 What's the word, y'all? For me, the MVP race is down to two different players and those players are Nicole Jokic and Luca Doncic. Now, I wanna explain, I am not predicting who will win. This is just like if I had a ballot, which I don't, this is the way my ballot would be as of right now. And since we're getting closer and closer to the end of the NBA season, I'm thinking about my ballot quite a bit. I know my DPOL, I know my Rickey of the Year, I know my Six Man of the Year. I'm still trying to decide between clutch player of the year and a coach of the year. But for the most part, I know who's winning every award on my personal ballot except for my MVP. Now, all season long, it has been a basically, well, not all season long, because until Joel Abigat injured and he's coming back, until Joel Abigat injured, it was him number one. But once Joel Abigat injured, it became a four man race between those two dudes I mentioned a couple of seconds ago and Giannis and Shay Gilgis Alexander. Now, I do wanna say the way I kinda do my awards is not necessarily what Giannis did wrong or what Shay did wrong, but instead it's about those other two guys kinda propelling themselves. I think right now Giannis is having one of the most dominant seasons ever and it's definitely gonna be weird to see him not end up probably top two on most ballots. It might be the best third place finish or best fourth place finish ever, but I think that this recent stretch for those other two guys kinda propelled them at one and two, for me. In the month of March, this is what Luca D'Anges did. He averaged 32 points per game, 10 assists, 10 rebounds, 47% from the field, 38% from three in his team. Won all of these games, all of them. And you wanna know the scary part about this. This month of March was basically his worst statistical month of the season. His 32, 10 and 10 on 47, 38 is maybe the worst month since the turn of the calendar season and that is scary stuff. Now, this month for Jokic is 27, 8 and 12 and this is probably his best statistical month of the season so far. Now, obviously, count of stats will say, hey, Luca D'Anges has the upper hand, right? I just talked about 32, 10 and 10 for this month and overall it's like 34, 34, 9.8 and 9.1. Like, statistically, Luca D'Anges has that advantage. But obviously, it's not all about the count of stats, right? And has it ever really been? It's never really been all about the count of stats. For the majority of my NBA fandom, the MVP award for most cases had been best player, best team. It was that way when I was growing up and over the last five, six, seven years it kind of has shifted to no longer being that Russell Westberg won an MVP as a lower seed. When I say lower, I mean just not one of the top two seeds Nicole Jokic did a few years ago. We've seen it kind of evolve from best player, best team and I kind of like this way a little bit more. But sometimes, sometimes I tend to overthink these things. Like, I'm trying to be candid with you. Again, my vote doesn't mean anything. I don't impact the voters whatsoever but sometimes I feel like I do overthink things kind of a lot, right? And I firmly do believe that Nicole Jokic is the best player in the world, in the world. I watched him play last night against the Cleveland Cavaliers and again this is just one game out of 82 but it's just embodied what it means to be the best player in the world. There was no Jamal Murray in this game. You know Jamal Murray and Nicole Jokic have like the best two man game in basketball right now, right? There was no, he was not in this one and last two games they played against Phoenix without Jamal Murray and they played against Minnesota without Jamal Murray and you could definitely tell that they needed Jamal. Jamal's an awesome caliber player and again they have the best two man game in basketball. Well against the Cavaliers, that kind of shifted with a two man game ended up being with KCP, ended up being with Peyton Watson, ended up being with Aaron Gordon. Like he found it. He didn't need Jamal in that specific scenario and he ended up in this game with 26, 16 and 18. And I promise you, let me see if I can find the clips. I promise you, of the 16 assists there were maybe five of them and I was like, this is a pass that only Nicole Jokic can make. And there was a few of them that didn't end up in assists. But let me see if I can find some of them. Now this touch pass is not a specific Nicole Jokic singer. I actually seen Braun do something like this a couple nights ago. But again, just the awareness to know that, hey, one little tap over to Christian Braun, or Brown, I'm sorry, is the thing. And this one's just beautiful. I mean, this is not a rare occasion I guess for the Denver Nuggets for something like this to happen. But it's just so flawlessly ran that I can't explain it. Just knowing that AG is gonna be there to make this play is just beautiful basketball. And his very next assist might be the most impressive one of them all. As you can see, it's him empty side with Christian Thompson. You see the cut in Christian Brown is gonna draw