The Ringer NBA Show - Which MVP Candidate Is Depended on the Most by Their Team? | The Answer

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

Kyle and Seerat get together to discuss the NBA MVP award and begin their conversation by examining the meaning of the trophy in relation to a team’s success. This leads to an extensive conversation about the three leading candidates in this year's race: Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. They dive deep into the individual stats for each, determine how far they can take their squads in the playoffs, and compare these current contenders to significant MVP races in past seasons (16:32). Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Seerat Sohi Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Production Supervision: Benjamin Cruz and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mac Jones is ripped. Matt Patricia's calling plays. The Celtics are title favorites. And The Ringer has a new Boston show. I'm Brian Barrett, host of Off the Pike, the show covering all things Boston sports. I'll have shows multiple times a week covering your favorite teams and with your favorite ringer and local guests.

Plus, maybe Bill will stop by to rant about the socks. Follow off the pike with me, Brian Barrett, now on Spotify. I've always kind of wondered what would happen if I just screamed it at the top. You know, folks. Folks basketball, as you know. I'm sure you're aware. You're here. So I assume that you think and believe this with your whole heart. Or if you're new to basketball, let me convince you why basketball is so very good. Hopefully over the course of this conversation will do that. This is the answer. My name is J. Kyle Mann. I'm joined by the poet laureate of Edmonton, Siritt Sohey. She's kind of hard to know where in the world she is at any given time. She's always on a plane. She's always a plane on one of those maps, just sort of like going, traversing countryside. and in all kinds of geography.

But Syria, you're not at home. Where are you right now? What are you doing? It looks like you're in unfamiliar territory. You know, live from Philadelphia, here to bring you Joel M.B. propaganda. I'm kind of like, I'm just no fixed address at this point. And if this is the first basketball podcast you're ever listening to, boy, you're in for one today.

It's a good one. We're going to talk about MVP. So I think I'm in the right location. Did you fly to Philadelphia? Are you that method that you flew to Philadelphia just to get into, did you, were you like down on, Were you boots on the ground, like elbowing people? I have been trolling people on Twitter. I sat down for an interview with GQ, actually, and I told the interviewer that I had wrestled a lion with my bare hands and he believed me.

So, yeah, I'm in my, I'm in my Joel Embed big right now. I've actually been training with Drew Hanlon working on my mid-range game. So, yeah, you know, ask me anything about Joelle and I'll be ready to go. I might try to pull out an impersonation at some point today, although I'm not quite there yet, and I do, I do have great respect for the craft. So we're going to see. Well, it's inspiring to me that not only would you go there. I thought you were just going to, like, gather intel, but it sounds like you were like fully embracing like the Philly, you know, the Liberty, you know, the brother, the city of brotherly love that you were like getting into sort of their, their angst and their energy and their, well, they actually, they make you do this when you move to America. You actually have to go to Philadelphia. Oh, really? At one point, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not enough for America to be the center of the universe.

You got to go to the birthplace and you got to check out all the sites. And then they kind of give you a stamp and you're like, okay, well, you can stay. I might have to do a test after, but we'll see. Yeah, you'll pass with flying colors. I'm sure you're very adaptable. As are these players. Are you, I was curious here whenever you get, I mean, are you one of those people that like when you are wheels down in a new place?

Are you like, I got to like, I got to go sip the local fair. I got to like go get something. I got to, you know, or do you hole up and just kind of like to the, are you kind of a real professional? Like I'm, you know, straight to the arena, straight back. I do my business back on the plane, you know. I'm just curious what your regimen's like quickly before we get there. It totally depends on the trip and it depends on my energy levels.

But like when in Philadelphia, one has to have a cheese stick. I'd also, anybody that's in Philadelphia, like, please, please tell me things to do. I'm in a cool neighborhood. I might go for a walk later. nice out and then just kind of see where I find myself. But the architecture here is really nice. So maybe I actually, you know, I joke, but I really am kind of enough for American history and all that stuff. So Philly, I'm not here for that long. It's already got got, got, I've already got plenty to do. It's, it's, it's, I've never actually spent that much time

here. The last time I was in, uh, it was here in, I think it was 2017. What was the year that Deon Waiter signed that ridiculous contract with the Miami Heat? I was supposed to write a profile of him and go straight to Miami to write the profile about him. And it was right before training camp. And it was all kind of about how he started to really take things more seriously. Right. But then in the last minute, he decided that the week before training camp, he just wanted to have like one more weekend in Philadelphia to party.

So then... As one does. Exactly. Exactly. So I had my flight book and everything. But then they flew me to Philadelphia instead to do the interview. And then to Miami for training camp after. good old Dion Waiters.

He was a cool guy. Sounds like a fun ride. He seems like he'd be really fun hang. He does. He does. He does. I mean, he is inspired. Are you about to say this season has been a fun hang?

No, I was going to say a fun ride. But, you know, like, waiters. I mean, yeah, he inspired sort of a whole sort of ethos, pathos, whatever you want to call it. Like for the, I mean, the ringer specifically, we'd just been like energy in a small dose that is like irrational in life. He's inspired a whole kind of a mind. set. But no, I mean, like this, the past few seasons, I know we're joking about like the way that, you know, there's, there is a sort of energy that has been strong lately, I feel like, you know, the Philadelphians are out there defending their boy. You know, Mori's been very talkative about it.

He's been kind of sliding his, his sort of, his information out there, his, his propaganda. This season has been sort of a repeat of the past two or three seasons, I guess going back to the first MVP that, and these guys have all kind of been on a similar path. You know, Yokic comes into the league in 14 and, and, you know, Yonis comes in in 13, and Embed comes in 14. So these guys have kind of been on parallel tracks. They've matured into like title winning era, you know, that part of a player's career, which I guess we could probably agree is somewhere in that like 25 to 28 range typically for most players. Some players are ahead of it and they get on it earlier. But we've kind of watch these guys mature together and as a result we have debated them in clusters together.

