Giannis seems to have caught up to Jokic in the MVP race

[dhsilv2]

A - at the team level yes. At the player level, not at all. Players remain who they are. Some teams lack the flexibility to adapt.

B - No they're not remotely able to do this like the raptors or celtics did. Having elite vet defenders is huge!

C - this is fair. I agree he's developed but it's not his development that pushed him to the next level. It's having better talent and not being in a 2 man game with Eric Bledsoe.

It DOES happen at the player level because the players are the ones playing the game. Offensive players have to adjust to the looks being thrown at them. No matter how much preparation a team does, one is not fully prepared for the game itself. It's a reactionary game and the players are left to react. Again. You're just flat out wrong. Giannis did not play the same style of basketball he had been. It's up to him to actually make that change, not the team.

I didn't say they could do it like the Raptors did. The Raptors are an ATG defense. To throw the Celtics into that mold is just blasphemous. Again, Phoenix had the tools to throw the wall at Giannis. They didn't because a wall doesn't work when he's not coming straight down hill from the top of the key. Putting your offense into motion from different areas of the floor completely exposes that look. This isn't rocket science and it's obvious.

Again, you're wrong. It's his development that turned him into the offball monster he was in that series. Let me remind you that you're talking about a Jrue Holiday that averaged 17 a night on 40/30/71 splits. He had moments but was largely unreliable throughout the playoffs. Attributing Giannis' success to Jrue Holiday, is again, off base.

You're sitting there saying it forces you to ignore teammates blah blah blah. There are two sides to the coin here and you're completely refusing to acknowledge one of them and that's the player himself.

Jrue maintained defensive attention. This is nothing like what Giannis faced with Bledsoe. You can't adjust to having teammates with critical flaws in their game. That's the whole point here. The bucks as a team changes vastly more than Giannis the player did and that shifted everything.

[GunnerWRX]

Also Curry doesn't deserve MVP anymore, just isn't as good as last year even if he's been much better defensively this year. If the league gives Curry an MVP it will be heavy narrative driven, Giannis probably deserves it..again.

Hmm... sure

[Ballerhogger]

Curry 1. 2.Giannis 3. Jokic

[Woodsanity]

Jokic is not gonna win MVP no matter his stats. No MPJ or Murray, his team is lacking in talent and wont get a good enough record.

[Infinite Llamas]

A - at the team level yes. At the player level, not at all. Players remain who they are. Some teams lack the flexibility to adapt.

B - No they're not remotely able to do this like the raptors or celtics did. Having elite vet defenders is huge!

C - this is fair. I agree he's developed but it's not his development that pushed him to the next level. It's having better talent and not being in a 2 man game with Eric Bledsoe.

It DOES happen at the player level because the players are the ones playing the game. Offensive players have to adjust to the looks being thrown at them. No matter how much preparation a team does, one is not fully prepared for the game itself. It's a reactionary game and the players are left to react. Again. You're just flat out wrong. Giannis did not play the same style of basketball he had been. It's up to him to actually make that change, not the team.

I didn't say they could do it like the Raptors did. The Raptors are an ATG defense. To throw the Celtics into that mold is just blasphemous. Again, Phoenix had the tools to throw the wall at Giannis. They didn't because a wall doesn't work when he's not coming straight down hill from the top of the key. Putting your offense into motion from different areas of the floor completely exposes that look. This isn't rocket science and it's obvious.

Again, you're wrong. It's his development that turned him into the offball monster he was in that series. Let me remind you that you're talking about a Jrue Holiday that averaged 17 a night on 40/30/71 splits. He had moments but was largely unreliable throughout the playoffs. Attributing Giannis' success to Jrue Holiday, is again, off base.

You're sitting there saying it forces you to ignore teammates blah blah blah. There are two sides to the coin here and you're completely refusing to acknowledge one of them and that's the player himself.

Jrue maintained defensive attention. This is nothing like what Giannis faced with Bledsoe. You can't adjust to having teammates with critical flaws in their game. That's the whole point here. The bucks as a team changes vastly more than Giannis the player did and that shifted everything.

We all know Giannis is a tireless worker and he clearly worked on aspects of his game to ascend to greatness. Becoming a smarter passer is at the top of that list. He has also had a lot of things go right on a team/personnel level. Middleton became an elite closing option. Brook became a knock down 3pt shooter. Jrue gave them elite perimeter defense. Portis and Pat become top shelf role player talent. I won’t deny that Giannis becoming great most likely plays a role in these player developments but there’s a lot of credit to go around from Bud to Giannis to the players.

