to discuss the top MVP candidates of the first quarter of the season. Later, Justin, Tjarks, and Rob look at Sixth Man of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, and Most Improved (37:00). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Jonathan Tjarks, and Rob Mahoney Guest: Chris Ryan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Group Chat, the Ringers' weekly NBA group discussion, where Chris Ryan was just a little bit too excited to see me miss. So we brought him on to talk about the MVP of the first quarter of this NBA season. I am Justin Verrier, joining me today, Jonathan Charks. I'm excited for the group chat reunion. Yes, Rob Mahoney is also here, crashing the party on the group chat reunion, as it were. And our friend, Chris Ryan, has also joined us. What's up, my friend?

Which one of us is Josh Jackson and which one is Ben Simmons? I don't want to answer that. I think I would be the one getting ejected for sure. On today's episode, we are going to talk about the prestigious first quarter awards in the NBA. In the back half, we're going to get into some of the other awards, defensive player of the year, MIP and whatnot. But first, we're going to talk about MVP and our ballots for that. We'll do all of that just after this. So Dan Devine does the first quarter awards for us on the website.

So definitely go and check it out. He's going to write those for Wednesday, I believe. He does one for each quarter. But we're going to talk about our picks because I always get a little bit jealous because I secretly love these sorts of conversations. Like people talk about them as their low hanging fruit. But like, this is my favorite thing in sports because when you dive into the numbers, it gets really tricky and really interesting. This year in particular, just because there's so much noise with all of them. COVID absences, all of the random back-to-back scratches from some of these superstars.

So let's just get into this. Chris, you want to lead us off by making the case for your guy at number one on your first quarter MVP. Yeah, so you say your guy, and I think we can be transparent by saying that I was invited on this show to talk about Joelle and B. It's true. Recency bias aside, the MVP of this season is LeBron James. He was the MVP of last season. he definitely deserves one or two other MVPs

over what's it been like eight years since he won when he won that last year. Is that right? It's been eight years. It's been a while, right? 2013 maybe? Yeah, seven years. So it was like the last heat season, right?

Or the second of last heat season. Yeah, that sounds right. Look, last night, that's the best I've seen anybody on this planet play basketball in like 18 months when LeBron played against Cleveland. Not only was it like he hit the, fountain of youth, which I guess is just his

hyperbaric chamber. But I felt like it was a tribute to all of the great Lakers. Like he basically played like Magic Johnson, Kobe, Kareem, and Worthy in that game. He was so crisp. It was just an absolute, like,

it was actually beautiful to watch that on like a Monday night. I think I've started to become a little bit accustomed to guys just kind of being like, all right, I'm trying to get out of the blocks. Like, it sucks. We're stuck in Cleveland for like half a week. blah blah blah. He was amazing. It was also the closest thing I've seen to like a quasi-competitive situation where clearly somebody was talking shit to LeBron from the sideline and he just decided to burn the house down. It was just one of those things that you miss because there's no

fans in the in the crowd. So shout out to whatever like poor guy from the Cleveland front office decided to get chippy with LeBron. And he was playing against a really good defense. Like that's a Cleveland does at least try on defense. So, um, Look, like, I feel like at some point we just decided whether it was like latent punishment for, like, the decision or because we were anointing a new generation of stars. LeBron was just like, well, it would be LeBron, but like, let's give it to Duran or let's give it to Stapher. Let's give it to Janus. Or let's give it to Hardin. It's LeBron.

It's LeBron. And it's like, I'm not even like a LeBron stand. This is, I don't, I don't have like a king tattoo on my back. Like, it's, yeah, it's LeBron, though. Yeah, I might. I might this season. chosen Chris. Yeah. No, what was interesting is last night I was watching the ends of both the Lakers game and the Nuggets game simultaneously in preparation for this. Because you were going to make the case for Porter? Right, exactly. But I was specifically going to try to juxtapose Yokic with Embed because I thought those were the two guys, right? Even though LeBron clearly in the mix, I was like, hey, Yokic is really just coming on, averaging about a triple double. Let me just see what Yokic is about against Luka.

Donchiks, et cetera. And then all of a sudden, like, LeBron just decided to take the game by the neck and win it. Like, he was just making the most insane shots where at one point he made that turnaround just because he was like, fuck it. I guess I'll just keep shooting. And that is, to me, the huge difference between him and Yokic, where, like, Yokch was on an off night. And so this is probably an unfair comparison. But, like, he was just doing that thing where he just, like, rubs his heads on guys trying to get fouls. And, like, he was kind of loafing. And it really took Porter to Chris's point to really bring them back into that game and win that for them, whereas LeBronich just feels like even at his advanced age, man, he could just do whatever he

wants. And when he wants to win a game against his old team while MFing some random guy in the sideline, like he could do that. So that's the question though, isn't it? Is like when he wants to do it? And it's like, how do we think about a guy for MVP who has that level of control, who can engineer a game-changing run whenever he wants? And I mean, he's been a total punishment. this season, whenever he decides to be, whenever he needs to be. For MVP, though, and I think this is why Yannis won it, you know, these last couple of years, is the kind of every play, every possession, energy, dedication, effort level, like, how consistently are you shaping games?

And LeBron, understandably, you know, the Lakers have been the best team in the league so far, is not doing that all the time. And that's okay, and it's what the Lakers won, and it's what he should be doing. But is that what the MVP of the league is? Well, I think the difference this year, and I have to go back, I look at the numbers, but this year they're the best team in the NBA by a pretty significant margin, whereas in some of these past years, you always kind of felt like they were second or third or fourth best record. But right now they're just dominating everyone.

And for LeBron to do it at this age, it's just shocking, really, right? Like, I think I personally assumed, okay, it's to be AD's year in the regular season. LeBron will take it easy. LeBron will, like, kind of rest himself for the playoffs. And yet it's the other way around. Somehow AD is just chilling, and LeBron's carrying the whole team at his age. It's unbelievable. Do you think it was LeBron's plan to get A.D. to say that or to set that expectation up,

and so he can come from behind and all of a sudden it's like, yeah, oh, he's actually the guy now. I feel he could do something like that. He's clever enough for that for sure, setting a narrative and whatnot. Rob, to your point, I feel like when I watch Yannis, I feel like Yonis is still, despite like the absolute jaw-dropping poster plays, I still sometimes look up and I'm like, Janice has 34. You know what I mean?

Like, I still, like, feel like Janice sometimes plays in a vacuum that doesn't always change the sort of fate of the bucks. And maybe it's also especially because, like, I feel like they've been favoring Middleton down, in, like, stretched down the stretch or in clutch situations recently. But I feel like LeBron is, like,

in total control of, like, both his team and the other team. And if, like, he needs to stop a run from the other team, he can do that. If he needs to shoot from outside, he can do that. If he needs to post up a guy, he can do that. If he runs point guard, he can just basically orchestrate an entire offense by himself. When I watch the Lakers, I actually feel like I'm watching best player best team, which is usually like the math that we use for the MVP award. I think the key thing that Chris said, outside shooting. So LeBron's averaging career highs and attempts and percentage. He's

actually right behind Duncan Robinson in terms of percentage of season. And if LeBron's making stepback threes, pull up threes, logo threes, if he's going to make those shots, then it doesn't matter what you're doing. Like, you're not going to stop him from getting his stepback three at his size, right? If he's making that shot, then it's just, it's over. Well, and if best player, best team is the rubric, let's just, let's write this thing up right now. Like, this is about done.

