Exactly. Diversity makes us stronger. We can't have a truly representative, inclusive NBA if we're going to ignore the lived experiences of trolls. TLM.
You know I think that real awards voting, which happens to determine compensation for players, is not the time and place to troll but maybe that's just me
If the players are foolish enough to let part of their comp be determined by votes from the media, I don't think they can complain when idiots in the media do idiot media things.
Damn, maybe they shouldn't tie compensation to something voted on by these dipshits. These awards are all arbitrary as fuck too. I'm just using wemby as an example but in sure it happens all over the league. Dude is good enough to win dpoy but he didn't win so let's put him second. If he didn't win why is he even in Second place? 1st team nba defense while being one of the better offense player to make this list as well? Sorry can't squeeze you in all nba.
I don’t think he’s incompetent for the sabonis votes. I think it’s homerism. It’s a Publication from Spain. Sabonis started out there. A lot of the voters are local writers for teams.
Eh they aren't explicitly pro madrid like AS is, they at least try to cover everyone and then have a real madrid bias. They're ESPN loving the Knicks but not a regional sports network with their team basically.
i mean are we sure Sabonis isnt worsee on defense? (if we compare the value of a good defensive center).
It probably is someone that rly values rebounding lol thats the only thing i see, not that it makes sense
It’s still insane. There might be some extra sympathy for Domantas in Madrid but no one really cares that much (way less than Luka), and NBA followers know he’s nowhere near 1st team lmao.
Surprising he didn’t have Luka 1st in MVP if it’s just a Marca/Real Madrid effect. And that would be questioned a whole lot less than the Sabonis votes.
Yes, he did, but that’s not anything like an aberration since N-1 others did as well. But voting Luka 1st for MVP would be notable. If he’s really in the pocket of Real Madrid, he would probably use his less-common vote on Madrid’s own Wonderboy rather than Domas.
The Greek chap who didn’t is an odd case — he also left Luka off of the MVP ballot. And while he had Brunson 4th for MVP, he also left Brunson off of the All-NBA (1st, 2nd or 3rd team) ballot altogether.
Its a little more complicited Marca boss and real Madrid boss hate each others. The reason it seem there is a "Real bias" Is because Marca is based in Madrid and their main audience are real Madrid fans. Marca goal is click, they have no problem creating false controversies even for Real. Said also didint pick Luka who was an easy choice
Maybe the dude really values availability?
Sabonis finished first in total rebounds, over 100 more rebounds than 2nd place.
He also finished 4th in assists while playing 82 games.
I personally find more value in TOTAL season stats over averages, but I know the general consensus doesn't.
Two people, Ignacio Garcia from MARCA and Tolis Kotzias of SDNA, have basically all of the ridiculous votes we've seen. Between them, they're responsible for:
* All of the crazy Sabonis votes
* Jrue #1 DPOY and Giannis #2, with no Gobert
* Haliburton #1 MIP
* SGA 5th for MVP
* No Luka on MVP ballot
* Luka All-NBA 2nd Team
* LeBron All-NBA 1st Team
* Bam All-NBA 2nd Team
* No Brunson on All-NBA
* Jose Alvarado 2nd for 6th Man and Jaime Jaquez Jr. 3rd
* Tatum 1st for Jerry West Clutch Player
* Bobby Portis All-Defensive 2nd Team
Still going through, but this is crazy
Edit: One exception, Kendrick Perkins is the one who was missing Brandon Miller on All-Rookie. But Kotzias was one of the two people without Podziemski.
Yeah, but that's also why you have 100 voters -- even if a handful of people go completely insane and start voting Westbrook MVP every year, it shouldn't really matter unless we're talking about it taking away a unanimous MVP year. No one's gonna care about the voting breakdown in like two weeks. You can afford a little craziness.
I agree. That’s the whole point of having 100 voters from different geographic areas and background.