Basically, they got rid of their players with the critical flaws and replaced them with ones that mesh well with their star. That essentially boils down to smart management.

[Perseus1966]

if Giannis had the finesse of KD he would be permanent MVP

[skones]

Jrue maintained defensive attention. This is nothing like what Giannis faced with Bledsoe. You can't adjust to having teammates with critical flaws in their game. That's the whole point here. The bucks as a team changes vastly more than Giannis the player did and that shifted everything.

Yet you continually ignore the adjustment Giannis was forced to make due to his own flaws. This wasn't just on everyone else. Giannis had warts.

[dhsilv2]

It DOES happen at the player level because the players are the ones playing the game. Offensive players have to adjust to the looks being thrown at them. No matter how much preparation a team does, one is not fully prepared for the game itself. It's a reactionary game and the players are left to react. Again. You're just flat out wrong. Giannis did not play the same style of basketball he had been. It's up to him to actually make that change, not the team.

I didn't say they could do it like the Raptors did. The Raptors are an ATG defense. To throw the Celtics into that mold is just blasphemous. Again, Phoenix had the tools to throw the wall at Giannis. They didn't because a wall doesn't work when he's not coming straight down hill from the top of the key. Putting your offense into motion from different areas of the floor completely exposes that look. This isn't rocket science and it's obvious.

Again, you're wrong. It's his development that turned him into the offball monster he was in that series. Let me remind you that you're talking about a Jrue Holiday that averaged 17 a night on 40/30/71 splits. He had moments but was largely unreliable throughout the playoffs. Attributing Giannis' success to Jrue Holiday, is again, off base.

You're sitting there saying it forces you to ignore teammates blah blah blah. There are two sides to the coin here and you're completely refusing to acknowledge one of them and that's the player himself.

Jrue maintained defensive attention. This is nothing like what Giannis faced with Bledsoe. You can't adjust to having teammates with critical flaws in their game. That's the whole point here. The bucks as a team changes vastly more than Giannis the player did and that shifted everything.

We all know Giannis is a tireless worker and he clearly worked on aspects of his game to ascend to greatness. Becoming a smarter passer is at the top of that list. He has also had a lot of things go right on a team/personnel level. Middleton became an elite closing option. Brook became a knock down 3pt shooter. Jrue gave them elite perimeter defense. Portis and Pat become top shelf role player talent. I won’t deny that Giannis becoming great most likely plays a role in these player developments but there’s a lot of credit to go around from Bud to Giannis to the players.

Basically, they got rid of their players with the critical flaws and replaced them with ones that mesh well with their star. That essentially boils down to smart management.

Spot on here. I never want to take away from Giannis, but players always looks much more limited than they are when they play with just fatally flawed players/systems. And that was more my point and thankfully others understood it vs turning it to me somehow ignoring the work Giannis has put in as clearly he's continued to develop, but if you put him with a non shooter, he'd still be running into walls and would find himself playing hot potato with bad shooters (no you take 30% 3 point shot, no you).

[dhsilv2]

Jrue maintained defensive attention. This is nothing like what Giannis faced with Bledsoe. You can't adjust to having teammates with critical flaws in their game. That's the whole point here. The bucks as a team changes vastly more than Giannis the player did and that shifted everything.

Yet you continually ignore the adjustment Giannis was forced to make due to his own flaws. This wasn't just on everyone else. Giannis had warts.

I'm not ignoring that at all. I even made sure to agree with you and said I was wrong to have not made mention of it. You've however not engaged in important points here because you're hung up on something I've already said I was remiss for not noting.

[DutchManDanFan]

Spot on here. I never want to take away from Giannis, but players always looks much more limited than they are when they play with just fatally flawed players/systems. And that was more my point and thankfully others understood it vs turning it to me somehow ignoring the work Giannis has put in as clearly he's continued to develop, but if you put him with a non shooter, he'd still be running into walls and would find himself playing hot potato with bad shooters (no you take 30% 3 point shot, no you).

