Especially high lottery picks making a 2nd or 3rd year jump. Ja winning MIP over Despunte was a travesty.

I’d say top 5 picks at least

Then that’s a whole new different award

nah that’s casting too wide a net, and there have been many lotto picks who struggle either for their first couple seasons or don’t hit another gear until later. Randle for instance was 7th overall and a decent player for a while, but his ascendance to 1st option for the Knicks, dragging us to the playoffs, killing dudes all year. he was deserving for sure.

For the past 15 years it’s mostly been “most surprising first time all-star” with the odd exception here and there. Sports writers broadly don’t care about the award, so that’s just the easiest thing for them to do that’s at least vaguely in the realm of what the award should be.

But every award is really the same thing: “who does a bunch of media people feel fits X award this year?” It’s always a moving target and a lot of it is inevitably working in reverse to justify whatever outcome individual voters want to push.

Reeves nor Rollins are even top 3 in odds right now lol.

I mean Rollins went from being on a two way contract 8 months ago to being essentially a 20/5/5 player with top level perimeter defense. Reeves will win though because lakers

Ok and Rollins is a second round pick who was on a two way contract last year and has litterally tripled all his major stats while also improving his efficiency

They both have excellent cases 

It’s his 5th season.

He hasn’t done anything a long time, he’s always been a baller if you watch him, but he’s averaging 29/6/7 now, and definitely has not always been that guy.

MIP isn’t about if people saw the potential lol

Don’t think that’s fair though, he went from solid 3rd option to legit 2nd super star with the second best record in the league.

6/2/2 -> 18/4/6 I don’t think should be a clear favorite over

20/4/6 -> 29/6/7

I feel like it’s be criminal for reaves to never have won MIP given his situation and initial expectations from the public

Well no, we both know that’s not entirely true…his minutes increased because there was a massive void of minutes at the guard position to be filled, from Dame leaving and KPJ getting hurt. That’s what led to the opportunity for the big role.

I feel like that’s pretty obvious.

Reaves numbers has went up since Bron came. Reaves went from a player folks said should come off bench to a top 15 player in the league. You obviously just have a bias against lakers like most people.

ryan rollins is not a borderline all star, what crack are you smoking bro

Giddey isn’t actually playing any better. He just had a hot streak and his volume is up. Everything points to him essentially being the same level of player.

More interesting than the MVP race to me. It’s just going to be Jokic, Shai, and Giannis again

Yeah there’s a lot of players in the running guess we’ll see how I plays out

And what about the FMVP?

Now I’m imagining someone stealing a giant TV swinging it above their head like a Eurostep

Serious question: what is wrong with Target?

Will someone please think of the poor multi-millionaire who needed to shoplift!

If he finishes with 28 ppg I think people will definitely have him at the top of the conversation, but I don’t think people are expecting 28 ppg to hold for the season

Being in contention like that is so rare. I think we’ve been spoiled by dynastic teams.

I mean, we were. Lost a tight ECF series in 2019 to the eventual champs, steamrolled everybody until the bubble turned us into collective mental midgets in 2020, actually won a title in 2021, looked fantastic in 2022 until Khris got injured and we’ve not had a healthy playoff run since.

In a four-year span we won a title once, were absolutely among the best in the league twice, and likely would have been a third time if not for a once-in-a-lifetime disruption. Then everybody got old and injured. That’s just how basketball goes, unless you pull some Celtics/OKC shit outsourcing your tank or fluke an All Star in the second round, contending teams don’t last much longer than that. It’s a credit to Giannis that he was so good so young that he could sit through a championship support cast aging out and still have several years in the tank.

Most teams don’t win shit, so the fact that they have won one already makes Giannis’ tenure there a success.

Bucks have used every asset they have had to build a team around Giannis. They just simply don’t have the assets to rebuild again.

damn ok then nvm