 What's the word y'all? Today I wanna talk about the MVP race, man. Because honestly, we're a third of the way through the season. And if I were to have a vote, which I don't, but NBA hook a bra, what do I gotta do to get a vote, man? If I were to have a vote, according to way through the season, I don't know who I would give my vote to. It feels like my personal opinion on who the league's MVP is, is flipping from day to day. So reminder, I am just one dude with an NBA opinion. You may completely disagree, especially on a topic like this, there are so many options, that's completely okay. Use that comment section, let's talk it out, leave a like, but let's get to our sponsor. And listen, y'all know the sponsor of this channel is of course, PricePix, man. Hit that link in the description, download the PricePix app, and use code Kenny because you're matching all the deposits up to $100 for new users. Of course, it is just you versus the numbers. Y'all know I'm an NBA guy, and every single day I'm making an entry about the NBA, but they have football, they're gonna have baseball when it comes back. MMA, esports, there's so many different options that I don't wanna just limit you to basketball. And yesterday I ended up hitting on my entry, and I did something I've never done before. Because you can make an entry dealing with a person's over or under for an entire game. But since it was a small slate of games, I decided, hmm, Kate Cunningham had nine and a half points in the first half, I think he could hit over that in the first half, and he did. I did the same thing for the first half for DeAndre Aden's fantasy points. He hit that easily. I took Jorlin B's points because he's a one-man record crew. Julius Randall went to the line, shot six free throws, and I took the over on Gary Bird's threes, but he got exactly two, which kind of voided it, but this was a big, big time win. So hit that link in the description, download PricePix, use code Kenny because you're matching every deposit for new users up to $100. Go ahead and join all the over thousands of people that have used my code. And I've enjoyed the product so much that me and my team have become investors. I don't know if I said that on a channel just yet, but I am an investor of PricePix now, man. I loved it that much. So join in on the fun and let me know how you do. All right, so the two different catalysts this is for today's video. The first one is Kevin Durant. These last couple of days have games have been incredible. The NBA has a whole virus problem going on right now. So because of that, every single team has like five players it seems like and healthy safety protocols so they cannot play. So the last couple of games you had, Kevin Durant dropping 51 against the Detroit Pistons. And I talked about this on the show and the people in the comment section was like, relax, Kenny, it's the Pistons, who cares? Next game he had a triple double with a bunch of players that were on the court that nobody knew who they were like two weeks ago. And then today a similar thing where they were playing with players like Blake play, Niggas Claxton play, Patty Mills play. But after that we talking rookies or players that you don't even know existed. And Kevin Durant put on the backpack and carried this team to three straight wins. He clutched shots over good defenders today on the 76ers. He continues to make the case. So I saw that happen today and that made me want to talk about it. And then the second thing, and then the second thing was Tim Bon temps of ESPN does this every single year where he talks to a hundred different NBA insiders and ask them, what's your MVP ballad looking like right now? And well, the results were kind of surprising to me. And here they are. Steph Curry has 94 first place votes, which is crazy. Now I'm not saying he don't deserve it, but I definitely look at the way the NBA landscape is right now and would have thought this would have been a lot closer than what it is. Shout out to Steph Curry. He's doing amazing things. I'm not even saying that I wouldn't have him as a front runner right now, but I think it's way closer than saying Steph Curry is by far ahead of everybody. Like I think that all four of the top candidates, I'm talking KD, I'm talking Steph, I'm talking Yanis and I'm talking Yolkich all have cases that if you pleaded it to me, I cannot tell you that you wrong. I might say I disagree with it. I don't know if that person is the MVP, but I cannot tell you that that player does not deserve the MVP award at this point. So let's go through the resumes of these players right now and kind of talk through who could be the vote. Again, I already talked about Kevin Wren's case a little bit, but let's go even more in depth. And the last five, and I know it's been almost 30 games of the season and we don't want to just focus on the last five, but you know Kevin Wren's stats are elite already. But the last five minutes after 35 points per game, eight and a half rebounds, seven and a half assists. He is shooting 50% from the field. He is shooting 38% from three, 95% from the free throw line. He is playmaking more than he's ever done. And a couple of games this season, he has taken the assignment of stepping up against the other team's best player and clamping that guy up. And he is putting on a backpack. And the team is the number one team in the East with a lot of different distractions slash things. This is a 21 and eight team right now. James Harden, who's supposed to be the secondary star, hasn't looked nearly like the James Harden we thought we were gonna get. And Cary Irvin ain't even suited up this season. This is the best team in the East record-wise. And a lot of that majority of that is because Kevin Wren has been a