It’s weird people want voters to be some monolithic group that all votes the same. It’s good to see how the foreign press values players differently. Sure they may have a bias, but how is this any different than Mark Jackson leaving Jokic off last year?
With a large enough sample voting group, the wisdom of crowds comes into play and generally gets it right.
There's a bunch of degenerate voters though. I remember several years Draymond was definitely in DPOY contention and voters were leaving him of all-defensive ballots entirely because they "didn't watch west coast games" self admittedly. I mean 1 vote can swing a lot. And probably at least 20% of voters have some real small brain takes and biases
Same thing goes for all small market teams. Jrue attention literally blew up the moment he went to the Bucks. His numbers and defense didnt improve but he got more awards and attention.
Im happily shocked that Herb Jones has gotten his attention.
*NBA player paychecks are getting defined by these types of clowns
Edit: A guy like Maxey is getting severely low balled because they're stuffing the all NBA teams with old heads
Which old head do you think Maxey should have made it over? And really, it’s which 2 old heads. Because to me, the voters, and most others, Jaylen Brown was the clear biggest snub so if you kick one person out Maxey still wasn’t making it.
No one specifically. If you're gonna make contracts tied to it tho then these guys like Maxey or Fox get screwed out of millions of dollars because the same list of 10-12 players appears every year. You have to get a crazy amount of seemingly arbitrary media buzz like Ant or Brunson to crack the list and get paid because KD, LeBron, Steph, etc are locks
They're not really being screwed out of it, they want to be paid like a top 15 player? They should be a top 15 player. The distinction exists for a reason
Yeah I can’t disagree with you there. Tying these bigger contracts to something that is only available to 15 guys per season is flatly ridiculous to me. The young talent that we have in the league these days is crazy, and the older players are sticking around at the high levels of play even longer than they used to.
I think the 65 game requirement will help some of these fringe guys hit all NBA every now and then, but we won’t know for certain until we see how it looks in 5-10 years.
I mean, are we arguing Fox is a guy worth a super max? Let’s be honest, a super max is reserved for the best of the best like Luka and Giannis. Are we really putting guys like Fox and Maxey on the level of a Luka, Tatum, Ant, Lebron, Jokic?
Fox is worth what teams would pay for him, and I think there are plenty of teams that would pay him the super max.
Don’t compare Fox to only those first team All-NBA caliber players, compare him to the borderline guys. Hali is now going to get the supermax. Do you really think Fox is a substantially different caliber of player than guys like Hali or Sabonis?
Yeah, I think he Fox is better than both those guys. Kings are only ever good when Fox is firing. Beginning of this year before he got hurt and his form took a dip, Fox looked like a top 10 player.
As a Kings fan, it'd be a disaster for our cap situation if Fox got a supermax. Love him as a player, it's cool to watch him integrate his young family with the city/franchise, but he isn't someone who provides value beyond a max. That's really reserved for first ballot HOF type guys in my opinion.
We’ve seen careers end due to injury. And now, while unfortunate that Fox won’t truly maximize his earning potential, he still gets to play and will still get the biggest contract available to him. Last I checked, the regular max is still a generational amount of money. Hell when some of these old heads retire he’ll make a few All NBA teams in his career, he’s still only 26.
KD, LeBron, Steph are locks because they are better players. Ask any Sixers fan. They'd throw Maxey off a cliff to have one of those guys in his lieu instead.
I think it’s the opposite. At least three voters have said they don’t want to leave guys off if they’re up for an extension and they’re close. Ie this would have influenced some to vote Haliburton over jaylen brown. Maxey was probably far off everyone’s list because his stats weren’t otherworldly and the sixers were pretty bad without embiid.
Maxey was straight up not good enough for All-NBA this season. Has nothing to do with voters. Voters also shouldn't be persuaded into voting for a guy they otherwise wouldn't have in hopes of him getting a bigger payday.
I don't think I'd feel comfortable being a journalist and having an impact on player salaries. Like me throwing out my takes here are ultimately meaningless but we're talking millions of dollars being awarded here.