I think with LeBron for me, and I think your point about Janus is great, Chris. And it's the difference to me between players who sustain teams like Janus who get a choir, or Kauai is in this category two, who all of a sudden have 32 points. And it's like, how did this happen? Versus LeBron is such a momentum builder and a momentum breaker for other teams that is so noticeable that affects the psychology of a game that has a huge impact. To me, I think you're looking for a combination of those things if you can find it. And like that's why for me, the candidate right now is still Joelle.

and his two-way play, the fact that he completely changes the matchups of a game, he completely changes what an opponent can run defensively because they have to adjust to this giant who's bullying Daniel Tice or Tristan Thompson or whoever all of a sudden. He changes the complexion of a thing on an every play basis in a way that LeBron can choose to and sometimes does and we'll do for games and stretches and certainly for quarters at a time.

I think Joel is just doing it a little more consistently right now, which is wild considering where he's coming from as a plight. player. Yeah, any other year, I'd say Joel is like the leader in the clubhouse right now. I think it would be narrative wise, like it would be he finally put the body together. He's got his stamina. He's like closing games hard.

Clearly like the Sixers are decided to like rely completely on him now that Simmons seems to have regressed a little bit. But I just feel like despite the fact that the Sixers crater when the impede is out, that LeBron is doing something this year that

I think if we're going to play the narrative game, we would be really, really, we would really be missing an opportunity not to like notice what's happening here at his age and, and like the crispness with which he's playing right now. Well, if you want to make the Embed case or just the outsider case for anyone other than LeBron, it's the defensive side of the wall, right? Yeah. Yeah. And the Lakers do have the best defense in the league. So it is a little bit trickier these days, I will say, but Joel Embed is the Sixers defense. Their fifth in the NBA, which, And they were first.

I imagine they'd be a lot higher if he had played in every game this season. But he's anchoring one of the best defensive teams in the league. And as we'll talk about later, he's definitely right there in the defensive player

of the year conversation. So I think that's important. Like, I mean, ultimately, we were having this conversation about Hardin versus Janus. And while Janus's offensive numbers were just out of this world, two straight years in a row,

like, he did have that defensive component where you could look and say like, hey, he plays on the other side of the ball. And not only that, but he dominates. Well, on the flip side of that, the Sixers with Embed on the court this season are a better offense than the Lakers with LeBron on the court. And so, and Joel is unquestionably more central to what the Sixers are doing defensively. So for me, it's that balance. It's super high usage score, you know,

fulcrum of every possession. As you mentioned, Chris Simmons is, is so much more of a secondary player this year, so much more in the dunker spot than he ever has been. And, you know, that that player can also be such a force defensively, I think gives him a little something that LeBron doesn't have right now in terms of his case. I mean, I'm never going to argue with giving LeBron the MVP. He's the best player in the league. But if we're talking about who's doing the most damage in the regular season, who is having the greatest impact,

I think Embedd is doing a little more. I think this game tonight, or I guess this game Wednesday night will be pretty big for the Sixers. They play the Lakers because I think worth putting out for the Sixers schedule. These are their wins this season. Stop when you hear a good team they beat. No, I know. Wizards, Knicks.

Raptors, magic, Hornets, Hornets, Wizards twice, heat twice with none of their good players, Celtics twice, no Jason Tatum, Pistons once. The Hornets are back. I don't know if you listened to our podcast two weeks ago, man, but the Hornets are up to something. Unfortunately, they're below 500 since then, so that pod is not aged too.

We really got out of there quickly. Justin, Justin, you were talking about why you like talking about MVP. Is it, to me, it's like the fun part about it is that there's a little bit of what Rob's saying where there's like, here are the numbers. Embed is actually like the Sixers are a better offense with Embed than Blakers are. There's almost like this idea that we could like solve the MVP award.

And then there is the best actor Oscar idea of the MVP award where it's like, well look, man, it's Pachino's time. He didn't win for Dog Day or he didn't win for Godfather too. So we'd give it to him percent of a woman. And I think that I'm a little bit of, I'm probably 75 narrative, 25. stats and and and you know a little bit with a with a lot of eye test mixed into both but you know like do you think that for you guys are you are you looking at it or rob would you have like a lot of little

notes like that where you're like yeah you know you have to understand that like when ms on the floor this is happening versus Jesus like if lebron wins back-to-back titles in his mid-30s we need to like really take stock of what we what we just seen maybe he's he we need to open up this Jordan conversation a little bit more I mean you have to do that stuff but I think you're, in terms of awards voting, I'm almost pushing back against that. I'm putting it in a box as much as I can. Everything that happened in last year's playoffs,

everything that I know about LeBron previously, just like who are these guys right now on the floor in this tiny sample size that we have and who's playing the best basketball? And it's impossible to fully disconnect from those stories and those narratives. Like, that's always going to drive it. And I think you have to acknowledge it in some ways.

That's why, like, rather than look at team stats, for example, or record, I'm so much more like, when this guy's on the court, who is their team? What does it look like? How good are they really? Because I think there can be some illuminating things there that, you know, some of the stuff that we credit LeBron for, we really should be crediting Anthony Davis for.

It's just their impact gets conflated, and that's hard and that's difficult. But I guess that's kind of the job. Speaking of that in terms of guys' impact on and off the court, I think that's the good choice is the Nicola Yokic in the Nuggets. So when the Nugget, when he's on the floor, they have the number one offense in the NBA. when he's off the floor, they have the number 30 offense.

He's having a historically great season, averaging numbers we've never seen from the center, 25, 12, and 9 on 56% shooting. Like, what he's doing night at night out is incredible. Yeah, just to the earlier points about like how what we want from the MVP is kind of shifting here. I think Nicola Yokic is like the prime example because this is the Russell Westbrook argument, right? He's basically averaging a triple double. his team is doing okay and as we mentioned last night

he was the one to bail them out after Jamal Murray decided to nut punch Tim Hardaway Jr. for some reason but he is like he is the identity of that team. They're going to thrive on offense. The reason why they have a chance in these games is because of what he's able to do. He's just like

a magician with the ball and it's like he has better control of that side of the court than I've ever seen him have before. The problem is just like on the defensive end like they're a train wreck. I think they're in the bottom third of the league and if we're going to say, hey, like the difference between, if we're going to

say Joelle is up there with LeBron because of his defense, I almost wonder if we have to take Yokic off of that top tier because of what he takes away from the Nuggets on defense. The Westbrook comparison is interesting there because it's like Westbrook was allowed to be a garbage

defender in Oklahoma City. Is Yokic allowed to be kind of a so-so underwhelming defender? in Denver. And I think worth pointing out too the Westbrook comparison.

The comparison is what if Russell Westbrook was one of the most efficient players in the league? All those numbers plus Uber efficiency.

It's like a different conversation really. Do you guys think that Janus is paying for the sins of the bucks in the last two seasons in the playoffs? 100%.