one-man bucket, a one-man point guard playmaker, a one-man defender protecting the paint and guarding the perimeter. His case is amazing. So if you told me right now, Katie is your MVP, I'm gonna say I respect it. So let's talk about the case first step, Cary. You again, Tim Bonzips and his 100 insiders have him as the guy that is in the driving seat. And it is his award to lose at this moment. Again, the total voting, 94 out of the 101st place votes. The argument is for himself, right? They're the best team and illegally tied for the best record with the Phoenix Suns at this moment. He's a big driving force. And I think that majority of people were kind of, and we did really know what they were gonna get for from the Golden State Warriors this season, right? There are a lot of question marks. Clay Thompson, James Wiseman, the other young dudes, none of those dudes have even done anything. It's really been Steph Curry, Dreymond Green and a bunch of very good role players that understand what to do on the court. And Steph Curry has been amazing. But the reason why I was surprised to me that he has 94% of the votes at this moment is that the last couple of weeks haven't been the best play for Steph Curry. Now he did break the record for the all-time three-pointers. So that definitely helps right now. But if we're looking at the last seven games, Steph Curry's average on 24, five and five, which is great counting stats, but he's not shooting at the same efficiency that we're expecting Steph Curry to do. He's shooting at 37% from the field, 36% from three. But again, even though Steph Curry is the greatest shooter of all time, all of his value doesn't come in the counting stats and how much he's hitting from the field or how much he's missing because he has the gravity thing. And I know Steph Curry haters hate when you talk about gravity, but it is a real thing. And I don't think, I know some people have the opinion. And again, I just disagree. I'm not saying that you're crazy for thinking this. Some people think that because of Steph Curry's gravity, even when he's having a terrible shooting night, he's still impacting the game positively and up to the point where you can't say he had a bad game because of his gravity. Because even if Steph Curry is over nine from the field right now, I'm not gonna stop defending him. He's Steph Curry. He can catch fire and hit the next nine. You know what I'm saying? So he hasn't been amazing individually over the last seven, but the team has been able to sustain that and still win close games. In some of these games, it's him closing out. The Steph Curry conversation or the argument doesn't need to be made because most people have him as their MVP right now. So let's talk about some of the other dudes. The third place person on this list was Giannis. And that was surprising to me because honestly, if I were to rank these things, I think that Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, and Jokic are all in the tier as type three and Giannis is beneath them. I think Giannis, for me, if I was going to pick it, Giannis is in fourth place and then the other three, I don't really know the order. But according to Tim Bond Simpson, he's 100 inside as Giannis is number three on the list. Which again, I can't say they're crazy. I'm just saying that I don't agree with him being number three. He had the FVPCs, the Finals MVP season last year and this year he's been just as good, not better. A lot of these people that we're seeing on this case, the other three people that we've talked about had a very good season last year and then elevated it, got even better. The same can't really be said about Giannis. Not saying that he's having a bad year. It's been a very steady year to what we've seen last year. I think that I even made a video on this channel during the off season or during the pre-season because he was taking those shots with confidence. He was hitting them and was like, oh snap, that three point shot is gonna come around. But it's basically the same as it has been any other year. The case for Giannis is this team started off very slowly because they had a lot of injuries and they're still dealing with injuries and then boom, he had his right hand man and his left hand man come back in and they immediately went on a huge run and Giannis had the game winners where he's putting up 40 points and all of that. He's still the greatest help defender in the entire NBA. One of the greatest defenders at all in the entire NBA. So his case still, he still has a case but I don't think his case is as strong at this point a quarter of the way or a third of the way through the season as the other three. And then lastly here is Nicola Jokic. And Zach Lowe and a lot of NBA nerds have Nicola Jokic in an entire tier with the other guys. And I'm a part of that crew man. I guess I'm considered an advanced stat nerd because I don't know how you can have a conversation about the MVP and leave Nicola Jokic off of it. I know in previous seasons, I guess throughout most of the history of the NBA to win the MVP award more than likely you have to be on one of the best teams in the league. And the major knock on Nicola Jokic is, ah, his team is not winning. But if you look at the stats and he passes all of the ITES, they are one of the greatest teams in the history of basketball when he's on the court and then one of the worst teams in the history of basketball when he's not. His point difference was like 30. The team is 30 points better when Nicola Jokic is on the court versus when he's not. That has never been done in the history of basketball before. Now, Kevin O'Connor, shout out to him and Ben Taylor at Thinkin' Basketball had a great podcast where you're talking about all things. They