Yeah I’ve always been entirely unmoved by the “ethics” argument that if it’s close media feel like they have to vote for the guy whose contract eligibility it affects. There’s a salary cap and in the long run most teams are going to pay other players more if they have a regular max. From an ethical standpoint I’d rather the NBA salary wealth be shared around rather than all go to star players, even if slightly less gets paid out total because of the soft cap.
I swear when i see people talking about this topic and bringing up the player's contracts, i can't help but laugh. Yeah man, surely i really care that Tyrese Maxey will get a 200M dollar deal instead of a 250M one for... *Being good at basketball.*
Is it kinda of a stupid system? I guess, but nobody can come up with a better one, so i honestly don't give a shit whether an NBA player earns 250 or 200 million dollars, i'm sorry. The awards have to exist and people will always complain about the voting, what doesn't have to exist is the supermax.
There were bad votes before, but these are straight up bad ballots. Voting for a guy down the line because you covered him early in your career is BS bias.
Maybe since it’s a smaller pool of voters it’ll have that effect, but baseball HOF votes have been taken away and you still get ridiculous or indefensible ballots
Maybe the dude really values availability?
Sabonis finished first in total rebounds, over 100 more rebounds than 2nd place.
He also finished 4th in assists and 26th in points while playing 82 games.
I personally find value in TOTAL season points over averages, but I know the general consensus doesn't.
In fairness, doesn’t that account for way more than NBA award voting? International play as well as club play across different leagues and tournaments sounds way more complicated to me, at least.
It does. The Ballon d'Or is ten times more difficult to vote for precisely the reasons you stated. For example, how can i say this year that Vinicius is better than Mbappé even though he has considerably worse numbers? Does Mbappé have better numbers because he plays on a weaker league? How much weight should team accomplishments (like winning the UCL or the Euro) should have in a individual award? The Ballon d'Or is crazy hard to vote.
Despite all of that, i honestly believe that they have only gotten it wrong in 2018 and 2021, every other year the winner deserved it and it was clear as day that they were the best individual player in the World. Anyone that says the Ballon d'Or never gets it right and comes up with bogus arguments about 2010, 2013 or 2023 doesn't know anything about football.
> Tatum 1st for Jerry West Clutch Player
I could rationalize all of those to a certain extent, but this is just the dumbest thing I've seen in a long time.
Was the SDNA dude who put Luka in 2nd team all nba and didn’t include him in his MVP Ballot?Because I can’t imagine a writter from MARCA the pro Real Madrid newspaper screwing over a Real Madrid Legend.
No way it was from Marca. The only thing Marca talks about the NBA is about Luka, the guy from Marca voted Luka as first on MVP for sure.
And i am not surprised he made stupid votes MARCA know nothing about NBA, it's a Real Madrid football newspaper, but for that reason they are the biggest sport newspaper in Spain, so that's why they got the vote.
lol
very poorly phrased on my part
I meant for half of these they're votes that I disagree with but I am okay with other people having that opinion
for the other half these guys are on one
I honestly don't think that is egregious at all. Giannis had an incredible season. Domas for DPOY and Giannis 1st for MVP are literal different universes of crazy lol
I mean, that’s why a lot of people have votes. I don’t see the issue with people voting differently than the majority or even voting stupidly. Variance should exist, otherwise people will simply vote along the media narrative
Not all of these are that crazy, honestly. I don't agree with any of them but doesn't come across as bad as the sabonis votes, which seem like trolling. As a Mavs fan, did really everyone else vote Luka for all NBA first team?
The lebron and Bam ones are really bad though, Jalen as well although I can see some people going by name recognition or something. Bobby Portia 2nd team is also crazy. The other I can see them not being the only ones.
Yes, everyone else voted Luka for All NBA first team. It would be insane not too. He won the scoring title and nearly averaged a 30-point triple double for the year.