Because these numbers are not that much different. His numbers, Like if we're being honest, like if we're saying like these were MVP seasons the last two seasons, and I don't feel like I've heard Janice's name come up. The only time I hear Janus's name come up, it's like counterintuitive. Like, well, are we sure that Janus is like the number one option even on the bucks? You know what I mean? Like that that kind of conversation rather than, yep, another MVP season. It's his to lose. I think it's two things. I think it's when you set the bar so high,

if you don't continue to meet that or surpass that, it's hard to really get excited about that. But to your point, like, the numbers are, like, strikingly similar. It's, like, two fewer rebounds, like, 0.7 fewer points per game. He's playing at the same level. The defense, unfortunately, is worse in Milwaukee there. I don't know what you can attribute that to, but, again, like, that was a big part of his case last year.

And I do think it is part of voter fatigue and what happened in the playoffs. And I think the same thing is happening to, Quay Leonard and Paul George, where if you look at their numbers, which I did last night, they are incredible right now. Both of them are shooting 50, 40, 90 from the field. Both of them have more assist than at any

point in their career, both scoring at high clip. I think Leonard's in the top 10. And yet nobody's talking about them at all because it feels like we can't talk about them until they alleviate this just like stench from the playoffs on them at this point. I kind of got

bogged down in the Janus versus LeBron piece of this. Because as we've been dancing around, LeBron head and shoulders in terms of the narrative, the story of the season, he feels like a much better basketball player right now than Janus does,

and one that's driving his team in a totally different way. By the numbers, they're pretty comparable. You know, again, as we've mentioned, Janice is pretty much where he's been. He's scoring more and more efficiently than LeBron is. He obviously rebounds more. He's, even though he's on a lesser defensive team right now,

I think he's a better defensive player. And yet they seem, worlds apart. The Janus conversation is very thorny there and I don't quite know how to place it other than to say the things that drove his case in previous seasons, which was crazy efficiency and insane defense and great team success, all those three things are kind of taking a dip right now and all these other guys are just off the charts. Awesome. So I see it less as Janus is regressing or taking a step back or not the player he was than oh, all of these guys are kind of within a hair's breadth of 40, 50, 90 on teams that are playing pretty well.

Is there anybody who's like small sample size theater that you would, you would throw into this conversation, you know it's not going to last? Like, I was, I was really, I was the kind of eyeball on Donovan Mitchell just because of this run that he's on and the street that the jazz have been on. And if you're just pretending like basketball was invented two weeks like a month ago, like he's, he's at least in the top five, right? I mean, this is kind of the Derek Rose case where it's like the jazz are winning on defense and yet we're going to highlight the best offensive player.

Like the jazz deserved to be in this conversation because they're way better. Bobby Knight has logged into the chat. But like Rudy Gobert is the best player on this team right now. And maybe Mike Conley is the best pick on this team right now. But like Mitchell is done well. He's definitely, uh, you're in the pocket of Big Shack, man. Listen to you. I know.

I know. Um, another small sample guys would be Jalen Brown just because he's scoring at the like the seven highest clip in the league. Uh, no chance that he continues this. Um, and like as long as Jason Tatum is going to be on the floor with him, he's probably not going to get the credit that he deserves. But like, that's a, that's a guy who's definitely exceeding expectations in this first quarter. I found myself kind of wanting to make the case for Donovan Mitchell. And I kind of, I sought out to do that to look for it to see, okay, what are, what are, what are. his advantages over some of these other candidates. And he just kept getting boxed out by the numbers. I mean, we also haven't mentioned Kevin Durant in this conversation.

It's like once you already have LeBron and KD and Janus and Kauai and Joel and Yokic, and we haven't even, you know, you could throw a Luca in there if you want to. I think there's some other guys too. It's just tough for Donovan to kind of get a word in edgewise. So the KD thing is interesting if we're talking about small sample, right? Because his numbers are incredible. If we want to talk about Jan is living up to some of his past MVP seasons. KD is playing statistically just like he did in his 2013-2014 MVP season.

He's way more efficient actually, which is really kind of wild. But he hasn't played in five games. And so I wonder how much do we knock him for that? And like it gets into this thorny conversation where some guys, Jason Tatum, prime example, putting up good numbers. But like he got COVID. And so he didn't play as many games. how much do you hold that against him

when it really isn't his fault? It's really a much more complex conversation this year than any other. Yeah, but our injury is ever anyone's fault, right? Like, it's never anyone's false, someone gets hurt. I think with KD, once Harden came, that kind of just like killed that in the bud, right? It just became too many stars. The ball's being shared more.

The defensive identity of that team is going to stop those guys from winning awards. You know, it's like it's just going to be, I think too many people are going to be like, I can't good conscience vote for Kevin Durant while they're giving up like 135 points, 140. points. Yeah. Hardin did have the ball at the end of last night's game. He went full Hardin and Katie kind of took a backseat to that. I think that's like too hard. Again, this is to Katie's credit

that he has been willing to like seed the floor to Hardin in order to like assimilate him into this weird setup that they have there. But I don't know. I think people are probably going to hold that against them, especially if the shots start to fall. What would happen if, you know, the nets are terrible defensively right now? What if once they get 20 to 30 games in? to this, they turn a corner because of Durant. Because Durant's plan a lot more five, like we saw him do against Bamma and a bio and stretches. Like if he's able to key that kind of turnaround, I wonder if he can reverse some of that

voting momentum. But I mean, super teams are just an invitation for all kinds of weird award voting. I really have no idea how voters will choose to parse all this. But as it stands now, Durant still feels like one of the most, if not the most unstoppable offensive player in basketball. And so if LeBron is in this conversation because he is unequivocally the best play, I think Durant has to be in this conversation too. Yeah, and not to like dunk on Donovan Mitchell, but you watch Kevin Durant play basketball.

It's like, no, we're not going to do that. Yeah, but we could have, we definitely did that during the like the Russ, the Russ MVP season. I think people made some of those arguments during the Yannis MVP seasons about different players. I mean, like, I completely agree with you, charts. Like Donovan Mitchell does not belong in the same zip code with these guys, but I was just basing it off of like, if you're, if you're just, if you're going to say, say, oh, okay, well, like, had if M. B. had played these other games or if he played better teams, or if Kevin Durant had played five more games, like, well, Donovan Mitchell did go through this process so far. I think he at least deserves to get up there above Lillard. You know what I mean?

Like, above some of the guys that we were like, this could be Damian Lillard's season. This could be so-and-so season. Like, I think Mitchell's kind of like, and I'm not even a really big Mitchell fan or anything. I just think it's like, he's been lighting it up. Also worth noting on, on KD missing games. He's played the same number of games as Joelle Embed right now. He's played one fewer game than Janice and Kauai. Everything's a little glitchy right now. One guy we haven't

mentioned, who you should probably bring up, is Steph Curry. Shooting 39 percent on 11-3s a game, and that's including just like the cold spell he went through to start the season. And it's getting triple covered pretty much every time he has the ball. Right. Draymond Green pretty much

is a pass-first point card at this point on offense, the point where he's like taking two shots a game and ending up with like two points, nine rebounds and seven assists lines these days. 28 points per game for Seth Curry, or Jesus, Seth Curry, Steph Curry is the first time anybody's

ever made back. I'm going to do the Seth Curry segment next. Weirdly enough though, the Warriors are 23rd on offense. They've had this weird situation where the starting lineup until last night when they made a change putting Luni in the starting lineup where it was just like tanking points left and right. So I don't know how to

really like to rationalize that part of this. But Steph is Steph again. And it's been fun. At the very least, like, if we're going just based on, like, who we want in this conversation

and who, like, brings joy into our lives, especially during this time. So maybe this should be a bigger part of the conversation. But, like, Steph is incredible to watch.

