Hoops Tonight - NBA MVP Rankings: Giannis & Paul George rising, Luka falls, Joel Embiid "clear #1"

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responsible gambling resources. All right, welcome to hoopsinight here at the volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Hope all you guys had an incredible week. Here's a quick breakdown of how this weekend is going to go, because as you know, I'm leaving to go to Breckenridge tomorrow and I'm not getting back till Wednesday. Today's show is just going to be our MVP rankings. Then later this afternoon, I'm recording with

the Nerd Sash guys. We picked eleven teams that are my top tier contenders, plus some of the teams that are kind of on the fringe. We're gonna play a game of higher or lower, whether or not we're higher on the team than we were to start the season or lower on the team than we were to start the season. We're recording that today that'll be released over the course of the time while I'm gone, and then I'm also recording the mail Bag today that'll be running

while I'm out of town. So Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we'll have lots of mail Bag content and we're gonna be doing a check in basically a mid season check in on all of the contenders with the Nerd Sash guys, but in this episode just covering our MVP rankings. You guys know the Joe before we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Would mean a lot to me if you guys woul take a second to scroll down

and hit subscribe. Don't forget about our podcast feed. If you're more into that format, you can find that wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys don't miss show announcements as well as the film threads that I do in the morning and the last but not leaves. Keep dropping back questions in the YouTube comments so we can hit them throughout this season. All right, let's talk some basketball.

So I'm dropping three guys out from our list two weeks ago Dearn Fox because the Kings are on a four game slide. Things are looking really bleak out there in Sacramento, Tyrese Haliburton, just because he's injured, and so I want to use this list to kind of highlight other players. Obviously, if he comes back, he'll rejoin the list. And with Pascal Siakam here in Indy, I shouldn't say here there in Indy, I would expect him to be back on the list before too long. And then lastly,

Kawhi Leonard. I'm dropping out not because Kawhi is not doing very well, but simply because Paul George has been the Clipper's best player for the last few weeks, and so I just want to highlight him specifically. Obviously, I still view Kawhi as an MVP candidate, but for the purpose of this list, I want to highlight Paul George today. All right, let's get started. Number ten, Donovan Mitchell. The Cavs are red hot. They've won eleven of their last

fourteen games. Donovan Mitchell in that span thirty points, five rebounds, and seven assists per game on forty nine percent from the field thirty seven percent from three to eighty eight percent from the line. But it's the defensive end that I want to highlight in this particular segment. That's where I've been most impressed by him this season. He's having the best defensive season of his career in my opinion. His speed makes them really useful, especially in helping recover situations.

Obviously they're using Isaac Gacoro more on the ball, but what Donovan Mitchell can do is he can dig down on a post player, dig down into a driving lane, while also having the speed to chase shooters off the line. It's made him really useful. And here's the thing. The Cavs have lost two of their top four players, and they've been trucking right along, and that mostly has to do with Donovan Mitchell all right, Number nine, Jalen Brunson. The Knicks have won eight out of their last ten games,

and some quality wins in there. They beat the Minnesota Timberwolves. They also beat the Philadelphia seventy six ers with Joel Embiid in the lineup, and Jalen bruns has just been a steady force for them all season twenty eight points per game, four rebounds, and eight assists. In this ten game span on fifty nine percent true shooting. Here's a crazy stat for you guys, Jalen Brunson has a seventy six percent effective field goal percentage on unguarded catch and

shoot jump shots this season. We always think about him on the ball, but he's been one of the best off ball players in the league this year. In fact, he's been the very best spot up player in the league. Minimum one hundred possessions. He's converting spot up possessions at one point five points per possession, Absolutely insane. He is the best player on a team winning sixty percent of their games in an NBA, that's not easy to win

sixty percent of your games. In number eight, Luka Doncic, He's played in just three games in the last fourteen days as he works his way back from this ankle injury, and the MAVs have lost three out of five, So I'm dropping him down to eight just for right this moment. Number seven Anthony Edwards really starting to cook. He averaged just twenty three point six points per game in his first twenty games this season on forty four percent shooting

and thirty seven percent from three. In his last eighteen games, twenty nine points per game, forty nine percent from the field in thirty nine percent from three, and most importantly just in terms of his attitude in the way he carries himself on the court. He's really starting to feel like an alpha dog in this league. We kind of saw this at first to Team USA, right where he just kind of ascended above the group, not just in the way he played, but in the way he carried himself.