And the guys that I'm talking about, of course, are Nicola Yokic, who is trying to vie and win his third MVP and Joel Embed. He is trying to secure, it be his first if I'm not losing my mind. And then Yannis, who's also one one. So we're kind of debating these guys against each other. And I feel like, I feel like these guys are sort of sides of a coin and we can get into more of that in a bit. But overall, you know, every single year, this, this discussion sort of shores up whether we realize it or not, sort of the nature of what this award even means. And kind of going to, going back through history, you know, that has sort of revealed itself. You know, there's like all kinds of things that come into play, like voter fatigue, like,

which is a real thing. Would you say that's the biggest weighing sort of thing over this? Because if it were true every single year that, I don't know, do you think voter fatigue is the biggest sort of narrative hanging over this? What do you think? I just love the phrase voter fatigue. As though voting and voting in this process is like the most exhausting thing

that one could ever do. The discussion can be exhausting. The discussion is exhausting. The discussion is exhausting. And I think actually before we. even get into any of the MVP stuff, I would love to balance things out with a little bit of toxic positivity. And just say really nice things about all of these guys, you know?

That's allowed. Yeah. That's a lot. Because we're going to be talking about flaws. And we would we, because we have to because we're comparing three of the best players in the NBA. But just to put these in the context of these guys are the top 1%. If you're a fan of either of these guys, if they're on your team, you're incredibly lucky. And you would be crazy not to be crazy for them and be like, you know,

annoying every NBA voter analyst, anybody who speaks up against your guy. Like, I love that energy. You should be, you should be doing that because these guys are awesome. All, by the way, all international players. Yeah. Shout out to the immigrants, as always. Three of the funniest guys in the league. In their own way.

ways in their own unique ways. I feel like Joelle, people have soured on his personality a little bit. Don't love that he's such a jokester, especially early on. I think people only like it when you're funny after you've won something, which is super annoying. If you're like that, just turn this podcast off. Like, I don't know. I'm just like, I would rather just go for specific. You know, I think we should just aim for a niche that.

likes us. You know, in this, in this era of micro-influencing, I think, I think we can go in that direction and be very successful. Um, good note. Joella's, Joel is hilarious. I think he's also, I love, I've always loved his attitude, um, just the way that he's been able to embrace Philadelphia, Philly fans for all that they are. He's got, he's got some great. He's got some toughness. And he just doesn't take things personally. I think, like, go back to how well he got a along with Jimmy Butler. Whereas, you know, there are some, some big man in the league have not fared so well, have not fared so well in that fire.

And, you know, different strokes for different folks. That's fine. But just, just putting that out there. He's got some, he's got some A-hole energy, you know. He's like, definitely, you know, he's talked about, he's talking, he's talked about picking on T.J. McConnell and trying to make him cry. He's talked about, he just, he has some of that, he has some of that, like, I want to humiliate you energy, which Janus also has. I feel like they, they are sort of closer together

in their, like, in their approach and their personality. Janus is a little bit more. He has that like meekness where he's like, oh, you know, but then he'll, he'll like very, very aggressively, big wife guy, he'll flirt with her in ways where you're like, this boy is wild. And then, but then Yokic is the flip side where his like reservedness and his sarcasm and dryness is what makes him funny, which kind of, I always think I have this theory that like your personality,

like your style of play really does come out in your personality. I've always thought that, or like reverse it the other way. I mean, like I feel like your character as a person is often reflected in how you play as a basketball player. What do you think?

Yokic wants absolutely zero attention at all times. One of the funniest things he said this year was during his all-star interview where he said that he didn't want to win the MVP, and that made people want to vote for him, which is just such a hilariously Americans hating their own ethic of self-obsession thing right there. It's the John Snow, the unwilling king, right?

Yeah. You want to make him king because he doesn't want it. Then he says this year he's going to say he wants the MVP so that people don't vote for him, but that that isn't working either. and Yokish just wants to be left alone. I love that he eats microphones. I think Yokoch is kind of like,

Yokic is just kind of like the office. And like, Joelle Embedith is kind of like impractical jokers. Actually, Janice is more like impractical jokers. Just lacks a certain nuance with his humor. More dad jokes. But you still appreciate it for what it is.

It's, and much like his play style, just aggressive, straight to the rim. No nuance. Yeah. No mid-range. No moves. just and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. He is moves. I guess it's sort of his, yeah, his, his around the basket craft, which is something that we could, you know, definitely get into in parse here in a minute. Anytime anybody uses the word parse,

you know, some great, something great is coming, right? Um, anytime that word comes out of my mouth, I'm like, yeah, Kyle, really selling it. Um, so, yeah, we love these guys' personalities. And they're all bigs. That's the other thing, too. And, you know, I know you and I've kind of talked about how like the positionless thing is is right up our alley to the discussion about that. And I've had conversations with people about that. I personally don't have a problem with the positionless thing going away. You know, big people in a game that was designed, you know, where a ball is supposed to go in a basket and that basket is 10 foot high, 10 feet high. The tall players were always going to have an advantage. And we find ourselves in a position

where these guys are all three sort of, again, like their personalities, they are kind of sides of a coin in terms of their approach and their play style despite them being big. I mean, like, you know, Yokic and Embed obviously are like kind of true fives. I know I just said the positionless thing, but they are top of the food chain in terms of like physicality and like presence near the rim and things like that. I feel like you could kind of debate. There is sort of a debate, and I want to get into this before we just start, you know, throwing catch-all stats at each other, which we can do. I know that for some people, that's what the MVP vote is. They're just like, okay, well, these metrics that we created and in some, and in some situations to kind of confirm our own bias,

where we'll like, you know, I've never created a metric, but I'm sure some of it is like, well, I need this to match. How else you created other than to like match what your eyes see, right? Because you can't, because if you didn't match what your eye see and it came back, you were like, well, this mathematically makes sense to me. If it came back and told you like, oh, hey, Will Barton's the best player in the NBA. You'd be like, well, this is incorrect. So I'm sure some of that is in there. I don't know. What do you think about the catch-all metric approach to this conversation? I just love you going QA& on advanced analytics here. I never thought I'd see this turn from you. It is not what I just did.

