 What's the word, y'all? The NBA regular season is close to over, man. It's so weird to say. I'm so excited for a playoff basketball, but it's so weird to say that this season is almost over. I feel like it flew past, man. Just feels like just yesterday the Bulls were good. And a lot of things have changed. A lot of things have changed. And once we get to this part of the season where it's like 10 games left of the NBA season, I started to take my NBA award ballots so very seriously. I'm not a dude that has an official vote because while with this random YouTube, I have one, but I deal with it as if I did have a vote because I understand the stakes involved in all of these things, right? And I just dream of one day I get a call from Adam Silver and he gives me an official ballot and I can send him back a resume of my NBA award winners from every single season, whether it be in video form or written form. And this is the reason why this is my MVP and this is the reason why this guy's second. This is my sixth minute of the year because there are some people, let's be honest, there are some people that have a war or votes that don't watch the game as bad a basketball as closely as me and you. There are some people that don't take it as seriously as me and you. Like every single year you can look at the ballot and be like, why this person get a vote? Who voted for this? I'm not that dude. You know what I'm saying? I think about things. I go into statistics. I really take this stuff seriously. And then every single season, once I get to this point to take a think seriously, I'm reminded of how very difficult it is to differentiate winners versus losers when it comes to this award. And this year might be harder than the last because I feel like we're like two months left for the season. Yocates had wrapped up the MVP award last season. This year, I'm still flip flopping, y'all. I don't know who it is. I think it's still a three-man race, but Honest is probably a two-man race between the two centers up top, whether it be Yocates or Embiid. Every single award right now is up for grabs. I'm not up for grabs, but like I haven't made my definite answers. Except for six-minute a year. Spoiler alert, it's Tyler Hero. But like, rookie of the year, you can make a conversation for Cade, Mobley, and Scotty Barnes. Defensive play, don't even get me started on defensive play of the year. There's like seven people on my ballot. Nobody jumps off the page from me right now. So it's just so very difficult. And I woke up this morning and there was a lot of conversation, whether it be on my timeline or my mentions, about Devon Booker and the MVP Candidate C. And I'm here to talk about that. Or one of the things we're talking about. This is a hot spot. Just thoughts, you know how this channel works. So I think the first time I heard somebody in a national media or people on the timeline talking about Devon Booker as an MVP candidate was just two days ago. A lot of things have ramped up, or three days ago, a lot of things have ramped up with MVP conversations around Devon Booker in the last 24 to 48 hours because he had the big game against the Minnesota Timberwolves and he just had 49 last night. But a couple days ago, Isaiah Thomas, and I mean Zeke, not sure King, but NBA Hall of Fame Isaiah Thomas said, let it be known that at Devon Booker should be an MVP conversations. Best record lead and score has always been a part of the hashtag criteria. And then Devon Booker quoted that as said, appreciated IT, but the criteria change is dependent on players' names. And why I don't completely disagree with Devon Booker here. I don't think it has a lot to do with the names. I don't think there is a national vendetta against Devon Booker or Slas the Phoenix Suns, but I do think the criteria change from year to year. There are some years where it is the most dominant Slas best player on the greatest team, and some years it's about the person having the best statistical season. And what I am realizing is, the years that it is the best player on the best teams, it usually coincide with nobody having a historically great whether it be advanced stat season or counting stat season, for example. So I've referenced the Russell Westbrook MVP season a ton on this channel because, A, it was one of the best seasons for fans. It was just a crazy, crazy year. And B, I think that this really fits what I'm trying to say. So Russell Westbrook became the first player since Oscar Robertson to average a triple double. It was a 30 point triple double where his team exceeded he won MVP, even though his team was a 60. Well, the best team in the league was the Warriors who won 67 games this season. And Steph Curry was still averaging 25 points per game, six and a half assists and about five rebounds per, but he ended up six in MVP voting. So the Warriors won 67 games this season, y'all. Think about that, 67 and 15. And their best player ended up six at MVP voting. The criteria changed because Russell Westbrook was doing something we had never seen in the last 40, 50 years of basketball. This also is a bit of a voters for T because they were just 73 and nine last season. And he had been a unanimous MVP the year before that. And then it left a bad taste in our mouth when they ended up losing their finals. But either way, he was still putting up MVP caliber numbers on the best team in the league and ended up six. Also, Kevin Durant was there. Forgot to mention that. And then we have the year after that. And this was the James Harden MVP award. And guess what? James Harden was the best player on the best team. And the reason why he did this because everybody beneath him whether it be LeBron, Anthony Davis, Damian Liller, Russell Westbrook, everybody that got a vote, none of them were having a crazy historical season. They were still having good seasons, very great seasons, but none of them were breaking all-time records. None of them over the advanced stats had at the best season in NBA history. So James Harden still putting up really good stats. Basically, the similar stats to last season ended up number two and his team being better and his team being the best in the league, he won the MVP award. And then we get to some of the Yanis awards and Yanis'es, come on, Yanis'es seasons were ridiculous. He was having a crazy historical season individually and they still were the number one seed. So he fit the both, both standards that you get. Then we get to last year where Yolkic and