You take that back, Michael Malone. Right now.
Not the “Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, he showed why he’s the MVP” thing late Tuesday night.
Sure, right place, wrong time — but that wasn’t the part of your ESPN debut that had the Grading The Week team cracking its collective knuckles.
Those weren’t fightin’ words.
This was: The part where you went on the Worldwide Leader and referred to the denizens of Oklahoma City as “the best fans in the NBA.”
Coach, what the heck did Disney put in your pipe? And why did you smoke it?
Come on.
A hundred straight sellouts at Ball Arena? Ring a bell? No? I mean, you were there, dude.
Michael Malone’s ESPN debut — B
Now, we kid the former Nuggets coach. And the GTW crew certainly thinks he deserved a more graceful exit than to be shoved off the side of the boat by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment just before the playoffs started.
(Given the news of the week, while the timing was weird, it was obviously done to serve as a quickie in-season and postseason audition for coach David Adelman on Josh Kroenke’s part. The Nuggets got their groove back, and DA got the job.)
We’ll forgive the whole “SGA showing why he’s the MVP,” as either a) a fair assumption, even though the voting totals weren’t released yet; or b.) a slip of the tongue because Malone had already seen said voting totals and knew this was coming. Plus, Malone nailed it later when he also referred to SGA as “a foul artist,” which the Thunder star is. Like, a Monet-level foul artist.
In hindsight, Post-Nuggets Malone probably could’ve massaged that earlier sentiment as “presumed MVP,” or “likely MVP,” or even, “Disney’s MVP.” And we were more than amused when the ex-Denver coach, a New Yorker who’s always shot straight and from the hip with reporters, offered up a little mea culpa after his comments were elevated during the previous evening’s news/social media cycle.
“I (would have voted) for (Jokic) again this year, if I had a vote,” Malone clarified before Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals between OKC and Minnesota. “I want to make sure the people in Denver know that because right now, I’m getting a lot of heat back home.”
As well he should’ve. Just not for the SGA thing.
Joker joins MVP voting elite — A
That said, the GTW hoops department would like to paraphrase a point that ESPN’s newest NBA analyst made earlier in the year. If someone took the names off and showed you that Player A averaged 32.7 points, 5.0 rebounds and 6.4 assists per game while Player B put up 29.6 points, 12.7 boards and 10.2 dimes per game … you’d presume the MVP would go to the latter, right?
Only it didn’t. Which leads to a pair of funny NBA voting anomalies. One, Joker’s triple-double for the season, the first of his career, was only the sixth in league history. And of those six, only once did that kind of stat line end up getting that player an MVP award — Russell Westbrook, with OKC, in 2016-17.
The Big Honey lost the trophy but still found a way to win in the history books, though. Jokic became only the third player in NBA annals to ever finish among the top 2 in MVP voting for at least five straight years. The others? Bill Russell and Larry Bird. Jokic isn’t standing on the shoulders of giants, kids. He’s rubbing shoulders with them.
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