But that was mostly B list NBA stars. Right now we're starting to see that against the best players in the league, like all of that span, that last eighteen games that encompasses that stretch where the Wolves played awesome teams every single night, and he's been insanely good in that stretch, going toe to toe with the best players in the league. They're outscoring opponents by seven points per one hundred possessions in this span with him on the floor.

They have a one twenty offensive rating with him on the floor, all against quality opponents, right, sixty two percent true shooting, so and it's super efficient at that position, which is had an issue for him in the past, and again all against the gauntlet of insanely good opponents. The rise of Anthony Edwards that we predicted on this show before the season is happening right before our eyes. Number six, Paul George really gone up in aggressiveness since

the new year. In his last eight games, twenty eight points per game to go with five rebounds and six assists on sixty nine percent true shooting. He's been the best player on his team in the last month or so, dominating on and off the ball. The shot creation stats are insane, and Paul George's post up has been worth

one point three to five points per possession. That is the third best mark in the league minimum fifty possessions, so lower volume than the normal list that I pull for all the big you know centers that run hundreds of post ups every single year, but for like the relatively low volume guys minimum fifty possessions. That's third best in the league. By the way, for those of you who are curious, number two Heimee Hokz Junior on that list, and krisops porzingis at number one. He's at almost a

point and a half. Chris tops has just been insane, just like he was last year, beating switches in the post. Paul George is also getting one point one to two points per ISO that's sixth out of eighteen players to run at least one hundred and fifty, So he's been one of the best high volume ISO players in the league this year. And then really good pick and roll player two one point zero three points per pick and roll including passes. That's twenty seventh out of sixty five

players to run at least two hundred and fifty. So been one of the best on ball guys in the league. But he's also been one of the best off ball guys in the league. Is you know, one of the beautiful things about bringing James Harden on board is he's just getting a lot of advantage situations where a guy's

closing out at him. It's funny when I work with my young kids, the high school kids that I coach, we always work on king of the court, but from the standpoint of attacking closeouts, because you know, it's not that you don't want to work on one on one stuff, but primarily at that high school level, I think one of the most important development aspects for a young player, especially if you want to play at the next level, because most college coaches they're not just gonna let a

dude cooking io all night long. Right, Like, they're running an offense and they're trying to generate advantages so that a guy can play. And that's a huge play with an advantage. And that's a huge element to what makes a scorer a good score is you get twenty shots in a game for a top tier score. And we always think about post ups, ISOs and pick and rolls, but a real good offense has flow. You're playing with five other players and the ability to attack with an

advantage is so important. And so I set up these kids with like you know, they're throwing the ball out and closing out, so they're still playing king of the court, but they're working on offense, on individual moves that you'll actually use in a real basketball game more frequently than not. Right, And this is a this is an interesting stat for you. One point twenty nine points per spot up possession from Paul George, fourth out of forty five players to run

at least one hundred and fifty. So he's been one of the very best spot up players in the league this year. You give Paul George a defender sprinting at him, he's going to knock down the catch and shoot the shot if you close out short, and if you close out hard on him. He's got all of those close out attacking moves, that high level ISO attack with the defender sprinting at him, which just makes him such a useful player on a team that has Kawhi Leonard and

James Harden. If they need him to initiate offense, he can do so. But when he's off the ball, well, Kawhi has it, while Russ has it, while James Harden has it. He's one of the best offensive players in the league in that type of setting, which has made him super, super useful and valuable on the Clippers. He's been the best player on that team for the last

month or so. Number five Jason Tatum. When he's missing his pull up three, he's kind of like just below that top tier of superstars, right just because he hunts that shot so much. It's like a third of his offense, right. But when he's making it, he looks like one of the best players in the league, and he is making it right now. In the Boston Celtics last ten games, Jason Tatum has made twenty two out of his forty five pull up threes. That's one point four to seven

points per shot. His effective field goal percentage on pull up shooting has been ticking up all season, and he's up to forty six percent in effective field goal percentage on the season. Now clearly views that shot as his go to move. He actively hunts it. We saw that in the Minnesota timber Wolves game the other night. He gets Carl Towns on a switch and he's not looking

to drive past him. He's looking to set him up for a pull up three, and if he can make it and anything close to that clip when they get to the playoffs, just forget about anything else. They're just gonna win the title. Like if Tatum's making forty percent of his pull up threes in the playoffs, the Celtics are winning the title. That's just what's going to happen.

