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Never in the history of sports has there been a pure level of hatred like Isiah Thomas’ constant quest to downgrade Michael Jordan’s place in history. It’s truly impressive. I can only aspire to be so petty someday.
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State your case
Does Wemby meet his own MVP criteria?
Earlier this week, Victor Wembanyama was asked by The Athletic’s Jared Weiss to debate his own MVP candidacy. If you read Jared’s excellent article about it, this seems to have been egged on by Spurs teammate and Sixth Man of the Year favorite, Keldon Johnson. He apparently is so loud about the topic of supporting his teammate that Wemby could no longer ignore the conversation. And what we got out of this moment was a pretty fascinating breakdown of how San Antonio’s superstar views the award/his candidacy.
Wemby laid out three points in his argument:
- “My first one would be that defense is 50 percent of the game, and that is undervalued, so far, in the MVP race.”
- “Second argument would be that we almost swept OKC in the season, and we dominated them three times with their real team and four times with the, you know, more rotation players.”
- “My third argument would be that offense impact is not just points.”
I looked at these arguments and measured Wemby against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokić for this season, even though Jokić has plummeted to +8000 in the betting odds on BetMGM. According to those odds, it’s now a two-horse race with Wemby and SGA, though I wouldn’t count out Jokić just yet.
Let’s dig in.
The argument about defense: Obviously, nobody is coming close to Wembanyama in this category. He’s running away with Defensive Player of the Year, and the only thing that could stop him is the stupid 65-game rule. He needs to play in seven of the Spurs’ final nine games to qualify. Wemby has completely terrified opposing offensive players. We constantly see guys bailing on scoring opportunities and passing so someone else can try to solve the issue that is scoring against Wemby.
SGA is a great defender, too. Yes, he has way different responsibilities than Wembanyama on that end, but he is excellent at the point of attack, is a good shot blocker for a guard and isn’t very far from being an All-Defense guy. And it’s worth mentioning that Jokić has become a very underrated and flat-out good defender the last few years. However, Jokić’s defense since the knee injury has been awful.
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The argument about beating the Thunder: I legitimately don’t know what to do with this argument. It’s factual. The Spurs did dominate the Thunder in the season series, and they were the ones to burst OKC’s historic dominance bubble. But … I don’t know if MVPs get decided this way? SGA beat out Jokić for MVP last year, and OKC and Denver tied their season series 2-2. When Jokić beat out SGA for MVP the previous year, the Thunder went 3-1 against the Nuggets. 🤷
The argument about offense: Jokić is the best offensive player in the world, and I’m not sure it’s close. Before SGA fans start wanting to talk about how unstoppable he is as a scorer (and he is), let me throw this stat at you: Jokić averages 27.9 points per game, which is eighth in the NBA. Cool, right? He also averages 27.8 points per game created by his assists. That’s right. He’s a high-volume scorer who also creates an even number of points with his passing. To put that into context, SGA scores 31.5 points per game and creates 17.6 with his passing.
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Wemby doesn’t play-make nearly enough to even get into that conversation, and he’s the lowest scorer (24.3 per game) of the three. To Wemby’s point, though, I believe he was talking about his gravity. Teams are determined to keep him away from the hoop. And it should open up a lot of opportunities for his teammates, which it does. However, SGA and Jokić create the same gravity, if not greater.
The question comes down to whether Wemby is closer to SGA as a scorer than SGA is to Wemby as a defender. Or, you know, you could have totally different criteria for the award too?
The last 24
😡 Blow the whistle. The ending of the Wolves-Rockets game was riddled with mistakes. Mostly by the referees.
📈 Trends. Luka Dončić’s scoring barrage and Darius Garland’s first step are among the NBA trends our Fred Katz has been paying attention to lately.
🏀 Resume comparison. Who’s had the better rookie season: Kon Knueppel or Cooper Flagg? Our Christian Clark takes a deeper look at the former Duke teammates’ impressive first years.
🏀 Are you kidding? Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has submitted a trademark request for the “Iceman” name. Rightfully, George Gervin is challenging this.
🐂 Shut down. The Bulls are in tank mode, and they’ve shut down two more players. Goodbye, Jaden Ivey and Jalen Smith.
📺 Watch guide. We’re going to talk about the men’s NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 next. But don’t forget that the women’s Sweet 16 starts today. Here’s what and how to watch.
Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!) and catch out-of-market games on League Pass.
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Sweet 16!