Or it's a matter of (bad) luck. In 2019 the Bucks acquired Mirotic who shot 43% from 3 in the playoffs the year before. For the Bucks he only made 29%, while being wide open all the time (because of the Giannis wall). If only Mirotic did what he was supposed to do, most likely the Bucks had their title already in 2019.
Since then Giannis became better, his team around him became better and the league became better. He's no longer the easy choise for MVP as he was in 2019, when the Bucks were aiming for the no 1 seed. After 2 MVP's and no title he knows what's most important. He doesn't care for more MVP awards (for now). He wants more championships.
I'm quite sure that if he really wants another MPV trophy and for that he needs better stats than Jokic, he'd get them.

[Hobo4President]

Giannis is playing the best basketball of his career. He is already a 2x MVP and a Finals MVP in a year where he wasn't allowed to win the league MVP. Read the first sentence again. That should now speak for itself.

So is Jokic and he just won MVP last year. I understand how MVP voting is done, but I've always disagreed with it. It's looking like it'll be a race between Curry and Giannis throughout the season as Denver's record won't be good enough.

[danvato]

if Giannis had the finesse of KD he would be permanent MVP

If he had the finesse of Luc Longley he's be unstoppable.

[durden_tyler]

Both are chasing Steph though. Giannis being multiple winners past years will have no shot against Curry.

[dhsilv2]

Spot on here. I never want to take away from Giannis, but players always looks much more limited than they are when they play with just fatally flawed players/systems. And that was more my point and thankfully others understood it vs turning it to me somehow ignoring the work Giannis has put in as clearly he's continued to develop, but if you put him with a non shooter, he'd still be running into walls and would find himself playing hot potato with bad shooters (no you take 30% 3 point shot, no you).

Or it's a matter of (bad) luck. In 2019 the Bucks acquired Mirotic who shot 43% from 3 in the playoffs the year before. For the Bucks he only made 29%, while being wide open all the time (because of the Giannis wall). If only Mirotic did what he was supposed to do, most likely the Bucks had their title already in 2019.
Since then Giannis became better, his team around him became better and the league became better. He's no longer the easy choise for MVP as he was in 2019, when the Bucks were aiming for the no 1 seed. After 2 MVP's and no title he knows what's most important. He doesn't care for more MVP awards (for now). He wants more championships.
I'm quite sure that if he really wants another MPV trophy and for that he needs better stats than Jokic, he'd get them.

Yeah I don't think he could be putting up a 14 BPM if he just wanted to. Giannis had literally a top 5 all time stats season. I don't think he can just do that. If the bucks had the best record in the league this year, he'd be the front runner for MVP. They don't because they've been injured.

Last year and you're a bucks fan so by ALL means correct me. My understanding was that Bud was doing a lot more experimenting with the team vs just trying to get wins. My understanding was it was more a team/system building thing that caused some extra losses and perhaps Giannis's stats dropping off. Not a change in Giannis per say, but I'm certainly open here to being wrong and learning more. This was just the opinion I saw, I only watched maybe 10 or so of their games in the season..maybe a few extra quarters here and there. Not enough to speak as an expert on game to game coaching changes.

But to my point, I don't think anyone in NBA history could just flip a switch and do what Jokic is doing this year in terms of stats. I'm not sure HE can maintain this to be fair.

[RalphWiggum]

Jokic is having arguably the greatest statistical season in league history. If that isn't good enough to have a legit shot at winning MVP then the award is broken.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Jrue maintained defensive attention. This is nothing like what Giannis faced with Bledsoe. You can't adjust to having teammates with critical flaws in their game. That's the whole point here. The bucks as a team changes vastly more than Giannis the player did and that shifted everything.

Yet you continually ignore the adjustment Giannis was forced to make due to his own flaws. This wasn't just on everyone else. Giannis had warts.

Yeah, obviously Jrue helped but Giannis's biggest obstacle in 2019 was his foul trouble. If he wasnt in foul trouble, we probably win the ship that year (badly assuming GSW has same injury issues). It's crazy how much he has developed his game from "I'm going to dunk this" every single play whether a defender is there or not to him slowing down and picking his spots.

[PhilBlackson]

Caught up to Jokic as runners up to Curry.

[Biff]

I'll be very surprised if Curry doesn't win it, especially if they get anywhere close to 70 wins. Narrative will be too strong in his favor. He's the best player on the best team in the league.

[EArl]

Jokic hasn’t been in contention. Your team needs to be winning to be an MVP.

[old skool]

Last night in Houston vs. a team on a 7 game winning streak, Giannis had

15 points
5 rebounds
2 assists
2 steals

in the 4th Quarter.

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