Just don't strike me as that type of. Kyle, lean into it. Don't, you know, just it's all good. It's all good. It's all good. It is. The NBA season is coming down to the wire and now is the perfect time to download Fandul, America's number one sports book,

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Let's just start with, like, value. The simple question, what does it mean? You talked to, you made an interesting point about. like the dependency on a certain player which which let's just start there which which which player in this conversation do you think is the most depended on for their team to be good because all three of these guys are on good teams you know the bucks bucks are 56 and 22 the sixers are 51 and 27 and the the nuggets are 52 and 26 very close almost lockstep records these are all good teams but which of these players do you think is like depended on the most of these three yeah all three

these guys could win a championship at the end of the year which makes this really too. Well, first, let's talk a little bit about the whole dependency thing. There are a lot of different ways to assess MVP. That's one thing we've been doing in this series, is talking about different definitions for the award. The dependency thing is just essentially looking at the valuable and most valuable player and following that above all else.

It's essentially awarding the player who does the most for his team and without whom the team would probably be lost on an island somewhere stranded, like just doesn't have a lot else going on. I think in the era of heliocentrism, this has become a more common way of looking at this award to, just one player who can do pretty much everything for a team. That also tends to be at this point what we value from superstars. There's a point where, you know, Luca Donchich,

like in November was probably the frontrunner for this award alongside Jason Tatum. Now, those guys, different roles for their teams, for sure. But I think Luca kind of embodies that. I think the advanced stats, which, you know, you've been kind of hinting at, point to Yokic being that guy. And I think that's probably fair, just because of his playmaking, the way he makes everyone on that team just,

he makes some players a little bit better. He makes some players a lot of it better. He turns Aaron Gordon into a borderline all-star. He turns Michael Porter Jr. into a passable, a passable shooter, um, despite his shot selection,

which is a very difficult thing. He's a very good shooter. He's a very good shooter. He's a very good shooter. He turns him into an efficient shooter despite his shot selection, which if you have seen Michael Porter Jr. shot selection at times, man,

like, Yoko is just doing some heavy lifting there. You know, I think you could give him the award based on that alone. Um, he assists Murray on a three-pointer game. Michael Porter Jr. on a three-pointer game and KCP too. And I think this is another reason that the advanced stats love him. He's so good at finding players for three. It's not just a playmaking,

but it's a shot set he finds guys for. I'm pulling out the abacus here. So it's none of that advanced stuff that you don't like just some straight, simple math. Is that, does that cool with you? That'll do. Yeah, I just don't want any of the fake news, you know. Okay. All right. All right. So Yokic, you combine his 24.9 points per game average. He also creates 24.7 points from assists. Which is ridiculous. Which is just ridiculous. Yeah, let's just pause there.

We're just laughing. It's not that he just hits the open man, too. It's like he manipulates and creates angles that would not exist for anyone else. Like he finds lanes that just aren't there. I think you've got to get used to playing with him for a while. So he generates almost 50 points per game. Yonis, 31 plus 11, is that 42.1. Embedd, this is where, you know, things kind of turn for our guy from Philly here.

33.2 points per game plus 6.4 points from assists. That is very low. That is very low. So he generates, despite being the most, skilled score on this list, right? Despite being the most skilled score on this list, I think you can make you can make an argument for Yokic. I think that's the thing. Once you, and this is getting into the hypothetical and the abstract, and we could just say, Yokic has the ball in his hands way more, just because he basically functions as a point guard in the way that Embed doesn't. And Embed

is playing with a true, another facilitator, a full-time facilitator. I mean, Yokic, per 100, to 141 touches per game, Mb to 102, and Yonis splits the difference there almost at 114. But this is what's tough, is that we're sort of, we're going from A to B, and for one player, A to B is this aesthetically pleasing. It reminds me of, I was just like revisiting, actually, like, in the history of the MVPs, there have been a lot of, like, years, I know where, like, we disagree about like the or we look back in retrospect and we were like hey we got that wrong and one of them was uh west unseld which was like a thing like he had this very aesthetically pleasing way that he played um and people enjoyed um west unselled another a louisvilleian uh but he

he had this like pleasing way that he played but like i i feel like there's a similar way thing that's going on between yokech and imbid where we ding imbiz passing but imbiz like rim pressure and like physical, you know, our buddy Mike Pina wrote about this on the ringer wrote a really good piece about his passing evolution. He's never going to be the passer that Yokic is. But Yokic is never going to be the downhill force that Embed is. You know, and if you think about like the sort of carnage and the frustration that his free throw generating causes, you know, Janus and Embed are closer together in terms of their like free throw generation. You know, Janus is at 12.2 and Embed is at 11.8. Yokic isn't aggressive like that, but is that a knock against him? You know, it's like just because they're not aesthetically pleasing in the same way, I don't know. I feel like we, you know, they're sort of making up for a little bit of the distance

between like the offense that generated, not quite as much. But that seems like a thing that people really key in on, don't you think? Well, my, my issue here is not aesthetic. I don't care how many times Joelle and B gets the line. I also find him incredible. fun to watch. He is truly one of the more entertaining scores in the league. He's incredibly creative.

When he gets, you know, I have a weird relationship with when he gets triple team because I'm always a little bit like, well, how is he going to get his way out of this one, you know? Is it going to be a past fake this time? Like, what kind of, is he going to just pump fake and find a different angle to shoot

a MIDI from? Is he going to pump and spin? Like, there are so, he has so many different things in his bag and it's really fun to watch. I've never really gotten with the idea that he's not fun to watch. I get that it slows the game down, obviously. Yes, that's part of it. Can I clarify what I meant, I guess, more?