What's your joy power ranking? Like, who's the least joyous of these MVP candidates? Donovan Mitchell, these days, especially. Ouch.

I honestly, I would say Janus. The bucks are really driving me nuts. It feels like Janus is kind of in the Dirk zone after the 07 Warriors. Or it's like, we gave you your MVP, you blew it, and now we're done with the two much championship. You'll blow it!

And that's just where it is right now. And that's, I mean, that's part of it too, right? Yeah, I mean, the image that I think of when we talk about Janus is this giant, like, moat of space that he gets at the top of the key now with Yandre Jordan just like pretty much being at the basket, daring him to shoot, and Yana's shooting airballs are just missing it.

And it's really hard to shake that because that is kind of the defining image and storyline of the buck season right now. We know that they could just kill it in the regular season. We know that their starting lineups a little bit better, but like prove it on a bigger stage. And until they do that, like, I don't know. I just, I really can't get behind, like, saying

he's the best player in the league right now, especially when LeBron is having those type of signature moments that I think like, whether consciously or not, we're going to factor into this, discussion here. And to that point, LeBron was the best player on the floor against the Bucks the other night when he had 34 and completely won that game for them.

So it's like, I need more of that from Yannis and less of the former. Can we expand on the Kauai case a little bit? Because I think he's on the other side of that. You know, you mentioned the Klipper struggles last season, and I don't know that I would hang that on Kauai necessarily because throughout the rest of his career,

he is exactly the player you just described LeBron being, basically, a guy who will be there for every big game, delivers in that kind of way, and very quietly is having an unbelievable season for one of the best teams in the league. And I don't know why that is for the Clippers. I don't know why we don't talk about them in that vein.

But he does, I mean, crazy efficiency from him is a legit 50, 40, 90 guy right now and does something that none of these other superstars do, which is he never turns the ball over at all. Like literally half the turnover rate than most these other guys do. And he has pretty impressive assist numbers, especially by his standards. So I wonder,

with him, whether it's the lack of charisma, deliberate in his case, whether it's, you know, something about the Clippers specifically. But why is Kauai not a top three tent poll kind of MVP candidate right now? Because the numbers, the film, watching him, like, all of it says he should be. I think the biggest thing actually for him now is that Paul George is playing so well, too. It's almost like with LeBron, A, taking a step back on offense, it gets a spotlight purely on him.

Whereas now with the Clippers, is Kauai and Pulitzer are playing so good together. It's almost hard to differentiate. And I think that's how many of these awards in general is like, it gets in this weird conversation where it's like, who has less help? Like that's a good thing to have on your team. Oh, I have less help than you.

That's so awesome for me. I'm winning an award. But really, it's not good for your team. Yeah. I mean, that would, that would be the Steph argument this year. Like, I think that you, there's an easier road to Steph being the MVP than it would be,

gosh, would be a good example of his counter, but like Steph would be the guy who is like, were it not for Steph, this is like a G-Leat team, you know? And, and, and, and then like, then you have like a group of guys that you're like, well, he's amazing, but he also has this help.

Is Janus that kind of guy or not? I go back and forth because the buck, the bucks without Janus on the floor of the season have been pretty good. Yeah. You know, like their minutes are controlled, obviously, like you're not throwing Bryn Forbes

out there against just anybody. But, you know, it almost is disrespectful to not put Janus higher in this conversation because the bucks by net rating, by all performance metrics have been as good. You know, they demand MVP consideration if they have a superstar type player and Janus is that. So are we trying to come up with a collective ballot between the five of us or four of us here? Yeah. So then wouldn't Janus would still be in the top five, right? I think so. So let's go let's go first to fit. So first is Luca Dantzich, right? We haven't said it by the way. We haven't said it. I guess. I guess.

Yes, we should, real quickly. Like, Luca has done a great job this year. Dallas has probably missed the most games with COVID, with KP being out. They've been pretty much a scale crew the entire season. He's keeping them afloat. Don't be surprised in like two months for like the first half, or three-core MVP race. He's in the conversation.

Because if they're healthy, he's putting up these numbers. He's in the conversation for sure. Honestly, the Luca case and the Yokic case are not that far apart. Yeah. No, it's funny because I feel like, Luca is the MVP to the Elias Sports Bureau. Because I swear to God, every time he plays now, it's like, this is the first triple double with 31, 7, and 10.

Like, that's the first time that's happened since 1976 when Bolt Chamberlain did it. It's just like, what? The difference is that Luca had the misfortune of being the preseason MVP. And I think a lot of people are like, see, you guys crowned him. But like, no, he's not ready yet.

Well, they're also mediocre on offense. And they've fallen a long way from the historic pace of last season. I know they've had a lot of guys out. Josh Richardson has been playing. There's also been a couple of COVID absences. Christops has only played like six games. But this goes back to what Sharps is saying about, like, we kind of want our MVP to overcome those sorts of things.

We actually want to reward the guy who is putting up triple doubles without those guys on the floor. And so far, that's been a little bit mixed. The Mavs are this weird team where they were actually. winning on defense for a while, but now they're actually both mediocre on defense and offense. I don't really know where to put them in this conversation. I think the answer, at least as far as Luca,

is probably not in our top five as of yet. Right. So let's do this. So number one, LeBron. Do we all agree on this? Yes. I do not agree, but I can see. Whoa. Do you have M.Bed 1, Rob? Don't say Janus. I have Mbid 1. Yeah. This is why we have to nuke the filibuster, man.

You have Embed one. Okay. Yeah. Let me hold the floor for 45 minutes to filibuster the shit out of this, get you guys off the podcast and then pass my rules of law. And is it just the defense? I think, yeah, it's the defense. It's what I alluded to earlier in terms of the consistency of the impact.

Like, LeBron's amazing. Not going to quibble with giving it to LeBron. But on my ballot, Embed right now is number one, LeBron two. If Ben Simmons was having a better season, do you think you'd still feel the same way? It's a good question, especially because defensively, having guys like Simmons is kind of what allows Embed to be Embed, having that length flying around.

So I think that would cut into his case if Simmons were having a more comprehensive year. But I think there's a good argument to be made that if Simmons picks it up, it could take away from Embedit a little bit. Unfortunately, you're not part of the super majority here. So he goes two, I assume. The rest of us think he's two. Yeah. I'd put a Yokic head of him right now.

Ooh. Charks. Make the case for Yokic at two. He's played good teams this year Whereas Embed has not So like we just kind of see him play good teams Well sure but Everybody's going to play everybody in the end

I don't know it's the first quarter though We'll get back to me in the second quarter Counterpoint to that The Nuggets, you know With Yokic on the floor have basically been the worst Of any of these teams with any of these stars And like that's not his fault

That like Gary Harris will refuse to shoot For stretches at a time But I don't know how to parse that Jeremy Grant, Rob. It always goes back to Jeremy. All roads lead to Grant. I have Yokic 3. Is where Chris and Rob on Yokic?

