 What's the word, y'all? Maybe I'm bugging, but this feels like the craziest MVP race in recent history. And I mean in the sense of how many people are still in it. We're a quarter of the way through the NBA season. And I feel like at this point every year, we basically have already narrowed it down to like the final three and we just fluctuate between the final three. Right now, I honestly do believe, and this is just my opinion, that there's five very, very, very real candidates that if they are raising the trophy at the end of the year, I wouldn't be surprised. Who are those five candidates, Kenny? It's Yolkic, it's Mb, it's Yanis, it's Luca, and it's Shakyus Alexander. And you know what's crazy about it? A guy like Jason Tatum, who's having a phenomenal season on the best team in the league, it's not even really in the running, he probably should be, but right now I'm gonna say this is a five man race currently. And just three days ago, the NBA put out their own personal MVP ladder and let's go through it, because I haven't read it just yet. It's gonna have Joel and B, that number one, that makes sense, these are his averages. As of right now, I saw it on Twitter, he is averaging more points per game than minutes. Ridiculous stuff. Number two on their list is Nikola Yolkic. Number three on their list is Yanis and Tadakumpo. Number four on their list is Shate, and number five is Luca Donchich, and then the next five, okay, so Jason Tatum is in the next five, but he's not, I guess, in the top five. And I think this is maybe not the order, I don't know if I agree with the exact order, but they have the right five players there. I kinda wanna give an argument for every single one of these people, and y'all let me know in the comment section if the season were to end today, who is your guy? Quick plug, quick plug, quick plug. The Kiddy Beach and podcast had an NBA champion, Michael Burda Jr. on the show. It just dropped. The links will be in the description on Spotify, on Apple here on YouTube as well. It was a really cool moment, because I talked to MPJ about it. This is not our first time technically meeting, because we met back right before he got drafted into the NBA, and it's crazy. So it was a very great interview. He gave us some very candid answers about his recovery from his injuries, from his championship run, and so on and so forth. Please go show some love as we continue to get NBA talent on the show. That's all I gotta say. Here are Joe and the Beads numbers. This is a straight out of NBA 2K my career, by the way. This month, six games into it, he is averaging an even 40 points per game. He is getting about 13 rebounds per game for assists. He is shooting 62% from the field, 41% from three, and 92% from the free throw line. It makes no sense, especially when you look at these last three games, he didn't even play the fourth quarter. Like, you know what I'm saying? Now, some people that are gonna be skeptics or trying to pull hairs, and I think when you are trying to decide an MVP race that is this very close, I think it's okay to nitpick, you know what I'm saying? And I'm not saying to go too crazy, but I'm just saying if you're trying to figure out between him and this other player who are very similar in statistics and advanced statistics and the eye test, I think it's okay because you need to find whatever the differentiator is for you personally, you know what I'm saying? And the one thing that people are gonna mention, cakewalk of a schedule recently. Cakewalk of a schedule. Charlotte, Detroit twice, Washington twice, and Atlanta squeezed in the middle. That's as easy as a six game, like, span as you could get in the association right now. But still, personally, you still gotta get the stats. You still gotta win the games, and they're actively, and he's actively doing that. Also, people are gonna look at this part, these things. At this point in my life, as far as an NBA fan can go, these things don't bother you as much as they might've done years ago. I'm not tripping about the fact that nobody on the pistons can guard him, so he's going to get more fouls. I don't care about that really. And you know the MVP award is a combination of counter stats, advanced stats, and whether people believe it or not, it also has a bunch of, I guess, narrative driven things as well. His, he has one of the best narratives in all of basketball when it comes to the MVP race, considering they traded away James Harden for a bag of bones, and I don't mean that in a negative, well, I guess it is negative, but like, in a condescending sense, you traded away a guy that was borderline all NBA last season for a bunch of role players, and you're still 18 and seven through the first quarter of the season. Like, the narrative is, hey, we got James out the dough, and we're still great, part of that, of course, is Tavis Maxi