I think more what I'm saying is I feel like Yokic is at the heart of this purism, I think, that people talk about the game where they think about, like, I always talk about touch time with Yokic. I talk about how he touched it more, but he touches it in shorter bursts. And he's more of a, when you think about valuable players that you build your team around, heliocentrism is a way to put it. I was like saying some players are conduits and some players are like power sources, like every, all their batteries basically for their, for their offense.

I feel like Yokic is more, should we, I guess just should we fault in Bede for the fact that he has this aggressive lean towards scoring whereas Yokch doesn't. I see. So like are we biased towards the beautiful game? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm asking.

I think we are. I think me and you specifically are. A lot of writers are, if we're being fair. If we're being fair. I think that's fair, though. I think that that wins more often than the other style wins. You know, I think there's a reason that the Warriors are like the dynasty of our era, you know? Yeah, but I think that excludes a lot of the conditions that come along with that and the fact that like the roster building that has to come with that. like, you know, Janus has a title. There's condition, you know, you mentioned the Warriors.

Like, just mentioning the beautiful game part of the Warriors excludes a whole important part of that roster build, which was the incredible effort that had to go into supporting stuff defensively, which is another part of this. Right. It is beautiful. We don't doubt that Yokic can score. We don't doubt that he's going to be able to pick defense as a party. He's seen them all. He knows them all.

He welcomes them. He welcomes double teams with a handshake and a high five. He's like, cool. I love it. Double team me. But, you know, the fact that, like, I feel like they've had to really go above and beyond to support him defensively. And that's an important part of this. You know, the beautiful game alone is not the whole story.

No, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, let's talk about that. I think so both of these players and beating Yokic, we'll talk about Janice later, but beating Yokic, I think, two defining flaws in their game that have also defined the roster construction around them. And I think the tendency with Mbid is to not see this as a flaw,

at least until recently, just how slow and methodical he plays. In a game, in an Eastern Conference, which by the way, they just played the Bucks on the weekend, and I think that game goes a lot differently differently if every time, you know, the bucks get a switch, they, the sixers don't dribble twice and do nothing before passing to the guy with a mismatch. Like that would just, I don't know. That just seems like a good idea to me. You're punting your geometry advantage. Yeah. I mean, we talked about this earlier in the year that this was the issue with them.

But they have some of the power of will scores that can kind of push through that that, you know, Denver doesn't necessarily have as much. they have more like finesse kind of scores. Honestly, all, like, I don't know. They move faster and just like on the Philadelphia point for a second and on Embedd's style in his playmaking and also Harden style in his playmaking, I think that it just doesn't maximize Embedd's MVP case and his scoring. And just the level of gravity that he is able to create by just being such a, threat, he has turned himself into an impossible score and he's not getting the most out of it

just because he doesn't take the playmaking part of the game seriously enough. Like one thing from Pina's article. When Embedd is doubled in the post, Philly's offense musters only a hundred and two 110.2 points per 100 possessions overall this season. When Embedat passes out of a double team in the post, he generates 1.28 points per possession. One of those is better than the other, significantly. And I've heard Mbid's sort of philosophy on this. He likes being a scorer.

He doesn't really love the idea that he can't make plays. He says that they have a guy named James Hardin on their team, which is a totally fair point if you're just going to go by the raw assist numbers. But that's not necessarily what I'm that interested in here. Because regardless of whether he says that, or whether Hardin is on the floor to create plays, The truth is Embed is just garnering far more attention than Hardin is at this point in his career, and he is the focal point of the offense.

And being able to make plays and be, like, a lubricant at the center position is so incredibly valuable. And when he does it, the Sixers are just a different team. They're a much more difficult team to be. And, you know, it's just when he's, when he's off the full, floor, Philly gets 34.8% of their points from three, and that is like the highest on and off difference on their team. And it's like, and if you, it's like, it's like the highest amongst the starters as well. So it's just, I don't know. That part of it, it's, it's kind of funny, you know, hearing like that he is employed by Daryl Morey of all people. And I know Daryl's advocating

for him. But I also, like, there is a part of me that has, that wonder is that like when Embed shoots over a triple team from the midrange, not to say that he can't, not that he can see over everybody and he is still very efficient from that area. He's much more efficient than most of the league. It's still a worse shot than just passing to PJ Tucker in the corner for three. And that's especially true on a Philly team that is the most accurate team from three in the NBA. It's not like they don't have shooters. And in order to even shoot in order to even be and then not everything is about numbers but like a lot of things are um in order to even be as efficient from midrange as an average three point shooter you have to shoot 55% from midrange

nobody shoots 55% from mid range kevin derrick comes close that that's one person and he's an alien right yeah sure yeah yeah kevin durant chris milton you know there's a few guys but also Camderat shoots a ton of threes. So it's Chris Milton. So like, they're still like, so a full awareness of what the better shot is. You need the mid-range. You need it in the playoffs especially.

You need it to be a creative, offensive player. And Joel Embed is all of those things. And the only thing that is stopping me from making him like the runaway MVP this year is that he just doesn't pass enough. That's the only thing for me. Yeah, I think,

but it's, it's a balance between, you know, when I, when I mentioned the thing about the ugly, it's just sometimes when he, like, you know, he tries to just bludgeon, you know, those double teams because he's so powerful and he's so agile. I mean, like, he, his agility for his strength and size is really only rivaled by, I mean, like, his, like, his, like, his, like, his, like, just how big he is, really, it's only rivaled by, like, Zion, honestly, in terms of, like, his, is, people say ballerina. He just has, like, this bear. He's, like, the cocaine bear on court. Like he has this like no one is as big as he's like a grizzly like it's insane. You know,

whenever you see like a grizzly climb a tree and like get out on a limb, you're like, how is it doing? Like that's kind of how that's kind of how Embed is. But you know, when we see him go to the basket, he's one of the people that's like uniquely qualified to like just gracefully, you know, work his way through double teams. And sometimes those plays are ugly. But like the plays that you're talking about like shooting over shooting over extra defenders and things like that. Those are the things we just don't really see Yokic doing, which is like eliminating wastefulness. And comparing them as as passers at this point is maybe belaboring a point that doesn't need to be. But if you just watch in a way to sort of like put another check in Yokic's box, I guess, if we're going to do that.