I haven't at 4. Ooh. Who do you have at 3? I got KD at 3. I'm going to do it at 3. I had a really tough time with KD and Yokic. I ultimately tipped it to Yokic in part because the offensive numbers are just wild.

like they're just like you just go on on stathead right now and you can come up with like all sorts of things like he's has the most of assists of any player six eleven or caller which is like insane he's leading the league in p.r and I thought this is more of an interesting nugget about the way voters vote but Kirk Goldsbury had this in his piece last week that eight of the past nine players to finish first in PR ended up winning the award which is probably why Yokic is so high on basketball references MVP tracker but ultimately I just don't know if Durant has played enough, which, I mean, I guess that's not his fault, but there is a lot of maintenance going on there, and the Nets look particularly bad when all those guys don't play. And so I kind of have to ding him for it. Counterpoint, Durant doing what he's doing coming off in Achilles is unprecedented. And if you're just doing Department of Narrative, it's, Durant being this good off in Achilles is up there with LeBron doing what he's doing at 36. Should he be in the most improved player-war conversation?

Going from nothing to M.E. There's a comeback player of the year, though, isn't it? I think there used to be. No, they stopped doing it. Okay. There's a Twyman Stokes teammate of the year award, which I imagine we'll go to James Arden this year. Nice.

Chirks, who do you have three and four? Do you have Katie? I guess I'll also go M.B.3K.D.4. That seems fair enough. And, Rob, you are... I'm M.B. LeB. LeB. LeB. Katie. Yokich is my top four right now.

Okay. And I have LeB. M.B. Yokich, KD. Chris, you have LeB. M.B. K.D. Yokish, right? Yeah. So who's Fisher? Who's the vice president we call in to break the Yokic KD tie is the question? It's me. And you have lost yet again.

I'm sorry. Fifth is really tough. You guys, I want, I want to see your free flag fly on five here. Just let it, let it rock. Rob, who do you have?

I have the least freaky player imaginable Kauai Leonard. I'm going step. Yeah. I think it's between those two, honestly, if only because, like,

I just can't bring myself to, like, honor Janus at this point. Like, I'm sure by the end of the season, like, I'll give it to them.

But right now, I think I have more negative associations than positive. I would probably go Kauai, reluctantly. But he's just like, he's absolutely crushing it. But Janus is like the premiere. Oh, this guy has to be top five MVP

until you start breaking it down conversation guy right now. Like I, again, it's crazy that he's not in there, given how good he is. But once you start putting the names on a list, I don't know how you make room for him. Charks, who do you have at five? I'll go with Kauai. Rob kind of convinced me.

And I'm like, you're stuck with a better basketball players. I'll probably pick Hawaii over you on us right now. Okay. So I believe the consensus is LeBron 1 and B2. I think it's actually Durant 3, Yokic 4, and Kauai 5. Is that right? I'm comfortable with that. Yeah.

I can take that to my constituents. Actually, I can't, because now I'm going to go back to Philadelphia. Fucking LeBron. All you do is worship LeBron. Yeah, but the KD caucus. is proud of its representation here, I think. That's good. I think also worth taking a step back.

Like, the level of talent in the NBA is ridiculous right now. Yeah. Like, that is five absurd basketball players. They're all, like, what, 6-10 or something? Like, we haven't mentioned Anthony Davis. We haven't mentioned Paul George. We haven't mentioned, like, so many guys. Seth Curry.

Yeah, right. You know, Zach Levine. Zach Levine, I have to say, he's really, he's pushing my previous perception of him. He's the most improved player, right? Well, we'll get to that in the next segment, Chris. Ah, that is, that's perfect. Wow, just sending us up.

All right, we'll get to that. Chris, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. It was just great to be back in the real colors that I love to wear. Are you on any other podcast this week, Chris? We did the rewatchables this week on Terminator 2. That was a real fun one. So people want to check that out.

Make sure to listen to Chris on the answer on Fridays on the Ringar, NBA feed. But yeah, we will come back and we'll talk about MIPS. and some of these other awards. All right, we're back. Chris is no longer with us. We are going to talk about some of the other awards that are up for grabs

in the prestigious first quarter awards ceremony. We're not going to do Coach of the Year, but we're going to pick the ones honestly that seem most interesting to us. Let's start with Charks.

We're going to do the show-and-take format as we do most times on the pod. So Charks is going to make the case for somebody. Charks, you want to do six million in the year? I was kind of breaking down the numbers for this. And it kind of feels like we're at a bit of a turning point in sixth man of the year, right? So Lou Williams has been de-emphasized in L.A. Jamal Crawford's now officially

retired after his one-game stint last season. Has he retired? Has he officially retired? No, he's not. You're right. I'll be clarified that. He's not on that roster right now. Fair enough. He, I feel like every two months or two weeks probably, he's griping for a job in the league. Okay. And so, like, we had a lot of fun over the summer kind of talking about potential future Jamal Crawford, or a 6-9 Jamal Crawford like Julius Randall. But really, the real Jamal Crawford, I think, is obvious now. It's Jordan Clarkson.

Like, this is a guy. He's averaging 17 points a game for Utah. In only 25 minutes, he's actually at 48, 40-906. So he's almost at 50-40-90 as a pure gunner. He comes into the game for one reason and one reason only. And I've got some great stats for that. So there are 63 players averaging 17 points per game in the league this season.

Care to guess where Clarks and ranks and assists are those 63? I'm not going to say it's first. 57. And he's 46 in rebounds. And then I think I really appreciated. So he's number two in the jazz and points and number seven and touches. Like they had this very kind of just like refined roster where everybody has a rule. And then Jordan Clarkson's role is just to come in and just jack shots and get buckets.

And I really respect it. Isn't it crazy how just cleaning up a couple of his bad habits makes him so much easier to appreciate? Like all of a sudden, he's this really interesting stylistic case, this super creative finisher. You know, honestly, one of my favorite floaters to watch in the league just because he's always kind of desperate and leaning into it. Like, it's completely off-balanced, but it works. And shooting 62% true shooting, as sharks will do with the efficiency. and you just take away some of the

some of the more selfish plays he was making some of the quirks in his game I mean defensively he's still kind of awash I think at best but he's fun he's fun all of a sudden and you know I think we can get into some of the philosophy of the sixth man award too in terms of why the Jamal Crawford types

typically win I think you know Clarkson is the front runner not because he scores a lot of points but because I kind of can't believe I'm saying this but he actually is helping the jazz win yeah jazz quietly are about as good as all of the second-tier teams we might talk about. If you're considering the Lakers, Clippers, bucks, and maybe Nets, and that first tier, the Jazz quietly are actually playing well in the first half of the season,

which is the first time that's happened in a couple of years. I love how Jordan Crawford, Jordan Crawford, wow. I always do this, Jamal Crawford, Jordan Crawford, Jordan Clarkson, it's all too similar. I just love that he's kind of this black sheep in Utah, too, where it's like they run this very Quinn Snyder precise system. It's all like

pounded in down low and all of a sudden you have this guy just like tattooed up and he comes in and he's just ready to rip shit up. He's kind of like the black sheep cousin

of the family and so for that I respect him. Yeah, it's really the perfect fit for him because they have so many guys who can run the offense

and defend. So like Rob was saying he's just been streamlined. Like they have Conley, Mitchell, Bogdanovich, Ingalls. Like all these guys can move the ball

and Clarkson doesn't have to do that. He can just move the ball into the basket, basically. I will say the one thing... That's what he does. The one thing I think to watch with him, and when you compare him to your Lou Williams, Jamal Crawford's types for regression,

is that he doesn't get to the line very often. For a guy who basically doesn't match the line, he's only getting 1.6 attempts per game. And presumably at some point he'll go through a cold streak shooting, whereas your Lou Williams, Jamal Crawfords, they always got the line in those moments, whereas Jordan Clarkson's kind of more of a peer are all or nothing player.