taking the jump. But also, because I am better than I was last year, and do I need to remind you that last year I won the MVP award. Here's Nikola Jokic's game log and everything. He's average of 27, 12, and nine and a half, so borderline triple double through the first quarter of the season. I think that early on in the year, when he started off the year like this, people were like, oh yeah, this is another MVP for Jokic, but since then, he's kind of slowed down a little bit. He's had the ejection in Chicago. He had an ejection in Detroit, and he also had one of his worst, two of his worst shooting games back to back here. Like a nine of 32, shout out to the Clippers for clamping up, and shout out to the Houston Rockets also for clamping up. Those two games are kind of like, again, when you're pulling hairs, those are the ones that stand out like a sore thumb. But overall, again, when you're averaging 27, 12, and nine, and a half close to a triple double from the center position, you're gonna be in the conversations nonetheless. And when I interviewed Michael Porter Jr. Again, link is in the description. He mentioned that they are very aware that they're going through like championship hangover, coming off that championship run. They had less of time in the off season to spend with family and do vacation and stuff. So not just Jokic, they're like pretty much a lot of people on their team is kind of experiencing that down season, if you want to call it that. I mean, you're looking at Jokic at 27, 12, and nine, and a half, I can't even call it a down season. But hopefully you understand what I'm saying. So maybe by the end of this, when we get to April, these numbers are even better because now he's more removed from that championship. You know what I'm saying? It's so interesting to see because when Jokic was winning his MVPs, of course he was doing amazing stuff. The Denver Nuggets were a way better basketball team than if he wasn't on the team. You talk about the injury riddled seasons when he was still carrying them to the playoffs and stuff, but one thing that he definitely had over Jorlin Bede in those same races was that the advanced stats absolutely loved him. While they still love Jorlin Bede, but they definitely love Nikola Jokic more. Now we're at a point in time where Jorlin Bede's advanced stats are as good and in a lot of cases, better than JoJo's, I guess, than Jokic is what I meant. And that's kind of gonna get me into my number three player on this list. EPM is estimated plus minus. It's like an all-inclusive statistic that a lot of NBA nerds, if you wanna call them that, absolutely love because obviously there's no one statistic that's gonna be able to cover everything, but it is the one that most people believe to be the most indicative of how impactful an NBA player is. And right now, through the first two games of the season for Jorlin Bede, at least, he is a full point ahead of number two, Shay Gilles Alexander and EPM. So again, that gives me to my next person and Shay Gilles is Alexander. And I have to kind of put my own biases to the side because I've been a Shay Gilles Alexander fan since the first moment I watched him play summer league ball. I didn't think he was gonna turn into a superstar. Like, I'm being honest with you. I was just like, this guy is just a tall point guard. They could do a little bit of everything and jump shot ain't really there, but I believe in him as a player. Again, I didn't think he was gonna be a superstar, but now he is that. I'm like, okay, I gotta put that to the side because I have to be objective when I'm doing my job and everything. But Shay, if you ask me, Shay's in top two. I honestly do think that he's got above Nicole Jokic currently. Here's the game lock. Last game, he only shot 45% yawn, but he ended up hitting the game winner against the defender champion. Game before that, they ended up losing 43 points, 30, 38, 33 and then a smooth 17 points. You know, I ain't gotta be too crazy. The overall count of stats on the season is 31 points per game, five and a half rebounds, six and a half assists. And his team, the O.K.C. Thunder are the number two seed in the Western Conference with a 16 and eight record. And they're doing this while simultaneously being one of the youngest teams in all of basketball. I mentioned the game winner versus the Denver Nuggets. That is not his first game winner of the season. We've also seen moments and times where, I guess you can say this about all the MVP candidates and that's why the MVP candidates, but I don't know, he has kind of stand out a little bit more where he completely, completely takes over a game. The one game that comes to mind immediately when I think about that is the game where they're going against the Golden State Warriors. Y'all might remember it for the game that Chen Holmgren had to turn around