I don't think M. B needs to be the pastor that Yokic is. That is just an unfair standard to hold him to. Yeah. I just need him to be the pastor that he can be. Which is, which if we look at some of the things that Yokic does. Maybe that gives us a window into that. And like, so like, if you just, if you watch Yokas read double teams, he just is sort of, there, there are just very few people. I mean, I think we're talking about like LeBron. We're talking about Luka. It's a very short list of players who have the physical presence to create these scenarios of like high posts, turns his butt to like the corner and, and the basket sort of behind him. And he's like seeing the floor. Yokic is amazing. I was like just watching some of his double team footage where he passed out where

It was like, he can just turn his head and quickly take a picture of where the help is, take a picture of where his cutter is. And he's like, this is the thing that I think Embed is less willing to do. Maybe because he just leans so scoring-wise. Maybe he's just choosing to do it because he has a reason not to. I don't know. But Yokic, he really, really weaponizes people moving towards him. Like, he passes the ball when people are moving towards them.

He does not wait until the defense is set or, like, people are standing still. He doesn't give that second defender on the weak side a chance to guard two people. He wants to put stress on them. And he makes those plays when they need to be made. And that's the kind of thing that, like, I even feel like I always said this, Philly Man got mad at me because I criticized him for this reason. But I just say, like, even when he keeps it simple, he just keeps his life simple. And he does do this just not all the time.

You know, like he sees the helper coming. And maybe he doesn't make like the manipulative skip pass, but he makes the easy pass to the top of the key. And then it's swing, swing, pump, fake drive. He just doesn't do that all the time. And that's the kind of thing that, like, in the playoffs, you do wonder about, like, is that the thing that's going to be, like, the shift for him that's going to get Philly over the hump?

Is this the thing that they're going to run up against? Because Yokic hasn't won a title either. I don't want to make it sound like he's like meeting Yokic's standard. But that's the thing that Yonis is really good at too. and it really helps Milwaukee's offense. Yeah, and I think this is something like, we'll talk about Yokage's, the reasons that the Denver Nuggets won't win the title soon.

Is that your stance you're just throwing there? You like, that's your, that's your, I don't know if you. Like, tell me, well, like, let's get that into that later. But to your question about the playoffs, and this is, this is one of the reasons that's more frustrating for me to talk about Embed is that, like, these are changes that he could actually just make, whereas Yokage on the defense,

end of it is just kind of screwed. Like, he's done what he can, and he's screwed. Like, we've maximized the Yokage experience defensively, and folks, let me tell you, there's not a lot to write a home about, right home about, you know, it just is what it is. But there was, there was a play that we actually both flagged against Milwaukee. It was in the first quarter, around the three-minute mark. And this is also, I already did my Drew Holiday Soliloquay last week,

so I can't do it again. Yeah. Can't do it again. But there was just, there was a play where the court had really tilted to the corner. I can't tell. I think I had, Anthony Melton had the ball. And he's just got in his hands for a while. And Drew Holiday is just waiting for the most obvious pass in the world to go to Joel

and B. And he picks it off immediately. And that was like the third time that game that I was thinking, oh, this Sixers offense is way too slow for the bucks. Like the bucks is way too fast. They anticipate and help so fast that we both flag this. Like this is a problem for Philly. And they're playing Boston tonight. I think this Boston game is going to be very interesting in terms of MBE's MVP candidacy,

but it's also something to watch against Boston because they're a similar team on defense. And it's just you can't project out as an offense where you're doing so transparently and slowly when you're playing the bucks or the Celtics. And you know, you see this with Mbid's post-ups or when he catches the like the amount of time. times that you are going to see in the playoffs Mbid get a post catch that like everybody in the building knows that he's getting because Philly is just absolutely dedicated to getting him those catches immediately get picked off the second that he gets it and no one's going to be no one's going to see it coming but like there's Marcus Smart there's Derek White there's Drew Holiday there's Chris Middleton there's a lot of guys that love doing shit like that that they have

to play against in fairness to Mbb that is also just a criticism of Philly's offense yeah I had an interesting thought. There's two points here. One of them is bigger. Maybe I'll make the quick one first. But I really wonder if you just, you mentioned the defensive thing. I had this like really, really like striking realization when I was writing. I was just in my notes and I was thinking about, okay, well, like, okay, these players are similar.

Like we said, Janus is slightly different. He's more of a four or five and not like not a true five if we're going to do the archetype thing. You know, positions don't exist anymore. but roles do. And it's like, you know, these guys as a result of being similar sized, they kind of are built along principles, like in terms of the roster build that kind of has them parallel to, whereas we could imagine if we just picked up Joelle Embed and we just dropped him in Denver, you know, I'm sure, you know, the chill lifestyle in Denver.

I'm sure it would resonate well with Embedde. I don't know. I don't know if his personality. would message. I feel like he meshes more with the Philly mindset as a city than he would. Maybe it's just like a happenstance thing where it's just, I don't know, I'm just thinking the Denver laid back thing. Joel's energy there would be interesting.

But I was like him on that roster, you'd immediately, maybe you'd eliminate the playmaking, but you would have movement shooting around him, which I always thought was the thing that you needed to surround Joel Embed with, not even necessarily like catch and shoot guys strictly. Would Denver be better? Would they be better? Is that an offensive question for me to ask? Like if you put Joelle with that personnel, what would happen? Would they be more or less of a contender? That's a really good question. I think they would look very different.

I think the way that, you know, the sun and the stars revolve around Yokic there would obviously just look very different. It kind of reminds me of the Philly teams that had JJ Reddick, that had Seth Curry, that had a lot of movement shooting around Joel. I think that always worked really well. Obviously, you don't have the same defensive issues. I don't know how Aaron Gordon and Joelle and Bede play together. I think that that's probably like your first sort of like big rotational change. Simonsie, a little, a little. It feels a little Simonsie.