I think what makes me a little optimistic there is his finishing ability. And it's almost like, you know, do you prefer guys who get to the line versus guys who avoid contact kind of situation? And sometimes in the playoffs, it's helpful to have guys who don't rely on free throws at all. And of course,

those are lots of interesting test cases in the Jamal Crawford, Lou Williams mold in terms of playoff performance. But I do like that, you know, Clarkson can get to his spots pretty effectively, pretty consistently, finish over Biggs. like he has all those little tricks

you need to potentially be a pretty important postseason player. So who else is in this conversation? If we're saying that the guard has changed, Jordan, Jamal, Clarkson, Crawford is now at the head of the pack here. Are there any obvious names that are even in this conversation?

I was really straining to come up with guys because especially with lineups just flipping all over the place, all these COVID absences, whatnot. It's really hard to peg what is a six-man nowadays. Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing you have to figure out.

It was like, two guys, will they graduate from sixth man status? Karis Levert would have been in the running in Brooklyn. Now, whenever he does play in Vienna, presumably he'll be starting. And there's Michael Porter, who presumably will start. But Mike won a quote last night after Porter pretty much won the game by himself against Dallas. What do you basically say? Like, oh, it was Madhu starts, all who finishes, which is classic coach speak, but I'm not going to start the better player. Yeah, after Porter scored, what, it was 30 and 18, I think he had, and pretty much,

like willed the nuggets back into that game after Jamal Murray punched someone in the in the balls. It was just a wild game that poor really bailed them out of. Yeah, and I guess the other one. So there's one more OG in the sixth man race. That's Eric Gordon. So he's like been back and forth between starting and not with the hard and trade. But he's always kind of in the running. He's getting 18 a game.

And I think then after Clarkson, you kind of have your Terrence Ross, Alec, Alex Berks, Jeremy Lambs, your six, six corn guards. And I got a shout out. My guy from SMU, Shake Milton, he's not a great season. He's been awesome. I think there's some kind of under the radar candidates, too, guys who, like, I usually hear the Shake Milton types.

And for obvious reasons, I haven't heard a lot about, say, for example, Goran Dragich, because the heat haven't been very good. But when he's on the floor, they are good. You know, like those kinds of things jump out to me. Patty Mills is in that category, too, in terms of guys who just things happen when they're on the floor for their team.

And one six-man candidate, I'm kind of keep my eye on, is Jared Allen. Depending on what happens for him in Cleveland, I have no idea what their starting lineup is going to look like

by the end of the season, but we gravitate towards points per game with six man of the year. I think some of these bigs have a chance to get in this conversation too, including, you know,

Justin, a guy you have your eye on for most improved player. So I was going to bring to the table Chris Bouchet for most improved player, but that I started doing the research and then there's a guy I really can't ignore in this. and so I'm going to flip my pick here,

but I do want to talk about Boucher quickly because you're right. I think he's probably going to be in the running for both, but maybe he's more appropriate for six man the year at this point, especially if the raptors keep cycling through these, like show centers where the only player in Boushant's like 10 minutes, but then they give Boucher the line share of the minutes and this kind of small ball,

like he is the 3 and D5 sort of guy. He is really impressive. Not only is he a, three and D5, but he is a five that D's three's, like, better than most. Like, he does the Hakeem Warwick block in the corner of a three play, like, like, better than anyone in the league at this point. That's really the poster child for the corner three block is Akeem Warwick, you think? I think so. Probably the most memorable one.

Time off from college? Yeah. Rob doesn't watch college basketball, so he's nothing about it. It doesn't really exist to me. But Chris Boucher, leading the league in blocked threes this season. with nine players who are attempting threes against him so far are shooting 25% on those shots. Just crazy, crazy Pogo stick shit out there, you know?

Yeah, I think with Boucher, Toronto's kind of moving him around because they have all these really big bodied wings who can kind of shift up and guard bigger men. And then Boucher has this kind of mobility. So like Stanley Johnson has been rediscovered in Toronto this year, guarding fives. So that kind of is a thing to watch for them. Yeah, a real hero of the skinny guys

out there. All the string beans really have a guy that they could root for. It's him and Kevin Durant. But just he, in net rating for the Raptors, he was, for a while he was just blowing away. I think he was at like 12, which was far away the leader on that team. But now he's

second to Chris Pousche, excuse me, to Norm Powell among regulars at 3.6. I just think that he's like really come up and really making that signing over the offseason look really smart.

But it's probably a good way to transition into my other MIP candidate who is Jalen Brown, who I started looking into some of these numbers, and it is unreal the progress that he has made

not only from last season, but going back to his third season in the league. He was scoring when he was a junior in the NBA 13 points per game. Last season, he ups it to 20 points per game. And now he is seventh in the NBA at 27. seven points per game.

He is basically doubling his scoring in two years. That's unreal. And he's at the point where, I mean, for a while we just assumed Jason Taney would be far and away, the best player in that team. It's really kind of a two-guy team at this point. And I know we were talking about trading him earlier in the season,

maybe for James Harden, maybe to bring in somebody else. But, man, they really found something here. And this guy is just like on a rocket ship at this point. He's been great the whole way, but especially when Tatum has been out, has just been so essential in terms of the way he's creating offense.

And I wonder for you guys, do you think all of the COVID-related absences this season, which can stretch for weeks at a time, are going to do some wonky things to the most improved player race? Because guys are going to get high usage for a couple of weeks at a time, juice their numbers in a way that's going to look great at the end of the season. I'm very curious to see how that shakes out in the end and how we think about some of these guys who have a couple weeks of real spotlight while some of their superstar teammates are out. I do think Brown will be a guy. Even when Tatum came back last night, he still scored a lot. He's just,

he's just so good now. And I love this kind of award for MIP. I feel like sometimes you get MIP. I think Devante, like a guy who goes from not playing to playing gets it. And that's cool. But to go from like a good player to lose him at Star is a much more impressive accomplishment in my mind and much more meaningful. And what Jalen Brown is doing is just very meaningful. And like you said, Justin, it's really funny. I think he had 13 points a game last year or two years ago. And basically the last two years has been like a constant flood of guys leaving the Celtics. Because like Jalen Brown is coming. You need to get out of the way. Like, you're out of here. Well, to Rob's earlier point about maybe like having more of an opportunity, I think that that's a really good point because ultimately I think that's also the case people make for Sixth Man of the years.

Like I've always said Sixth Man is actually awarding a player's deficiencies because you are a score, but not elite enough and you don't do enough things in order to be able to play with the starters. And so we have to make this special exception for you to come off the bench and do your thing. We need to give you your time, like your, you know, the Bosch time, the child time where it's just like, oh, we got to, here you go. You could have this, but you can't have the actual adult time. You know, when Justin says child time, usually, that's saying something. I literally values that.