Duke and Michigan try to be Elite (Eight)
The men’s Sweet 16 moves on! Yesterday, we focused on Arizona-Arkansas and Illinois-Houston. And guess what? Those were the two worst games out of the four last night. But we’re going to double down for the conclusion of the Sweet 16 tonight and highlight just two of the four games once again. Two No. 1 seeds play (not each other), and that’s exactly what we’ll talk about. But definitely keep an eye on Michigan State versus Connecticut and Tennessee versus Iowa State! (Follow along with our men’s tournament live blog.)
No. 5 St. John’s vs. No. 1 Duke, 7:10 p.m. ET on CBS: Cameron Boozer probably isn’t going to be the top pick in the draft, but he is one of the top three prospects. He’s had a great season at Duke, but now he’s going to have to figure out how to score with Zuby Ejiofor patrolling the paint. We’ll see how these two frontcourts battle each other. St. John’s is a terrible outside shooting team, so it will have to create a lot of turnovers and let that fuel the offense. Big test for Boozer!
No. 4 Alabama vs. No. 1 Michigan, 7:35 p.m. ET on TBS:Labaron Philon Jr. — the No. 14 prospect in Sam Vecenie’s latest mock draft — was really bad against Texas Tech in the second round when it came to scoring. But it didn’t matter, as Bama shut the Red Raiders down. The Tide shoots a ton of 3-pointers, and they’re pretty good at making them. The Wolverines also have a good amount of shooting around Yaxel Lendeborg (19th in Vecenie’s mock), Morez Johnson Jr. (22nd) and 7-foot-4 Aday Mara (27th). So Bama needs to bring it.
Speaking of the Sweet 16, here’s what happened last night in the bracket — and the NBA …
About last night
Madness ends for two top point guards
No. 3 Illinois 65, No. 2 Houston 55: Keaton Wagler took down Kingston Flemings in a battle of elite point guard prospects. Both of these guys are supposed to go in the top eight of the draft. It was an ugly, slow start for both teams. Illinois and Houston combined for 46 first-half points. Yikes. Wagler started making plays in the second half, and Houston just never got going offensively. Wagler finished with 13 points (4-of-14 shooting) and added 12 rebounds, three assists and two blocks. Flemings finished his season with 11 points on 4-of-10 shooting with six boards and four dimes. Now he can get ready for the draft.
No. 1 Arizona 109, No. 4 Arkansas 88: The Darius Acuff Jr. experience is also over, and I’m kind of bummed about it. That’s no offense to Arizona, but I just really like watching Acuff play. He had 28 points (8-of-19 from the field and 11-of-14 from the line), but it wasn’t good enough or disruptive enough to solve the Arizona frontcourt. The Wildcats just beat up John Calipari’s team all night, and Koa Peat had 21 points. Brayden Burries led them with 23. Arizona cruised to victory, never letting it get close.
No. 2 Purdue 79, No. 11 Texas 77: Purdue will take on Arizona on Saturday thanks to Trey Kaufman-Renn’s last-second tip-in. TKR led the Boilermakers with 20 points, and Fletcher Loyer continued his hot shooting with 18 points. Texas was 8-of-15 from the free-throw line, which isn’t awesome in a game you lost by two.
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No. 9 Iowa 77, No. 4 Nebraska 71: Projected first-round pick Bennett Stirtz had 20 points and Iowa received 38 bench points from three scorers to outlast Nebraska. Cornhuskers not named Pryce Sandfort or Braden Frager shot just 11-of-37 on the night. Iowa, the biggest surprise of the tournament, moves on to play Illinois on Saturday for a chance at the Final Four.
Hornets 114, Knicks 103: Jalen Brunson had 26 points and 13 assists, but he didn’t have enough help to take down Charlotte. Kon Knueppel had 26 points, 11 rebounds and eight dimes, while LaMelo Ball had 22 points. New York (48-26) is two losses behind Boston for second in the East, and Charlotte (39-34) is still ninth.
Pistons 129, Pelicans 108: Jalen Duren continued his dominant run with 30 points, 10 boards, seven assists, two steals and two blocks. The Pistons are 5-1 since Cade Cunningham went down (including the game he left early).
And one trip to the Dunk Tank:
- Magic 121, Kings 117: Paolo Banchero had 30 points, nine boards and seven assists as the Magic (39-34) moved from 10th to eighth in the East. Tank score for the Kings is 4/10.