It feels a little Simonsie. I mean, Gordon's not a shooter and you want him to, you know, he thrives where there's space and they would be sucking up the same space. Maybe you bring him off the bench. Maybe he's just not part of their plans anymore. Um, which is fine. If you have, like the reason you also, like, one of the bigger reasons you have Aaron Gordon is, is to mitigate Yokuch's defensive weaknesses. I think they're just very different.

I don't know if they would be better. That's a very difficult question to answer, but I think they could be. Yeah. There's a, there's a real team there, though. Like, there's a real framework for a pretty blistering offense, not blistering in the way that it is right now. And I think he have more genuine point guard duties from Jamal Murray. But I think that's fine too. Jamal Murray can do that.

So yeah, I don't know. I'm a bad. You wonder if you'd be over enabling some of the things that are like not the best. Like we, well, we talked about like Yokic, I've, this is just like I'm playing the heavy quotes hits here, just things I say all time. But I mean, Yokic really does a thing where he enables guys, he enables them to do what they do well without it going too far into wastefulness, which is, you know, the thing with MPJ, the thing with Murr. The other thing, too, that I was going to mention is we bring up playoffs. Playoffs are, this is a regular season award, and we've seen guys win this award and then losing the playoffs, and we act like that's some invalidation of the award.

But they're just so different. Like, it's hard to, they're inextricable, but it also, like, makes no sense because the regular season is full, is a sample that is very up and down and inconsistent, and you can't look. That's the thing about the catch-all metrics that are like, Like, yeah, like a lot of these stats, they do validate and they do describe how good these guys are. But I think that like coming up against different types of defense is coming up against, you know, the real challenge, which is can you build like, can you beat like a flexible defensive team in a playoff series? That's not up to these guys solely to overcome. Like a lot of their team stuff factors into it.

But I don't know. It does seem like people let the playoffs loom over the discussion a little bit, right? And I guess it's tied to the fatigue thing there where we're like, I feel like this is the season where Yokic kind of, even though like statistically it's in his favor, I like the thing that Matt Moore said the other day on Twitter about like, if we had an offensive player of the year, I think it's undoubtedly Yokic.

I don't think there's any question about that. But what do you think about that? What do you think about the playoffs and the sort of malaise hanging over the discussion? Oh, I think it brings up the dependency thing. The MVP thing always makes me ask the question of like, should you want to win MVP? because historically, if you win the MVP, you are highly, highly unlikely to win the title that year.

I haven't checked at, I don't remember what the number is now, but I think it's like 16 of the last, like, 21 or 22 MVP winners have not won the title. Because if you win MVP, it usually means that your team is in a position where they really, really need you. And that kind of lends itself to being scouted out of the playoffs because it's a little, your style is probably predictable. And once they key in on you and shut you down or let you score,

whatever the method is, is just, we've talked about this a ton. You need a lot to win the title now. It's just like, you need a lot of offensive talent. Usually at this point, you need like two MVP level guys to get there.

Which is bonkers. Yeah. I mean, we've seen it happening like the Curry season's obviously where he did it. And we also did the thing, you know, the Curry is like the, one of the latest like real exceptions to this.

Curry and Yanis, like, that's been pretty much it. And, you know, everyone else is out and, you know, knocked out early land. And then people start talking about how you're overrated because, like, you won the MVP, but didn't win the title. And it's like, well, it's more of a flaw of how we define MVP than it is anything else. Yeah, we're always trying to balance this, like, celebrating the capacity for an individual versus, like, dinging people for, like, we did that. I mean, LeBron obviously got the one of the famous ones that we didn't say specifically because we didn't tediously go through the history of this award and like snubs and things. But one of them notable ones I think that like kind of illustrates this, the parameters of this was the 2011

Derek Rose, which he's, you know, the youngest MVP maybe in history. I don't know. He was super young. LeBron didn't win it that year because LeBron was on a heat, but he was rewarded on those seasons. Like I've always talked about some of the biggest like Helio seasons of all time. LeBron in 0809, 09, 10. You go back and look like 8788, Jordan. We're talking about some of the craziest output seasons ever. We balance the MVP award between, you know, rewarding the best player and the best team. But then we also are just like, well, you didn't get it done so you're not going to.

It's just this odd balance, you know, where it's like, what is value showing us, like, what you're capable of on any given night? or is value fitting fitting within a winning construct? I think I'm more the latter. I think I'm more the latter. And it's like, we saw Janus go up against this. I don't know.

It just seems like we're always trying to balance those two teams things. Because in like 2011, LeBron was the best player in the world at that point. But he was with other stars and winning. Is he less valuable? Because he didn't score as much or assist as much? I think you're really underplaying what the narrative was that year,

which was fuck LeBron James for going to my I don't think the team stuff really mattered. And it became a really good excuse for why he didn't deserve to be the MVP that year. But I think we kind of pre-constructed that LeBron was not going to be the MVP that year. And then Derek Rose that year, just a master of PR in training camp says, why not? Why can't I be the MVP of this league? And everyone is like, wow, that's adorable. Profound, yeah.

Adorable. And then he comes out of the game. And he just, he has like, he's just on fire. He's on fire until basically late December that year. I was a Bulls fan, so I remember this very well. He improved his three-point shot. It's a point where at one point in that year, he was shooting 42% from three, which if you remember how Derek Rose drove to the lane,

you do not want that man to be able to shoot 42% from three at the same time. Then, this is a complete digression, by the way. They play against the Clippers, and he misses two free throws, or he misses a free throw. At this point, he's only like a 72% free-through shooter or something, right? And he's completely just down on himself. He can't believe he misses free throws, too. would have sent the game to overtime.

