Maybe you favor Jokic and Embiid because of the absences that have affected their respective teams.
#LET PLAY DEF JAM FIGHT FOR NY FREE#
He’s done all that while again serving as the linchpin of a defense that prevents points at a near-top-five rate with him on the court-despite spending much of this season not as a roving free safety on the weak side of the Bucks defense, but rather while spending a third of his minutes playing center with Brook Lopez injured. He hasn’t quite conquered the free throw line, but he’s trending upward, shooting nearly 75 percent from the charity stripe since Christmas. It’s not just that he’s merely reproducing historically ludicrous production, though it’s that he’s arriving at those numbers with even more precision, confidence, and force than ever before.Īntetokounmpo has made marked improvements in the accuracy of his passing, in how comfortably he steps into long jumpers, and in how often he nails them. The only reason the numbers-30 points to go with nearly 12 rebounds, six assists, and 2.4 blocks/steals in 34 minutes per game-don’t explode off your screen is because we’ve come to expect that from Giannis. This NBA MVP Race Could Be the Closest in Recent History 7 defense.Īnd yet, as I considered the candidates, I found myself coming back to the question Embiid posed to Redick: “Where’s Giannis?” The answer: right there with Jokic in virtually every advanced statistical category, right there with Embiid in the chase for the scoring crown, right there in the argument for his second Defensive Player of the Year trophy, and right there in the tangle of teams in the running for the East’s no. 614 true shooting-something that only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had ever done before this season-while also anchoring the NBA’s no. Embiid has been there with him stride for stride all season, averaging better than 30 points, 11 rebounds, and four assists per game on. Jokic is averaging a shade under 27 points, 14 rebounds, and eight assists per game, which nobody’s ever done before, and leads the NBA in just about every advanced metric there is.
They’ve both somehow been even better this season than they were last, when they finished first and second on both my ballot and the final voting, and they’re both putting up numbers on par with-and, in some cases, exceeding-the greatest players in NBA history. I’ll get the plea-copping out of the way up top: I won’t bat an eyelash if Jokic goes back-to-back or Embiid becomes the first Sixer to win MVP since Allen Iverson in 2001.
We start with the most brutal decision of the bunch: Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images Most Valuable Player 1. (I’ll hit the team awards-All-NBA, All-Defensive, and All-Rookie-tomorrow.) For the most part, though, here’s what my picks for the individual awards will look like.
This is going up a few days before the proper end of the 2021-22 regular season as such, I reserve the right to make some changes before I submit my ballot ahead of the April 11 deadline. There sure are! Man, it’s a good thing we don’t have to place them in order, have our preferences recorded for posterity, and have said preferences compose part of the final decision on who wins real-ass trophies that, decades down the line, will play a significant role in the legacies of the greatest players of their eras.Īlas! The decision-makers at the NBA have once again given me a real year-end award ballot-an honor I’m grateful for, a responsibility I’m not always super thrilled about … and a reason to do a lot of late-season homework. Embiid immediately responds, “Where’s Giannis ?” Which, after a few seconds of stammering about tiers and groups, leaves Redick facing an inconvenient truth: Redick quickly replies, “It’s Jokic!”-reasonable enough, considering the dude won MVP last season. JJ then taps Kevin Durant, long since stamped as a scoring god among mortals, for one of the other two spots.Įmbiid, naturally, asks who’s third. ”ĭuring a chat with Joel Embiid on his The Old Man and the Three podcast, Redick compliments his former 76ers teammate by naming him one of the three best basketball players in the world. JJ Redick: “You’re 1 of the 3 best players in the world, and so is Kevin.
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