talk stuff, they talk Jokic, they talk about a bunch of different stuff and it was a very good conversation. And some of the stuff that we're mentioning about Jokic in that video, again, I'm not a guy that typically looks at advanced stats, but when I watch basketball, I know that Nicola Jokic should be at MVP conversations and I listen to that podcast and they're throwing numbers at it to prove it. I'm like, yo, get him more love right now. And listen, I've never been a person that agreed with voters fatigue. And I don't even know how you could have voters fatigue after somebody wins one award. Typically, voters fatigue is like, oh man, just won two in a row, three in a row. I'm not giving it to them again. I've never believed in voters fatigue personally. If you have the best individual season for nine years in a row, you deserve that award, nine years in a row. And people are saying that, ah, Jokic won it last year, so let somebody else get it is ludicrous to me. It's just, it's devaluing the award if we're telling somebody that he doesn't qualify because he did it last year. Now, the biggest argument that we mentioned earlier is that the team is not as good and that is a valid argument, but I would argue, what is bro supposed to? He's literally doing everything. He's literally doing everything and he doesn't have his third and his second best player. And again, the reason why I'm talking about this now is because I'm looking back, I'm thinking about previous seasons of me as a basketball fan. It had always been pretty clear who my MVP was, right? Last year, I was in a camp that thought Jokic and if you look at the voting, everybody that voted gave Jokic, Jokic won 91% of the first place votes. Everybody knew Jokic wasn't last year. The year before that it was Yannis, everybody knew that. The year before that it was Yannis, everybody knew that. The year before that it was James Harden. He even beat out everybody. LeBron James was a little bit behind it with 15 out of the 100 votes. And then the only time I could really think about where I was this indecisive about my own personal MVP vote was the 2016-2017 season, Russell Westbrook versus James Harden. And even to this day, I still don't know. I have flip-flopped on that thing so many times, my guy. And that season happened five years ago and I still don't know who I wanted to give my award to. And this season, if everything keeps going the same, might be the same. But again, I mean, things go like this all the time, I guess. Where somebody's probably gonna raise their neck above the others. And my guess is if the Warriors continue to be great and be the best team in the league, Steph Curry will win another MVP award. But I honestly do believe that my opinion on some of these things have been changing, man. Which is cool. I like that my opinions and things aren't as straightforward as they were seven years ago because I'm a different person now. I look at things from a different lens now. I used to be one of the dudes that would say, ah, bro is having an amazing season, but they the 5C. So like, how much does it matter? You know what I'm saying? And I don't think that's how I believe it anymore. I think that Yolkich could win MVP. I mean, I'm not a voter. But Yolkich could get my MVP vote even if they aren't one of the top three seeds in their conference. Very interesting stuff, man. There are definitely some people who listen, I don't wanna sound like a hater but I'm going to sound like a hater in this moment. There are some people that got these voter voting credentials that obviously don't take it serious. Like think about the history of people that be getting votes. Let's just go through some, just real quick. I know I made a whole video about this like two years ago but I just wanna showcase some of them. What about the year back in 2012, 2013 where LeBron James was one vote away from being the first unanimous MVP voter? The one guy gave it to Carmelo Anthony. I always like coming back to articles like this because they talk about this. This is the year. The Knicks won 54 games, the Heat won 66. The Knicks ended up winning 12 straight games that season while the Heat won 27. Who broke that streak? None of them Chicago Bulls. Yeah, I remember that day. The numbers were so tilted and LeBron's favor that he actually lapped Anthony and a number of value stats. James double Carmelo's total win shares, box plus minus and VORP warp. I don't even know what that stands for. Melo won the score title but LeBron beat him in rebounds and since blocks and virtually every metric of offensive efficiency. So that's a Melo. You're in the major season. I'm not discrediting him that. But he had no business getting an MVP vote. First place MVP vote over LeBron. And I guess most of the cases for people not taking a series don't really come up in MVP. It comes up in all NBA. It comes up in all defensive. And you're like, Kenny, why does that matter where a lot of the contracts that people get are incentivized by making all NBA and all defensive? So if you have people in the voting system that aren't taking it seriously that some people missing out on Brad that could have made some Brad, I'm just saying. Get some people out there that care. And I will take that serious. I will treat that like it's a final exam. If I don't pass, I don't get a degree. I'm telling you, don't mess with me. Either way, let me know in the comment section a quarter of the way through the season or I guess a third of the way through the season. Who would be your league MVP right now? And then we will circle back to this two thirds of the way through the season at the end of the season to figure out how things have changed. My mind is to y'all enjoy basketball and I'll see y'all tomorrow.