He starts maniacally working on his free throw shot, and his three-point shot just goes completely haywire after that. And I thought that was just a really interesting moment in terms of development and trying to work on multiple things at the same time, because it was just uncanny the way that one followed the other. And I think, like, I'd rather would have had him be a great three-point shooter, especially with the injuries that he had later on. Anyway, I digress majorly there.

Kyle, get us back on track. Well, I'd love to sit here and talk about your disappointment about Derek Rose and everything. And, well, that's another special series coming soon. But no, I mean, we're always... I mean, the Derek Rose disappointment hit just incredible lows. Yeah, it's been a ride. It's been a ride. But, I mean, that was a good Bulls team, to be fair.

and we're talking about teams that are competing and things like that. And it's like, I don't know. I'm always just kind of the question of like, what is value? Is value like, I think it is. I think it's like we are going to have to balance like the brilliance of the individual, you know, performance. I think, you know, one of you made an excellent example here of like one of the like crux points of this was the Kauai situation when we were debate. We were busy debating. Talk a little bit about that.

We were debating Russ and Hardin. Yeah. Meanwhile, Kauai is fitting into this winning thing, which is the point. Yeah. It has to be the point because if we're going to criticize you about not winning, then why would we not value it in our thinking to begin with? What the fuck's going on here? I'm lost.

I don't know. I don't know, Kyle. I think that that year was just an excellent example. And it kind of, it reminds me of this year where you have this MVP race between Embed and Yokage, which has become a proxy war for everyone. It's a proxy war if you're just talking about basketball. It's a proxy war if you're talking about race. If you're talking about like stylistic differences,

it has just been a really ugly, weird MVP debate where people are talking about everything except for basketball. Rob Mahoney actually would get great calm about that, which everyone should go read. But it reminds me of the Westbrook Hardin year where everyone is having this debate about Russ versus Hardin and projecting all these other things onto it. and we're talking about, you know,

well, how many games should you have to win and, like, Russ averaging the triple double and all of that stuff. Meanwhile, Kauai Leonard is just out here actually being the best player in the NBA. And yeah, his raw numbers aren't as crazy, but he is legitimately, like, it was at that point where LeBron was still good enough

that we weren't really willing to give it to him, so we would call him the best two-way player in the NBA, which was just the most ridiculous thing that we did. This is like pre-injury Kauai The year that in the playoffs Before he steps on Zaza's foot Or before Zaza puts his foot under his foot

As I remember it The Spurs were just destroying the Warriors And you were like, whoa They don't know how to guard this guy Like what's going on? Are the Spurs going to the finals Are the Mighty Warriors Dynasty in KD's first year Not going to be successful? But it was all about Russ and Harden.

I feel like that's kind of the situation with Janus this year. Yeah, it feels that way. I mean, but the word that came to mind was like masturbatory in terms of like counting stats and things like that, which, you know, there are excesses of the Helio movement that you could argue or a little bit, or a little bit in that direction. I know that's a harsh word. But those teams were contenders. But yeah, the Kauai thing is interesting.

I guess just balancing. We have to balance it. That's the reality. We have to balance that thing. Janus, we haven't talked about him as much. It's a team that's well-built. It's a team that has a specific philosophy. It's built around specific strengths,

and that's all a part of the equation here. We praised the virtues of their defense last week. Janus is probably the best. There's a question. I mean, he's the most switchable of these three guys. He's, you know, is he necessarily, then you start to, like, you know, have the question of, like, weighing, like,

quality rim protection versus, like, switchability. and like tough assignment things. He's the tough assignment taker of these three. Janice is the best defender of this group with all due respect to Joelle and Beed's rent protection, which has not really been as consistent as it could be in previous years. Is that by choice or is it just by out like, or that's what I'm saying is like,

because it seems like he saves himself a little bit. That's another bullet point here is availability. Availability matters in this. And it's like, sure. And I also, yeah, Janice actually has played the least amount of games out of these guys as well

when you talk about the availability point. But I think I don't, on the defense point, I don't think it's particularly close. In a league where, by the way, switchability and versatility matters a ton, and he's also still an excellent rim protector, and he does, who talked about last week, do the two places at one thing better than any of these guys. We talked about field goal differential a lot last week.

Janice's field goal differential is minus 6.9, which is by far the highest amongst anybody who has a reason, yeah, thank you, by far the, the, highest amongst anybody who has had a reasonable amount of people try to score on them, which by the way, barely even happens with Janus anymore. Like, I was digging into the Embed versus Yonich's defensive numbers, which we actually didn't really even get to, but like, I think suffice it to say that Yokch is just not a good defender and that should very much figure into this race.

you cannot find a lot of Janus isolation defense stats because that's just not something that people are trying very much these days. That's a key part of these types of stats. Yeah, people will look at them side by side and forget the not, you know, the part of the data that's not there, which is some guys are so good they get avoided because they're good. That's how it works. And this is essentially what you used to Kauai as well.

You know, Matt Moore wrote this great article. a couple years ago about how, you know, their, Kauai got to be such a destructive defender, that there was a side of the floor that opposing offenses just wouldn't really try to do anything on because the chances of him just destroying the play or stealing the ball were so high.

And that's pretty useful. And, like, Janus has that in a lot of different ways. So it's not just his isolation defense effect that he can pretty much switch onto anybody. it's also just there are very few guys in the NBA that can hang out in the paint and then jump out to a three-point shooter at the same time. Like the thing that has made offense so difficult to figure out, I think to me, is that exact decision. We talked about it last week. Guy comes off a pick.

You got to deal with what's going on in the pick and roll situation. That's number one. And then that means that you have somebody on help side eat. deciding whether they want to help on the role or they want to help on the three-point shooter. And it's in the offense's hands. Janus is one of the only guys, maybe the only guy in the NBA, who can decide where he's going to go after you've passed the ball. The whole argument for Yokic is that the ball moves faster than a player does.

