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Everybody hopeful.
If you guys have had a great start to your week. Got a quick show today? We recorded over an hour with Carter Rodriguez from the Chasetown Podcast, a deep dive on the Undefeated twelve and oh Cleveland Cavaliers earlier this morning. That's going to be air airing tomorrow morning on our feed and then tonight we're going live after the final buzzer of MAVs Warriors on YouTube, which I'm very excited about.
But I have a tiny little window of time here in the mid morning, and I wanted to get a show out for today, but to do something quick, I thought it'd be fun.
To take a quick peek at the MVP ladder.
Right, So we're, you know, roughly one eighth of the way through the season, right, twelve thirteen percent of the way through the season. This obviously is not the time when you're going to make any sort of final decision about the MVP race, but it's a nice time to take a look at the early chunk of the season and see who's impacting their team the most. So we're going to talk about my current top five in the MVP race, and then we'll get out of here for
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Nice quick show today, starting our MVP ladder with number five. I was kind of on the fence here before last night. I probably would have leaned towards Anthony Edwards. But shake KOs Alexander a big breakout game against the Cleveland against the Los Angeles Clippers last night, got that pull up three point shot going. He is now up to twenty eight six and seven on the season on sixty two percent true shooting. Again, early in the season, it was a little bit clunky as he was working on that
three point shot. He's taking over five off the dribble threes per game so far this season, when he was at just two point six last year, and again it was a little bit sloppy, but he hit four of them against the Clippers last night and that led to
his career high forty five points. Again, like, there's a lot of upside to perimeter shooting outside the three point line when you're good at getting yourself open and if you're not willing to take those pull up threes when a defender is sitting back to try to contain your drive or chasing you over the top of a screen. In a ball screen, you're giving up an opportunity to get an efficient shot up if you're capable of knocking
that shot down. And again, like when you talk about real volume scoring, like career high type stuff, consistently getting into the high thirties into the forties, that's where that three point shot becomes a real ceiling razor for you. Right Like, it's not gonna be there every single game. You're gonna games where reshoot four of them and you go one for four. But you're also gonna have games where reshoot seven or eight of them and you make five or six. And like on those kinds of nights,
that's when you can have truly explosive scoring. But if you operate entirely from the mid range and around the basket, just because of how much congestion there is down there and because of the value of those shots, it's harder to hit like the really high point totals. And so again,
it was an investment. I thought even in the early part of the season, the Thunder knew like, especially with some of the lighter schedule they were playing at the very beginning of the season, like it just made sense for him to get the lumps out, be willing to miss some shots as you try to add that to his game, and that could be something that ends up being a big tool for him down the line. He's also been the best ISO player in the league this year.
He's ran one hundred and eight ISOs at one point two to two points per possession including passes. That's the highest among the three players in the league to run at least one hundred ISOs to this point in the season, and when you drop into fifty ISOs, we have thirteen players and he still ranks fourth in efficiency on that lift. The Oklahoma City Thunder offense has fallen apart every time
he's left the floor. There's sixteen points per one hundred possessions worse on offense when he is off the floor. The Thunder off to a nine and two start. Challenge is going to get more difficult from here. With chet Holmgren being out starting small ball groups a lot of small lineups, It's going to be even harder for Shay over the course of the next few months. But at this point in the season, I have him at fifth in our MVP Ladder number four, Jason Tatum. This was
a surprise for me. I did not think of him as a guy that would kind of crack into the top five of the MVP voting this year. If you guys remember before the season, I kind of thought of this as a spot for Ant. Tatum has been better than Ant to start this season, my pretty wide margin. Thirty one points per game, eight rebounds, five assists, sixty two percent true shooting. He's third in the league in
scoring overall scoring volume at this point. Tweaked his shot profile a little bit, really doubled down on the analytic analytically smart approach to scoring volume, so really increased his three point rate and really has been working hard to get to the line. Fifty seven percent of his shot attempts this year have been from three. That was forty three percent last year. So a fourteen percent increase in the percentage of his shots that come from three point
line from the three point line. And then the free throw rate is insane. So like again, free throw rate is usually factored in at are calculated as the number of free throw attempts who take per field goal attempt, and so in ISO situations, Tatum is getting zero point four to one foul shots per field goal attempt. That's insane. In post up situations, he's getting zero point five to six free throw attempts per field goal attempt. He's getting fouled on twenty two percent of his post ups. That
is completely outrageous. Like that is more than one out of every five times he catches the ball in the block, he's going to the foul line. And so the result of that, by virtue of increasing his three point volume, by virtue of working a lot harder to get to the line, and some of the stuff that he's been working on over the last few years in terms of grifting, which again, when it comes to the grifting, like I root for the Lakers, I've got Anthony Davis, who's a grifter.