As I say, as a single man sitting in my apartment with my dog and my dog alone. But no, to the point to bring this into Jalen Brown, here are the players or among the players who are touching the ball more than Jalen Brown. Ricky Rubio, Lamello Ball, Tias Jones, and Elford Payton. And that was just like a small group of them. There were many more. He's on the second page if you're on the NBA.com stat site. I just think like

First of all I think like his three point numbers are through the roof as well he progressed from 34 to 38 to to 44% this season and maybe that comes down but I just think like he can score in a lot of different ways

and I think he's showing the total package right now did you all see the iconic meme he had at Ben Simmons he told him he was too short to guard him that was fantastic no I didn't know you saw that he's like too small I'm shooting over you

and he walked on the cord going too small that's great Well, I think he is making moves this year that he just was not capable of making a year ago. Just things on offense, whether it's little things with his handle, getting to positions that he wasn't able to get to before. You know, there was always a bit of a randomness to his game that made it really handy to have, but a little bit inaccessible when you need it, you know, coming up, especially that third year in the league. I think he's kind of made incremental progress. But this guy's a star, as he is now. Like, complete package as a player giving you everything you, you know.

need to potentially build around. So Boston's in a great place with both of those guys, but Jaylen's ascendance has been something to behold. It reminds me of Demarder Rosen a bit in terms of improving your skill set every year. Coming to the league is basically just a raw athlete and every year come back with something new. And that's just really impressive. Now, the other argument against someone giving it to someone like Brown, because typically,

I think it goes to people of his basic outline where it's a good player who reaches another level. Typically, they up their scoring to a point where we start to respect them among the all-star range of players. Janice, Kevin Love, those types of guys, Victorola Depot. The case against him, which I think is a convincing one, is that he was the number three pick in the draft. And is giving to high draft picks, is it just awarding typical progression for some of the elite players in the league? Are we really honoring most improved? Or are we just giving it to guys who were just getting to where we assume that they would go, which gets into this really, I guess,

tangly conversation about expectations and how much they factor in there. But, like, honestly, that affects literally everything we do, especially awards. But does that really matter so much in year five of a guy's career? Like, I think that argument is persuasive for, like, the year one to two or two to three jump, but we're pretty deep into this now with Jalen Brown. And he was a certain kind of player for several years,

and now he's a totally different one. Yeah, I guess you could book it that the other way, though, and be like, oh, it took him five years, not three or four years to get to this point. But I think the last thing you said is really important. He's a different kind of player. And that to me is the spirit of the world. Here are a couple other guys I wrote down.

Bam out of bio. Colin Sexton, similar thing, though, third year guy who is just scoring at a really high rate charts wrote about him on the site on Monday. Jeremy Grant, again, a guy who... We have to talk about him in every podcast. I'm glad they got him in the mention. So there you go.

Great. Great. And then the flip side of the Jeremy Grant side and Christian Wood, who has improved from 13 and 6 to 24 and 11 right now. Another guy who is probably getting more opportunity just because of the weirdness going on with this team and probably hasn't played as many games as some of these other guys. But I also think he's completely discounted because he got like 10 to 15 games at the end of last season after the Andre Drummond trade. And then everybody, including the ringer, multiple times, wrote about how he's just this undervalued. superstar. Now we're at the point where I don't think people think he's made this giant leap. He's improved a ton because we've already kind of done that when in actuality he's making a giant leap and actually becoming an all star before our eyes when he was just a journeyman on the

fringes of the league. To me, this is like a prime example of someone who fits the spirit of this award. Does he? Is he a better player than he was? Or was he just not playing? See, that's why I think with Boucher, too, it's like you'll get his per minute averages. Like, you finally got some minutes. Well, with Boucher, though, like, he was kind of blocking himself from getting more minutes. Like, he had to learn how to rein in his fouls and be a more controlled player to just stay on the floor a little bit. Right. That's an interesting point because this is the Hollinger thing, right?

If you're a per minute god and you just get those minutes, like, is this more of a coaching failure? You know what I mean? by not recognizing the value in some of these players by giving them more minutes. Boucher is a different case because of the files. They literally could not keep him on the floor. But maybe Wood should have been playing ahead of Andre Drummond. Maybe he should have gotten the Jared Allen treatment

that he's getting in Cleveland right now where he's basically splitting minutes with Drummond as opposed to just like getting the garbage time. The fun one with this conversation is what side of this is Jeremy Grant on? How long has he been a player who could do this and who missed it? When did that happen? I have no idea.

I certainly didn't think he was capable of scoring in this way. And most importantly, maintaining pretty much the exact efficiency he was putting up before in a much smaller role, now stretched his usage to the limit while also playing really high-level defense. It just happens to be for a team that's not any good. Jeremy Grant's award is that he gets paid a shit load of money. He doesn't get anything else.

A team is terrible. I'm happy that he gets his spotlight. The Justin Ferry Award we call that. We're putting a salary cap on most improved player. You have to be below this level to win this award. I want to real quick before we move on. I got to give a quick shout out to Bam. I think now Bam's a guy, Miami's been really bad this year.

They've had a ton of COVID injuries. And he's made a couple of really major leaps that's not really been talked about too much. So here's a number for you guys. Care to guess what percentage Bam is as an isolation score this season? Oh, percentile. I already know the answer because you put this in our slides.

Rob, go ahead. Rob, go ahead and guess this number. I'm going to guess he's like, based on the fact that I'm supposed to be surprised by this, I'm going to guess he's like high 70s, low 80s percentile. Okay, prepare to be surprised. He is 97th percentile. On a pretty healthy number of attempts. I mean, basically, BAM is knocking down perimeter jumpers now. And now it's like, okay, if BAM can make 20 footers, you're helpless, right? Because if you press him up, he'll go right by you.

And now if you play off, you can knock the shot down. I think that can change Miami's whole outlook going forward if Bam is this kind of player. That mid-range is looking really nice for him. Yeah. The other guy I would bring up just briefly is Bam before Bam, Julius Randall. I guess Bam, if he only focused on offense and no defense. Here's a case of the guy who's the opposite of Jalen Brown, touching the ball more than Damien Lillard right now. The offense is flowing through our guy Julius Randall.

and some of the numbers have dropped recently, but man, he deserves something for just, like, giving the Knicks something to share about. Like, what a turnaround for this guy. So on this podcast, we've compared Julius Randall to both Jordan, Justin, you've infected my brain.

Jamal Crawford and Bam out of bio, which is strangely kind of right. Yeah. He's bowling ball Jordan Crawford. You did it again. No, I did it. God damn. All right, just go to defensive player.