And Yonis might move faster than the ball does. on defense in certain in certain settings yeah yeah like he's just he's just that destructive on that end and i think that has to figure into into his MVP candidacy yeah there's an interesting thing that goes on whenever we're ranking these guys like you know in terms of like i don't know i was making like a funny like relationship parallel i know we were joking about relationships before we started recording where i was like there's an early thing i feel like there's i love yokic i love love what he does. Maybe my song, my tune will change once we've seen it work. And I even made the argument that, yeah, we've seen great offensive players that give up a lot on defense. We've seen

them get schemed around enough to where they can win, you know, some playoff series and enough playoff games in a row to win a title. But there's a funny thing that like it reminds me of is like, you know, early in any kind of like relationship. I know there's always that time where you just, you get really kind of drunk on the commonality or like the fun things that are fun. But it's like at the end of the day, it comes down to, okay, like, who is going to, who is going to be able to do like the, the gritty things of a relationship that are like not as fun, that are like the dirty work? Not, you know, sorry for that, like, phrasing. But I mean, and that's kind of like those are the little things that are less, that are less sexy than like a beautiful skip pass or maybe, you know, those things are present on winning teams. but I feel like with Yokits, we're at that point where we're like,

we kind of need to see the end of the line, which is like getting stops at the end of games, getting stops at the end of playoff games. I feel like we both are kind of, do you think that this award is strictly between M-Beed and Yokic or like how in play is Yonis? Do you think Yonis, like, the, and the thing I was going to say too is that, like,

I've ranked Yokich number one twice in a row on our top 100, But if and we saw this in our all-star draft thing, he made me draft a player. Janus just doesn't get his net rating as a player. He just doesn't give up as much, you know, he doesn't have that huge hole in his game. You know, he doesn't give up a ton of the offense that he gives on the, on the defensive. So like, I don't know. I feel like it's not totally ridiculous even still to like say that Janus could win this. Is it?

Am I crazy? Oh, no. It's definitely. not. I still, but there's still, the Bucks have four games left in the season. The Sixers have three games left in the season. I think Denver has three games left in the season. I'm not picking my MVP until those games are done. Like, spoiler earlier for the end of this podcast. I don't know who my MVP is. I have no idea who my MVP is yet. Um, Yannis has only played 62 games this year. Will he play in three of the last four games? That matters to me. I think 65,

65 is like my bar. You have to play 65 games to win the MVP. You just do, in my opinion. Mbid has a huge game against the Celtics tonight. He's got another pretty big game against the heat. It's not the matchup that it used to be, but it's always kind of interesting when the Sixers in the Heat play. I'll be watching that closely as well.

She'll be watching, folks. I don't think this is really done yet. On the yokech point, when it comes to doing the dirty work, A, love the relationship metaphor. B, I also wonder if this is a roster construction issue as well. In the same way that some of the Embed issues are roster construction issue. The one thing with Janus is that the bucks have just put the perfect roster around him.

The way that they play defense is very much built on what you can do with Janus, and they found guys who will play into that. And then on the other end, we talk about fatal flaws. Janice's mid-range shooting has only got worse. You know, we're not seeing an uptick in that at all. And that has largely just not mattered for this Bucks team. Maybe it'll end up mattering the playoffs. But it has not mattered because they play five out.

They have played five out this whole time, and they've been really good at it. They've surrounded him with shooters. And Chris Middleton is just one of the most devastating mid-range threats and by the way he's only played 32 games this season you ought to factor that into the yannis's MVP case too we want to talk about the dependency aspect of it that is that that's definitely going to factor in for me just like how many injuries other people on the bucks have sustained i think drew has played about 64 65 games as well so he's missed some time and uh yeah but it's just they

they have found the right guys to put around yannis to mitigate his weaknesses and accentuate his strengths, like just open up the floor and he can drive to the paint every time. And he is so destructive that like, yeah, in this specific case, it doesn't necessarily matter that he can't shoot. And, you know, as he's put it, you know, he can't do everything. You know, you can't, he can't have the family and the championship and, you know, the wife and all that stuff. You know, it's just in all these athleticism, these God-given skills, you know, God had to keep him humble. He Can't shoot. You can't shoot.

One of my favorite videos, this really brings it back to the start. These guys are so funny. I wonder what conversation we're having about Yokic if the Nuggets do find a Kavanaugh-Muni, if they do find a Draymond Green, right? Because that is the missing piece that they've had this entire time. It was, there was a moment where it looked like Jeremy Grant could be that guy, but he wanted to, he wanted a big role.

And I was thinking about this yesterday. Like, man, Jeremy Grant going to Detroit and then getting traded to, like, this Portland team that is just not very good. I feel like if both sides could have a do-over, they'd just be like, you know what, we're pretty good for each other. Let's keep it moving. Let's ride this out again. They have not found that guy. It's a difficult guy to find. Aaron Gordon is not really that guy. He definitely is a strong defender. He just doesn't have like that same level of intelligence to put him on the Dramon-Muny. And he doesn't necessarily have that grit either. He's like, 70% of the way there, but he's not that defender, right?

Yeah. And maybe they find that guy one day. And maybe that's the Nuggets path to a title. But right now, I just wrote an article about the Thunder, who could very easily be the Nuggets first round matchup. They leave the NBA in drives. Oh, yes, I do. I don't know.

Young man's game. It's a young man's game, like I said. Go and read that article about a team that maybe we'll be discussing in a serious, you know, playoff contention way here in the future. The Thunder really interesting team. I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I want to see how these last,

man, some really good games. It's good when the games matter. It's good when the regular season games matter. She is Siritt, so he read that article. I've enjoyed this good talk. Good MVP talk, Sirit. Just spit fire today in Philadelphia. You got the power of that city behind you.

I can feel it. Your methods worked. And that'll do it for us. So we will, I'm not sure what our schedule is going to be coming up here, but as the playoffs are coming at us. But check me out. I'm also over on One Shining Podcast. The tournament just wrapped up if you wanted to check that out.

I did some reactions up at tape. But other than that, I'm good. Sir, good to see you. Thanks to Chris Sutton. Thanks to you guys. And we will catch you later.