2021-22 NBA "REGULAR" SEASON THREAD

yes. personally when I vote for the most valuable player in the 2022 regular season, I draw upon my recollections of the 2021 playoffs and my speculations about the upcoming playoffs

tbh kevin and matt arguing something this strongly just makes me feel its more likely to be wrong

anyway I know jordan is watching football tonight. jokic won this matchup against all odds. something to consider!

i agree w the nuggs fans, jokic is dragging this team to the playoffs missing their 2nd and 3rd best guys.

MVP consideration aside, the nuggets are 1.5 games out of 4th place in the west. which I’m sure has nothing to do with their best player

the thing is it’s super easy to say the best player in the league plays on a team/in a league where winning the title is not reasonable to expect, sort of like lebron a decade or so ago. but for some reason some folks want to create a more straightforward narrative. I can’t explain it tbh

Idk why Jordan cares about giannis vs Jokic because they’re both players his favorite GM will never draft

it’s crazy the nuggets have been able to pull off the fifth seed in the west without multiple time all stars and routine all NBA selections jamal murray and michael porter jr. as kevin once told us, they make up one of the NBA’s renowned “big three”s, so it’s a loss that’s almost impossible to quantify, not just for the great fans of denver but for the league as a whole

the thing is there’s no reason to have all this disagreement…we can all just say jokic is the best player and the rest of his team sucks, but instead there HAS to be this debate over MVP that just completely disregards reality and stats and those sorts of things

honestly maybe certain ILH posters would prefer the award be renamed “best player on a team with a reasonable chance to win the finals”???

in that case giannis would be a super reasonable pick

most valuable player in the NBA works just fine

though as I understand there’s a big football game on now. we can talk about this after?

like I know there’s bigger things going on than actually watching the games

Idk why Jordan cares about giannis vs Jokic because they’re both players his favorite GM will never draft

i'm of the opinion that the near certainty that the nuggets become one of the eight worst teams in the NBA without jokic and a legit (if somewhat fever dream) contender to win the West with him makes a spectacular argument for nikola being a 2-time MVP but maybe my brain isn't galaxy enough

honestly can’t imagine being a late 2000s lebron stan arguing against 2022 jokic winning MVP based on team performance or whatever

seems contradictory and such

feel like some folks see playoff outcomes as exculpatory despite years, decades even, experience to the contrary…interesting

like I said no one is harmed just by admitting jokic is the best player and he plays on a flawed depleted team. just an extremely silly conversation with folks with some ulterior motivations

actually the lebron stan argument would be for the best player in basketball regardless of who might be having the “best season” — so in this case the argument would be for giannis, KD, maybe even embiid, players like this. the problem with lebron post-miami is he openly played at 75% capacity every season and thus relinquished his MVPs. the jokic case is more like the russell westbrook, james harden stan argument

right I mean…perhaps you haven’t watched much basketball recently. again I know it’s a big time in the football world…. but there’s one guy whos been playing better than anyone else and it’s jokic

again this is just a very silly conversation. the jokic boosters don’t really need to dig to find reasons to support their position — literally every stat that exists, in addition to the eye tests, suggests that jokic is the best player. it’s vague first take-ish opinions feebly brought forth (such as those itt) that have the burden of proof:…..

i don't really care about mvp too much but this is funny in that the coming media narrative is actually going to be jokic vs embiid, not giannis

meanwhile, chris paul has a 19/7/17 statline with 6.30 to go in the 4th

whose eyes are taking that eye test?

again if you see yourself as a voter with the knowledge of a stephen a smith or whatever, I can see how this is a tough choice

like for example imagine yourself as a person who has devoted his energy to defending stephen a smith and the TNT guys. now also vote for MVP

does jokic really have the “will to win”? the “eye of the tiger”?

im torn on the one hand bc i agree w kevin but otoh jordan's trolling game is v good and kevin is v mad online

there are always going to be people who interpret “MVP” to mean something other than the best player in the league that year. in my experience that’s mostly been people writing letters to the editor to my hometown newspaper, but I’ve learned you just have to respect ILH posters too.

i may be slightly trolling about who the MVP is this year but i’m def not trolling when i say that giannis is a better basketball player than jokic, who is also legendarily great just not as good as giannis, whose combo of size, athleticism, and skill is unmatched by all but like 5 ppl who have ever walked the face of the earth. no slight against jokic

number of morris bros whose spines have been rearranged in the 21-22 season by jokic and giannis, respectively: 1, 0

my vote remains secure

i may be slightly trolling about who the MVP is this year but i’m def not trolling when i say that giannis is a better basketball player than jokic, who is also legendarily great just not as good as giannis, whose combo of size, athleticism, and skill is unmatched by all but like 5 ppl who have ever walked the face of the earth. no slight against jokic

― J0rdan S., Sunday, January 30, 2022 9:08 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i agree w this! i would rather have giannis lead my team in a playoff series, but jokic is v much the mvp of this regular season bc he has ben the best player

you’ll be shocked to learn whose playoff numbers have been better!

iirc, the MVP voting only happens at the end of the regular season. i'm trying to remember if it's that way for a reason.

you’ll be shocked to learn whose playoff numbers have been better!

― auld gang syne (k3vin k.), Sunday, January 30, 2022 9:28 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

kevin please stop this at once!!!

joe ingles' injury sounds awful

what a great night to be a fan of chris paul, nikola jokic, and hating the lakers

I actually thought the Giannis>Jokic argument was still reasonable until the past two weeks

lebron out the next 6 games at least with knee thing

joe ingles' injury sounds awful

― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Sunday, January 30, 2022 9:52 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink'

oh man just saw this..

i keep looking at the standings trying to figure out ways in which the lakers could miss the play in but i think the bottom half of the west is too shitty

would take bron and brow missing most or all of the rest of the season prob

they legit might end up being worse than 10 teams in the east but in the west it just doesn’t seem possible

had heard ppl bring up the idea of the jazz using ingles (salary) + first round pick to try and get something significant at the deadline & i never thought they would actually dump ingles like that, felt like it would be traumatic for locker room chemistry but if he’s out for the season i wonder if ainge will try it

i could see the lakers winning the playin and then getting swept in the first round, which would be fun

at this rate i see no path for them to get past round 1

agreed, but lebron getting swept in the playoffs with three different teams would be a great trivia question

We really should not have had a play in this year