a lot of attention, so much attention that George's Nyang is looking at the cutter and Peyton Watson is sitting there on the baseline creeping, creeping, perfect pass to find him. Because again, even though it feels as though that George Nyang should be in this playoff preventing his pass, he's worried about the cutter so much that Peyton Watson is right here in the dunker for easy lay. And it's just scary how fast the top tier players in the league can process the game. In this moment of time, they decide to send two and Nikola Jokic off this screen, right? And in a matter of 1.2 milliseconds, he feels the second man coming and then it opens up Peyton Watson. And again, this is not something that's super unique to the NBA, but this is not something they were doing for the entire game. It's not like he just saw this three possessions ago and now he's processing that this is gonna be open. This is one of the few times they did this. And it just like that in an instant second, boom, Peyton Watson there for easy lay. Like that is the stuff that, again, makes me say that he is the best player in the world. And I know that this award is not best player in the world award, but him being the best player in the world simultaneously makes him one of the two most valuable players in the league. But then also after that game wrapped up, I tuned in to watch the Dallas Mavericks play against the Houston Rockets. The Rockets were on a double-digit game win streak. I think it was a 10 or 11 at this point. And this is a huge game for both teams. If the Mavericks win this one, they propel themselves over the six seed and they were gonna be the five seed, which maxes them up against the Clippers in a series. Again, they're still moving left and right every single game. And then again, the Houston Rockets are trying to take the 10 spot from the Warriors. So it's a huge game. And you know how I just talked about how Jokic picked apart a team mostly what is passing again at 26 points. So he also scored a bunch too. Luca picked this team. I can't even, let me see if I can find some clips. Now at this point in the game, Luca already has 10 points. He's got 10 of their 24. And things really shifted when Jaclyn Dale got on this court. I swear to you, Jaclyn Dale was turning in his sleep last night because Luca was dominating this switch. And I'm gonna show you back to back to back to back. This is the first play, right? Yeah, this is the first play he gets to switch that he wants. He's got 13 points at this moment. And it's like, may I have this dance off glass? And he looks at his teammates and like, yeah, that was fun, I did that. Next time down, it's again, the switch that they wanted. Jaclyn Dale on an island, step back three. He cannot miss right now. Uh-oh, what we got? Another switch was Luca and Jaclyn Dale. Fayow, another three. Second quarter, late in the second quarter. Guess who we got? Jaclyn Dale. That's a center he just went over by the way. And he said he was too small. Now I've watched this with the Rockets broadcasts in mind, listening to it. And the whole game, they were just talking about, man, this guy is just reminiscent of what James Harden used to do here. And obviously you see that James Harden was a guy that was pretty heiso heavy. One of the best iso players ever. And he got switches that he wanted and he dominated those switches. And I 100% feel them when they say that. The scary thing about this is that Luca Dodge is what, 25 years old now? He's 25 and his game is ever evolving as we can see. Now he's one of the better three point shooters in the league. Now he always been a good three point shooter, high volume, difficult shots. But now those difficult shots are falling more. And he ended up with 47 points in three quarters. In three quarters. I mean, he didn't score in the fourth. I don't wanna make it seem like he didn't play in the fourth because he did play I think six or so minutes, but he didn't score in the fourth. So he had 47, 12 and seven in three quarters. And then he also was doing stuff like this, which is just the amount of pressure on Dante X to hit that shot is crazy. Now the worst part about NBA discourse when it comes to awards and so on and so forth is that it gets extremely, extremely toxic. Y'all know that's the antithesis of who I am and what I support with the enjoy basketball brand. But again, I do wanna say again that like a guy like Giannis or a guy like Shaggy was on his end, there's no slight on their season. But again, I think these guys have kind of propelled themselves over. So I would never to try to decide between two players of MVP say like, hey, this guy did this wrong. But instead it's about empowering the people that are doing amazing stuff. So let me know what you think about the MVP race. Do you still have Shay or Giannis as your one or two? Like I honestly still believe that those are viable options. But for me at this point, it is Luca and it is Jokic. And number three, I don't know, it might be Giannis. I'd probably put Giannis three and Shay four. But again, it's evolving. Let me know what you think.