three points shot in the corner to send it to OT in that overtime. That is one of the most dominant over times I have ever seen from a player. That's what Shay was doing. You know what I'm saying? And he does this where he can just lock in and take over a game. He's silky smooth. And now over the last year or so, he's becoming a two way player where if you ask me, my all defensive team, I ain't got it for you, but I know Shay Gildes Alexander's in the conversation at least. So if you're trying to tell me that he's great on the defensive side of the ball and he's carrying the offensive load that's the number two C in the Western Conference, I don't know what else I can really say about him other than that guy is him. Next guy is going to be Mr. Yanadena Kumpa. 31 points, 11 rebounds, five assists, 62% for field. He's having a phenomenal year. And that's coming off like, and that's accounted for the first couple of games or so of the season where, you know, they were trying to figure each other out. Him and Damien Lillard, where he started off only 27 points per game. Y'all, that's not you. And then of course, he had that monster game set a franchise record 64 points. I know a lot of people have their opinions about that, but I don't care. He shot 30. I forgot he shot 32. Bro, shooting 32 free throws is crazy. He did it. And of course they hit the ball incident with the Pacers and they go against the Pacers in the next week or so. So I'm excited to see that match up because James Johnson is now there. And I'm assuming James Johnson go check in and throw an elbow or two. But Yannis is having one of his better seasons at least offensively. Defensively, he's still pretty good, but maybe not, you know, the one year he won DPOY and MVP. I don't think that's happening again this year. But boy, has he been on the whole another level, especially since they started to jail a little bit more. I don't know. I just, I guess I'm really just like a player of his dominance and the way he does it, where there are a lot of players in the NBA that have very similar games. There's nobody that's playing the game like Yannis. And I'm not saying that's a case for him as an MVP candidate, but I'm just saying in general why I enjoy watching Yannis play. And the last guy on the list is Luca Doncic. Luca on the season is averaging 32, eight rebounds, nine assists, almost 50% from the field. And he's doing ridiculous stuff as well, where you have the one game versus the Utah Jazz, a 40 point triple double where he didn't even have to play in the fourth quarter. We had the other game versus the Portland Trailblazers where he had a 40 point triple double and he didn't have to do anything in the fourth quarter. So like he's consistently having ridiculous first halves, pretty much in every single one of his recent games. He's going into halftime with 20 to 28 points and just having a bunch of wins too. And I think that's helping his case because historically his teams have been good but maybe not necessarily great. And right now they're the three seed. That's good enough in my opinion. Like historically you just have to be one of the top ish teams in basketball and he's always set around like four to five to sometimes missing it completely. The one thing that sucks for Luca Doncic though and the reason why he doesn't get as much love as some of the other guys is because he came into the league so dominant that every year just feels like, oh, he's Luca Doncic instead of like taking a step back and really admiring the stuff that he's really doing. When you come into the league as good as he has, you kind of take it for granted so fast. And we talk about a player where you're five, you're six of his career and we're just used to these things but these things are not normal. They're Luca Doncic normal but they shouldn't be our normal as NBA fans. It's just a crazy amount of guys that's still doing it at a high level. Now, knock on wood or whatever. A lot of times we're gonna have these type of races. The one thing is like the amount of games played especially this year when you have to play, I think 65 games to really get an award like this so who can stay healthy? Who's gonna play as much basketball as possible? That might have some people fall out of the race and so on and so forth. Some teams might fall out of their positioning and the standings and ultimately that might pull some people down but for the most part, there are five MVP candidates in my eyes doing the major stuff. Actually, Tatum, I'm putting you in there. Six MVP candidates in my eyes and I just don't know if this season ended today. You know what, let's do it. I'll probably put JoJo one, Shea two, Yanis three, Joker four, Luca five. Maybe. I don't know, you let me know in the comment section how you would rank them. Can't beat your podcast. Michael Porter Jr. is out right now.