![]() And it will probably (hopefully) come down to the wire, and not be determined by two or three games that happen to be on national television, since that stands out. But I try to put that stuff away and think more objectively too.Įmbiid, Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo all have claims at MVP here. He can occasionally maul you, and you can barely touch him back. I think as a big man who plays on the perimeter, he is sometimes officiated like he’s a small guard. I whine about the amount of contact Giannis gets to initiate relative to the amount of contact defenders can dish back. It’s tempting to put down the players you’re not rooting for. It’s tempting to get into a back and forth with other fans. But these dudes are all very likable to me, even if you need to be a bit ruthless and wild to be so impossibly good at hoops. Ironically, Anderson was contrasting Kevin Durant’s personality from these “sociopaths,” although I’m not sure many today would argue KD is the sweetie he fooled reporters into thinking he was back in 2012.Īnd sure, maybe if we asked Ben Simmons, Markieff Morris, or Kyrie Irving about Embiid, Jokic, or Giannis we’d hear a different story. And maybe some of it applies not just to scoring leaders but to MVPs. Something about dominating your opponent, publicly, more or less every day of your life, in the most visible aspect of your sport, tends to either warp your spirit or to be possible only to those whose spirits are already warped.”Īnd who knows, maybe there’s still more than a little truth to all that. scoring champions are, as a rule, weirdos and reprobates and in some cases diagnosable sociopaths. Sam Anderson, once wrote for The New York Times: It’s fun when the best players are generous, playful, and genuinely likable. It’s fun when they’re not all from the US. And how much more exciting that fact makes everything. ![]() Embiid and Jokic, as well as Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic remind us how much of an international sport basketball has become. Michael Jordan and LeBron James both suffered from the “we’re bored of voting for you” dynamic or they’d have more back-to-backs too.īut who’s keeping track. (Ask James Harden, who in my opinion, probably should have shared the award with Kawhi Leonard in 2017, the year Russell Westbrook won it). He has a chance to become one of just a few players to win back-to-back MVPs, even though a couple others who never did that may have deserved to. His current run is up there in the annals of history already. Nikola Jokic is an incredible story in his own right. He’ll get to make his case for that during the playoffs, long after MVP votes are mailed in. This season, he might actually be the best. Joel Embiid is just one of the very few best players in the entire world. We don’t hear the “if healthy, in shape and engaged” requisite condition before all praise anymore. We have come so far from the “he only played X number of games in Y number of seasons, he’s out of shape, blah blah blah” days. ![]() Fans were blown away.Down by 12 points at the half, led the to a comeback pouring in 23 points in the second-half & OT! /HRQYxhskAF- NBA March 14, 2022 That’s a brick wall, fam.īut Giannis is Giannis. This is pretty incredible. I mean, that dude is 7 feet and 280 pounds. If it were a normal human being they’d probably have immediately exploded. But, clearly, it wasn’t that big of a deal to him.Įmbiid really hockey-checked that man. If Antetokounmpo falls this is probably a flagrant 2. Giannis doesn’t move after this Flagrant 1 from Embiid. He gives him the elbow, but Antetokounmpo still gets up the shot and watches the ball after.Įmbiid is somehow the one who ends up on the ground! It’s incredible. The only thing he can do is foul, but he shouldn’t have fouled him this way. ![]() Embiid is sliding and tries to stop him but is clearly out of position. He really didn’t move.Īntetokounmpo was coming down the court in transition. And it wasn’t just any flagrant foul, either. Any person who can take a flagrant foul from Joel Embiid and not budge seems like somebody who you don’t really want to mess with. ![]()
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