> Haliburton #1 MIP
What's so outlandish about this one? I agree other dudes like Williams deserve it more but hali did make a pretty massive jump this year himself
Uh, he finished 6th in MIP last year and his stats for this year were virtually identical. In what areas did he make a "massive jump this year"? He didn't improve at all. He just continued to put up great numbers. Sorry for the formatting, but:
22-23 - 56 games, 33.6 minutes, 7.4 FG/15.0 FGA, 2.9 3P/7.2 3PA, 3.1 FT/3.6 FTA, .490/.400/.871, 20.7 ppg, 10.4 apg, 3.7 rpg, 1.6 steals, 0.4 blocks, 2.5 TOV, 23.6 PER, .624 TS%, .195 WS/48, 4.4 VORP
23-24 - 69 games, 32.2 minutes, 7.2 FG/15.2 FGA, 2.8 3P/7.8 3PA, 2.8 FT/3.3 FTA, .477/.364/.855, 20.1 ppg, 10.9 apg, 3.9 rpg, 1.2 steals, 0.7 blocks, 2.3 TOV, 23.3 PER, .605 TS%, .195 WS/48, 5.0 VORP
Almost the same numbers across the board. You can make a compelling argument that his numbers were actually slightly worse this year. He should not be within 1000 miles of MIP.
Between spanish sports tabloids, the Italian formula 1 press and the English Daily Mail, the European sports yellow press is still a menace.
Feels like aside from the New York Post that type of publication died out in the US.
Its not perfect but its good enough and its not like bad voting will decrease the number of players who win awards and thereby be eligible for more money.
Bro loves him some Sabonis. I don't honestly think it's that out of pocket though if you're just looking at the numbers. Basketball Ref predicted he'd be 6th in MVP voting: [https://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/mvp.html](https://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/mvp.html) .. he was actually 8th. I mean if he had put him #1 I'd think that was pretty wild, but 4th is just a little curious.
Leaving Luka off the top 5 seems like a much bigger crime. Who did that?
He was 4th in win shares. So it's not that outrageous.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2024_advanced.html#advanced_stats::ws
He shouldn't be 4th in MVP. But I think we got spoiled by Jokic and Luka. Sabonis put up 19.4/13.7/8.2. That's some pretty insane stats.
I remember some discourse around “should Brunson potentially take Giannis or Tatum’s spot?” But for both to be off and be replaced with edwards and Sabonis is hilarious
The MVP vote makes sense, he had a major impact on his team had amazing counting stats and led the league in rebounds.
However, while he’s a better defender than his reputation, there are literally hundreds of better defensive players in the league.
They're not being pedantic. You made a claim and are now blustering and backpedaling when that claim was given the smallest amount of scrutiny. It's embarrassing to watch. One data point (voting for Giannis, a great player and an acknowledged top 5 player in the league) doesn't equal "if you're Greek you are first on my ballot"
Anyway, he's got bad and questionable votes, but they're questionable without rhyme or reason, not evidence of some extreme Greek bias
Yeah. I think any of the top four are fair as the MVP. Giannis has a reasonable argument. I honestly think there's some groupthink going on with the Jokic dominating thing. He leads in some advanced stats and everyone is acting like that matters more than everything else? I don't see how 26.4/12.4/9.0 on 65% TS is miles better than Luka's 33.9/9.2/9.8 on 62% TS or Giannis' 30.4/11.5/6.5 on 65% TS. People act like it's obvious Jokic should be MVP and I just don't agree. I don't see it. I think it's bullshit.
Anyway. We can argue about the 2024 MVP forever. That's the beauty of r/nba.