So, you know, I was thinking about a defensive player the year. I think, I was think there's a little bit of inertia in getting new blood into awards voting, specifically with this category and MVP. So I think it's important that we start talking early in the hopes that we can gradually get our listeners used to the idea that Miles Turner has been the best defensive player in the NBA this season. Yeah, he's good again. He's good again. I think the Pacers have had to be. a pretty complicated season to parse defensively. They've kind of leveled out to being a kind of

of a mediocre defense overall, but they run a lot of inventive stuff, a lot of variable systems, a lot of different kinds of coverage. The one constant is that when Miles Turner's on the floor, they are outstanding, completely great defense, in part because he's been so great at managing all the gray areas of coverage, all the things in between showing out on the perimeter, covering space, getting back to the rim, where he's been the best room protector in the NBA to this point. And credit to Nate Bjorkren, too, for finding lots of ways to utilize Turner creatively and to use him as really the fulcrum of what they're doing. But as it stands right now, Turner's on pace for one of the highest block rates in NBA history. I mean, we're talking the sort of rim protection

numbers that would make Tom Tibido hyperventilate, like contesting twice as many shots around the rim as pretty much anybody else. I'm sorry, contesting about as many shots around the rim as anyone else and blocking twice as many of those shots. Like, I think there are lots of compelling, candidates for this award, but to me, he's edging them out just on the sheer volume of shots he's able to affect at and around the basket right now. I mean, it's noticeable. Like, when he's not in the game and it's just a bonus at the rim, and it's like, oh, yeah, it's pretty easy to score against the Indiana.

Like, there's just this, you can just feel the absence of Turner on the floor when he's not in there. He's got a broken bone in his shooting hand, which, like, the jokes just write themselves, considering some of his past shooting numbers. like he's doing all of this with one hand. Like how many guys were just like knocking his toughness and his ability to just play with some of the bigger bodies in the league after the last postseason?

And he's playing with a broken bone. He's playing basketball where you use your hands constantly with a broken bone in his hand. That's unreal. And he's leading the leading blocks. I mean, he deserves all of the awards for me. Well,

I think the other thing too with him is that all of these are early returns. And so you have some potential to, for some of his outrageous stats, to come down. But he's undergone more change with the Pacers schematically than any of the other kind of serious candidates

for this award. You know, when you think about Joelle Embed, Rudy Gobert, Anthony Davis, I think those are the other three big names

kind of in the running with Turner right now. All those three guys are running more or less the same defensive systems they always have. The Pacers are throwing out totally different stuff

and often totally different stuff from the first quarter to the second to that weird run in the third quarter where they, you know, try something new. The experimentation there, I think,

is critical in terms of we're just seeing what Turner looks like, you know, on the fly. He hasn't really gotten his feet under him yet. He had a great quote last night, which I fully endorse. They're asking about like what's changed from this season. He says, I'm a lot more relaxed. I just don't care if people think anymore. I was so worried about what the media had to say, analysts, other players. And as someone who's into quote unquote media and as a quote unquote analyst,

please do not worry what I have to say. And that was, that's probably made him 10% better right there. So, Rob, everyone you mentioned as a potential candidate here, all big men, all rim protectors, is there ever going to be a prumer defender who wins this war again? Because it seems pretty tough these days. I think it's just getting harder and harder. You know, weirdly, the NBA used to be such a big man-dominated league. And so naturally people looked at, oh, who are the counterparts to that? Who are the guys who are defending the Shaquille O'Neals of the world? Who are guys, you know, defending the Tim Dunkins and Kevin Garnett's of the world? Now it's just so much that,

The key to every team defense is a big's ability to rotate. And if you can't do that, or if you're a wing who's just kind of chipping in and contributing and rotating and doing your part, it's hard to measure up with a guy like Turner who's, you know, you can watch a play and he's involved in four different actions on that play. Yeah. It really speaks to Kauai's greatness that he won two of these awards. When basically since the turn of the millennium, non-centers have been Kauai, Kauai and Ron Artesse. That's the entire list. What if we split the award?

What if it was rim protector and wing defender? This is the least interesting awards split that you could possibly come up with. But just for the sake of conversation, who is, like, who holds a title belt for wing defenders in the NBA right now? You know, you were so against the kids table a second ago for six men of the year. Now you're creating a new kid's table for perimeter defenders out here. I mean, isn't it called the all defense team, right? Like they split it five ways, first team all defense.

That ultimately just becomes. like guys who people recognize. Wasn't Eric Bledso first team all defense last year? Eric Blitz is a great defender. Yeah, he's talking about. He's good. People that come to mind, Drew Holiday,

although the Buc's defense is actually worse this year than it was in years past. Well, I mean, Ben Simmons, obviously. Oh, Ben Simmons is a great one. Yeah. He, I mean, speaking about Jeremy Grant, like he demolished Jeremy Grant a couple games ago. I think held him like three of 19 shooting. is pretty impressive.

Yeah, and then Jeremy Grant came back and just torched the Sixers last night. Well, Simmons was with a foul trouble, so that's what happened. Just to clarify, we were looking for perimeter small guys and we picked Ben Simmons. That was our first pick as a perimeter small guy.

Wing defenders. Like your stoppers. So you're six, seven, six, eight guys then close to your guard defenders. So I guess we need three awards here. That's why I'm saying it's called five awards. It's called a team. It sounds like we're,

yeah, we just created the first. team all defense. This is like a couple of tech bros sitting around accidentally creating the library all of a sudden. Sure. All right. What about among the rim protectors? Anybody who's in Turner's category? What would your top three look like right now? Would it be Gobert and maybe AD?

Yeah, I think Gobert would be my number two. I mean, that's a tough line to parse between him and Turner just because in particular, the jazz have been so effective against some of the better offenses in the NBA. He's been sensational. Number three, I think I would probably go AD over Embed, but it would be pretty close. See, I wonder, like, for me, conceptually, I feel like AD's flex,

if I'm just actually ranking the best defenders, I'm going to want AD for his flexibility, as opposed to Turner or Gobert, even in Bede. Like, I just know if I have AD, I can run any defensive scheme at the pick and roll, whereas the other guys, you're a little more traditional. And maybe the numbers don't, and the regress isn't kind of play it out. But I know in the playoffs, if I want to have a defense, I want AD number. one. That's who I go with, even though a third season award.

So there's one player in the NBA who averages 25 minutes or more who has a better defensive rating than Rudy Gobert. Can you guys guess who it is? Mike Conley? It is Mike Conley. Wow, that's great. Now, maybe it's because

he plays most of his minutes. I was just going to say. With Rudy Gobert. But it is wild. Like, I shared to brought him up for most improved player, too, just considering the Oh, come on. That's not Most Improved.

That's a slap in the face. Come on. So a guy in his 30s, you have most improved. He couldn't pass it to a big man who can't shoot, and now he can. And all of a sudden, he has improved his game. But yeah, not only that, but net rating among that group of players, 17.8, which also leads all of them. Mike Conley, maybe he's back. Oh, he's totally back.

In the spirit of making up awards, he'd be like the most regressed. to the mean award. Like, we assumed he'd be better, he has been. Okay. He was pretty bad last year. I got to say, I don't know if this is regression. I think this is actual just like assimilating to surroundings. Yeah, adaptation.

To amend the record a little bit. He was good in the bubble and going into the playoffs, not so great before that. I think he kind of came on stronger late. Oh, so we're cool with the bubble small sample, but not the small sample of an entire season. I'm just saying he wasn't bad the whole. whole time. The most recent thing we saw of Mike Conley before the season was nearly hitting a series winning three

in the first round to keep the jazz in it. I think he had a pretty good run there. That's a good place to end it. We will be back next week. Same time. Same place. Same podcast feed. Same crew. Until then, we'll see it.