I've got Austin Reeves who's a grifter. Like I'm I'm not anti grifting, I'm anti grifting. With the league and with officials, I want them to solve that problem. As far as the players go, you're just a competitor and you're trying to win, and quite frankly, you're an idiot if you don't take advantage of the rules that are available to you. Like you know, there's a conversation going around the league of whether or not they need to do something to fight three point volume, and there's a
conversation to have about that. I don't think the Celtics really are the problem because they play pretty basketball, But there are a lot of teams out there taking a lot of really stupid threes, and then it's ugly to watch. But as long as the three point shot is the way that it is, and as long as it's worth fifty percent more per make than a two, then you should be taking advantage of it as long as you can make them. And he's been shooting the ball so
well off the catch this year. He's over one point two points per jump shot in off the catch situations and as a result, he's having the highest scoring volume and efficiency season of his career. He's also been a super high efficiency ISO guy just like Shay. He's second to Shay on that one hundred ISOs list. He's had one hundred and thirteen points including passes on one hundred and one possessions. He's one of the most versatile defenders in the league that can be deployed in so many
different ways. The Celtics are better on both ends when he's on versus one he's off. Now, it's not as big of a gap as you see with some of the other MVP candidates, but that's to be expected. The Celtics are the most talented roster in the league, but they have been better with Tatum on the floor on both sides of the ball. He's having the best season of his career. Can't say enough about how good Jason
Tatum has been to start the year. Number Three Anthony Davis Thirty one points per game, ten rebounds, three assists per game, sixty six percent true shooting in over two blocks per game. Eighty percent of what makes the Lakers great? All right, even I should't say Greg because I don't think the Lakers are great, but eighty percent of what makes the Lakers a good team is Anthony Davis. The Lakers are fifth in offense, and he leads them in
scoring by a mile. They've been the fourth most efficient pick and roll team in the league because of AD's threat on the role. AD is personally shooting sixty two percent on touches on the role. In ball screens, he's getting one point four to one points per roleman touch. That is completely outrageous. He's generating over a point per possession in ISO and post up situations. They're doing a lot of work with him in the middle of the floor,
isolating other centers from other teams. He's shooting sixty percent on hooks and floaters this year. Again, that's not Jokic territory, but that's close. He's been unbelievable and none of that even comes close to the carry job he's doing on the defensive end of the floor. The Lakers are the twelfth best half court defense in the league and there isn't a single player other than Anthony Davis that isn't
having a bad defensive season. He is single handedly anchoring a respectful, respectable, above average half court defense by himself. That is the type of carry job that he is doing. The Lakers are six and three when he plays. He sat out for a game in Memphis, and the Grizzlies without Marcus Martin Desmond Bine beat the shit out of the Lakers. They depend on him in every single way. It is a carry job. He is constantly cleaning up mistakes on defense, cleaning up mistakes on the glass, providing
the offensive firepower that they need. It's a carry job. He deserves a ton of credit here in the early going of this season, carrying a Lakers roster that has some pretty significant athleticism weaknesses on the perimeter. Number two Kevin Durant twenty eight points, seven rebounds, and three assists here in the early going of the season. Sixty seven percent true shooting. That's fifty five percent from the field, forty three percent from three to eighty four percent from
the line of ridiculous shooting splits. He's also getting one point four blocks per game, which is the most he's had per game since he was in Golden State. I think he's having the best defensive season he's had since twenty seventeen. Guy and the team at being two places at once, and he is consistently rotating out to the perimeter, chasing guys off the line, getting back protecting the rim. He has been deployed on ball in a lot of situations when there are specific matchups that the Suns have
been having trouble with. He is one of their best defensive rebounders, especially in contested defensive rebound situations. And none of that comes close to the fact that he's just straight up stealing games in clutch situations he's having He's been the best clutch player in the league in my opinion, this year. He is thirty five clutch points already here through just over ten percent of the season. The Suns are seven to zero in clutch games that KD plays in.
He's shooting twelve for nineteen from the field, and there are specific plays that he's made where he's straight up turned losses into wins. They were going to lose to Philly and he through purely through late game shot making and defensive execution, beat the Sixers. Then that Clippers game on Opening Night, straight up would have lost that game if he did not hit a right shoulder fade away over a double team that sent the game to overtime before they out executed them in the ot period, like
he has straight up turned losses into wins. To put it simply, Kevin Durant has been the primary driving force behind a Suns team that was holding the number one seed in the Western Conference before he got hurt. He's playing some of the best basketball of his career. It's a comfort thing too, when you watch him in these late game situations. He just looks like he's so incredibly secure and who he is as a player in what he wants to do when he's on the floor. He
has complete command of things. He is, at least on the mental and skill side of the game, is absolutely peaking, and there's enough athletic ability there for him to be, in my opinion, the second best player in the league in the early going this season, and the number one Nikola Jokich. Thirty points per game, fourteen rebounds and twelve assists. That's completely preposterous. Sixty seven percent for shooting, that's completely preposterous. He's running fifteen post ups per game. No one else
in the league is running more than seven. He's getting one point on five points per possession including pass out of post ups. If you took the six players that have run at least fifty post ups this year, and again, he's run one hundred and fifty. If you take the six players to run fifty, only Pascal Siakam has been more efficient on a per possession basis, and again he's doing it a third of the time. He's been the best post up player in the league by a mile.
He's the jump shot has been a complete revelation. He's getting one point five to three points per jump shot. That has allowed him to pop in ball screens now all of a sudden, He's converting role man possessions at one point three to five points per possession, which is way up from last year. Spot up situations, he's converting at one point four to four points per possession, that is way up since last year. The Nuggets are over forty points better per one hundred possessions when he's on
the floor versus off. I think it's clear that he's the best player in the league. I think the gap between him and the second best player in the league right now is the largest it's been since Lebron James was the best player in the league in twenty thirteen.
He is lapping everybody.
I don't think I've ever seen a more clear cut MVP favorite through ten twelve games in my time covering the league. He has built such a wide gap in such a short period of time because no one's playing at the level he's playing. He is basically single handedly taking an injury ravaged Nuggets roster with a bunch of guys that are playing below their potential at least in the core guys. They've got young guys that are stepping up. But again they're stepping up because Nicole Jokic is so
damn good. He can craft these tiny rolls that they can thrive in. I can't, I literally can't say enough he's playing. The ceiling he's at right now is the highest I've seen since Lebron James. It's unbelievable. It's a pleasure to watch, and I cannot believe how quickly he turned around this Nugget season when it looked like it was headed towards disaster. Out the gates. With the way some of these guys are playing, it's been unbelievable. I
think he's a clear cut number one right now. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. I will be back tonight live on YouTube after the final buzzer of MAVs Warriors. I will see you guys then the volume. What's up guys, As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second
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