Yolkic just had, I think it was the highest PR season of all time. And guess what? This season he is better than he was last year. So the criteria, as you can see, has changed. Sometimes it is the best player on the best teams and sometimes it is somebody having a historically great season. It's unfortunate for Devin Booker that he fell into a season where Yolkic and indeed are both having historical seasons one way or another. I mean, Devin Booker in the last 25 games he's averaging 30 points per game, five rebounds, six assists, 50% for the field, 36% for three, 88% for free throw line and they are 21 and four in those 25 games and they are nine and three without Chris Paul. His resume is great, but it's still not gonna be compared to those other top three dudes. I think it's okay to say that Devin Booker is having one of the best seasons in the league without saying that he should be top three in the MVP. One thing I do hate about the NBA and this might just be a basketball reference thing is that his season might get lost in the grand scheme of things. This is Stephen Curry's basketball reference, by the way. You can see Stephen Curry is great. You can see that he has his two MVPs. He's got his all his accolades up there. But one thing that I wish was on basketball reference I guess in the NBA thing is the same thing we get on baseball reference. Baseball reference don't care, bro. A-Rod back in 2004 was 14th in MVP voting and that's on his award list. I think there are gonna be so many NBA seasons that are lost to time because it's hard to put into perspective how dominant or how important that MVP award was. Let's say MVP 28, and I wouldn't go this far. I wouldn't go this far. But I would love to see on basketball reference or just in NBA in general, they're like, hey, Devin Booker finished fifth in MVP voting this season. And you can see that in 10 years to say that, oh, Devin Booker was really that man this season because I feel like context is definitely lost as we get further away from something or an event happening. They really get A-Rod 28 in MVP award here. Jesus Christ, that's actually insane. The basketball has one of the least amount of awards amongst the major sports, right? And baseball, you have basically a split between the conferences. I guess football also has a split between the conference and I've been hearing a lot of people tried to have the conversation of the NBA doing that because the NBA is becoming such a talented league. I mean, it always has been a talented league, but more talented than ever before that it feels like we're neglecting some great players because they can't get these awards. We're in baseball and football. You can divide it into different leagues. You know, overall, I wouldn't even consider myself an NBA traditionalist. I would say I'm an NBA progressive. I like the idea of changing rules every once in a while to see how it works. But I don't really like the idea of splitting it down the middle and say that this is our Eastern Conference MVP, our Western Conference MVP because I think it just loses value just a little bit because we will have those years where like, let's say, Rookie of the Year, for example, the top three Rookie of the Year candidates this year are all in the Eastern Conference. We're gonna have Josh Giddy when Rookie of the Year, which is fine. I guess it will be fine if he was a Western Conference Rookie of the Year, but that ain't really nothing compared with the top three are actually doing an Eastern Conference. Another argument I guess is that basketball is a 15-man sport on the roster with football as 50-something people and the baseball was at 20-something people. So there's a lot more candidates for these awards when basketball, there's only 30-point guards to get a start and there's only 30 centers to get a start. So I don't like the idea of splitting it up, but I keep hearing people have that conversation so that Joelle and Bede and Yolkets both get recognized as the best players in the league, the best season in the league, but I'm okay with somebody has to come in second. You know what I'm saying? We don't have to give everybody a participation. It's okay to have somebody come in second. Maybe Joelle Bede comes in second for a second in a row that fuels him next year. He's undisputed at the NBA MVP or maybe he jumps the, he jumps Yolkets this season. Like, oh, last year him coming in second was the reason he ended up first this year. He used that in motivation. I'm okay with people coming in second, y'all. It has to happen. I treat this channel like my main channel now. 2K is such a terrible game. I was going, I'm gonna keep it PG. It's such a terrible game that I just don't have fun recording. I do it to pay the bills, you feel me? But this of course is what I'm more passionate about. So I'm gonna try my hardest to treat this as a main channel since then. I'm gonna try to upload way more often. Some videos are gonna be random rambles like today and some videos gonna be recaps or some videos gonna be lists and stuff like that. I just enjoy talking the game of basketball more than being on the sticks and making trades for people. I think I made my first, I made my first rebuilding video on like 2K14 and we're in 2K22 and nothing has really changed. You know what I'm saying? I've grown older, my interests have changed and my interest is basketball in general. It's unfortunate that 2K has a monopoly on the gaming section of basketball because I feel like there should be some people competing to beat them, but it won't happen. So let me know in the comment section what you think, what in your opinion, I'm gonna have a question of the day at the end of all these videos, if I remember. What is the hardest award for you to determine? Is it Rikki of the Year, Defense Player of the Year, MVP, maybe you think somebody is in conversation with Tyler Harrow for some reason? Cause matter of fact, if you think, you bugging if that's the case though, ain't nobody even mess with Tyler Harrow. You feel me? We can be arguing about two through five, but nah. I think this year I'm gonna treat it as in baseball where like instead of giving you all my top three candidates of every award, I'm going 10 deep. Yeah. Yeah, so be looking out for the official Kenny for Real awards ceremony. We gonna get some awards that aren't in the NBA, just the Kenny for Real All-Star type thing. Kenny for Real, MVP's. Well, I gotta think about that. All right, we got a lot to do.