Number four Nikola Jokis. The numbers aren't super impressive by Jokic's standards since our last list, twenty three points, eleven rebounds, and nine assists per game, but he's shooting seventy percent from the field, and quite frankly, he doesn't really seem all that interested in winning MVP. In fact, I would argue you probably would I bet you if we could give him some truth here, he'd be like, I'd prefer

not to right. He took twelve shots total in the back to back in two games against the Jazz and Pistons last week. Like, those are games where embiids trying to score, trying to score, trying to score, and he's getting, you know, forty points, right, Nicole Jokic is like, oh, it's the Pistons. I'm just not going to shoot this game, and I'm just going to pass the ball around, right, you know. So But even with that, he's just too good at basketball to not be high on this list.

So I still have him at number four, even if he's not necessarily going after the award Number three. Janis and Tena Kompo basically the one big bright spot with the Bucks this year. The Bucks are weird. They're twenty eight and thirteen, which is the third best record in the league, albeit they've played a super easy schedule. They've had the third easiest schedule in the league so far and they have the eighth toughest remaining schedule, so we'll

learn more about them in the long run. But they've had these like super ugly, like lifeless losses, and their defense can be downright embarrassing at times, Like imagine being the third best record in the league and you're a bottom ten defense, Like that's not something you see very often in the NBA. But Yannis is the reason they're twenty eight and thirteen. He's a nightly, regular season wrecking ball, right,

and he carries them through most of their issues. How about thirty one points, twelve and seven assists on sixty percent shooting. Since our last MVP list two weeks ago, Number two Shake Gills was Alexander. I made my first regular season NBA bet in a while last night. I love to bet the NBA playoffs, but I dislike betting.

I only place a handful of bets during the regular season because the wild swings and effort from every team from night to night between travel and who knows what they did last night if it was one of their teammates birthday parties and they all went out, or if they met with a friend in a city or something like that's just really difficult to to kind of predict that kind of stuff, and those swings are much more easy to predict in the playoffs. So I love betting

the NBA when we get in the playoffs. But I placed a bet on an NBA regular season game last night and it was the Oklahoma City a Thunder on the road in Utah. I have this theory about the NBA regular season that really young and fast teams that play hard every night just will rack up wins. Like we're literally seeing this with the Calves as they're down a bunch of talent, but they're just young and they're right, like Donovan Mitchell and Isaac Korro just bring this crazy

straight line speed on both ends of the floor. We're seeing it with the Utah Jazz right now. Well, the Yoklahoma City Thunder are the best version of that. The Jazz were fifteen and five going into that game last night at home. They had won nine in a row. But I just had a feeling like, yeah, but you're playing the Thunder. They're also young, they also play hard every night, they're also super fast, and they're just better

at it than the Utah Jazz. And ended up being a little bit close because every single time the Thunder ended up going up by ten, twelve points, the Jazz would just kind of battle back and chip away. But I ended up winning that one regular season bet. I just thought it was an interesting, kind of like example of that regular season dynamic that I'm talking about. But Shakovis Alexander has gone for thirty plus in twenty nine

of his forty games this season. He shot over fifty percent from the field in twenty six of his forty games this season. He's only shot below forty percent from the field in three games this year. Year. He is one of the most consistently productive and efficient scoring guards we've ever seen, and if it wasn't for Joel Embiid, he'd be winning the MVP this year. But we have a clear number one. Joel Embiid straight up snatched the

soul of the Denver Nuggets the other night. He's the first guy I've seen in years single handedly discombobulate the Nuggets offense, specifically at the end of a game, just by bullying Jokic off his spots and denying him the basketball. He's the only guy in the league big and strong enough to do it. We talked so much about his offense, but it was the defensive end where he blew up

the Nuggets in that particular game. On the offensive side of things, though, here's an absolutely crazy Joel Embiid stat for you guys to close the show out today. It is more likely that Joel Embiid scores forty in a game than it is that he scores less than thirty. He has eight forty point games this year, including two fifty pointers. He has just five games below thirty points this season. He's a runaway MVP in my opinion, halfway

through the season. It's kind of bizarre because I was looking at DraftKings this morning and they have Jokic at plus two forty and Embiid at plus two fifty. I was surprised by that. Like, I think Embiid is clearly the better MVP candidate right now, clearly wants it. More like, I just think it's very very obvious that Joel Embiid is kind of headed in a freight train in that direction. If it's not for an injury, I think Joel Embid's

gonna win the MVP this year. I think he's one of the most clear cut number ones we've had midway through the season in a long time. So shout out to Joel Embiid. All right, guys, that is all I have for this particular episode. Like I said, recording a bunch of stuff the rest of today that we're gonna run throughout the weekend. As always, I appreciate you guys, and I look forward to seeing you with the Nerd Sash guys here in a little bit the volume