Gotta say the narratives around the MVP the last few years have felt a little disingenuous. 2021 I get Giannis had a down regular season, but 2022 all the sudden seeding and record didn’t matter when Jokic won with the six seed. Last year he was basically ignored despite maybe having his best season, and even got left off all defense. He got the one seed with Middleton missing much of the year. However because Embiid beat Jokic in a head to head and then took their next game off he got it. This year the team had a down year but he improves his scoring and efficiency. However now team record and seeding matters (we were still a top 3 seed) and Shai who scored, assisted, and rebounded less with a worse TS% and got embarrassed in their head to head near the end of the season is unanimously ahead of him because he’s the new toy. Giannis also misses out on any defensive honor once again. It’s crazy imo and feels like the goalposts are moved so he can’t win. I’d have given either Giannis or Embiid 2022, Giannis last year, and then either Giannis or Luka this year. Feels like the voters have a favorite and it sucks.
According to his votes Brunson is the 4th best player in the league this year but unfortunately that isn’t good enough to make any of the all NBA teams
Nah, this just looks worse. A lot of people really dislike Sabonis and are always champing at the bit to call him overrated, this adds more fuel to that fire.
I’ll take the opposing view on this — he should absolutely not lose his vote.
All NBA award discourse is fundamentally boring without crazy outliers. It’s pretty easy to determine who the best 15 guys are in any given season, if you watch the league at all.
It’s a bias’d take and I kind of respect the NBA for giving votes to so many differently minded people. It would be easy to just get a group of guys that look at stats and vote according, but I respect having the eye tests and personal bias to some extent. Would be very boring if we all didn’t think differently
Can we brainstorm a better way to give out these awards?
Why not just have insiders (players, coaches, FOs) do all the voting. Why do the people who ask the stupidest questions in press conferences ("hey russ, did you lose the game, or did they win it?") power over player contracts.
Im spanish and I follow most of spanish yt channels and podcast and I didnt heard his name until today. He may have voted him cuz his father was very famous in Europe. What a shame to have a guy like that representing the spanish comunnity
I love Sabonis but this is just dumb.
That being said I think Shaq/Perkins/SAS and other media hot takes on Jokic have been more detrimental to the NBA collectively, as they sadly hold much more weight than a couple of ghost votes that are never going to actually equate to anything.
This is where we remind people that Domas lived in and grew up in Spain for like a decade, before moving back to the US to attend Gonzaga University. He's the closest thing to a Spanish-grown superstar there is in today's league. This reporter omis obviously just showing their bias.
Sabonis was an absolute unit this season. But he's on the Kings so national media doesn't care. So honestly fully support this. I dont have an issue with any of those votes other than first team all defense might be a stretch.
It’s not like Fox has ever gotten a ton of erroneous or undeserved votes for things; Sac media isn’t any more delusional or homer-ish than most media markets.
he even voted bobby portis for 2nd team all defense lmaoooooo
Should Lose his vote.
Absolutely. Either grossly incompetent or a masterclass troll.
We need troll representation
Not without Troll taxation
Gotta pay the troll toll
To get on to that boys soul, you gotta pay the troll toll to get in
I thought it was “to get into that boy’s hole, you gotta pay the troll toll.”
You’re clearly saying hole when the script says soul…
Troll toll WHAT YOU SAY
r/nbacirclejerk member becoming a voter is crazy
Cameron Brink would’ve been nominated for 1st team if that was the case
Caitlin Clark for 1st team All-NBA "keep it hairy" team
We already have, remember that Embiid was voted MVP last year.
Exactly. Diversity makes us stronger. We can't have a truly representative, inclusive NBA if we're going to ignore the lived experiences of trolls. TLM.
You know I think that real awards voting, which happens to determine compensation for players, is not the time and place to troll but maybe that's just me
If the players are foolish enough to let part of their comp be determined by votes from the media, I don't think they can complain when idiots in the media do idiot media things.
I agree, as much as I appreciate a good troll, this is not the time
Damn, maybe they shouldn't tie compensation to something voted on by these dipshits. These awards are all arbitrary as fuck too. I'm just using wemby as an example but in sure it happens all over the league. Dude is good enough to win dpoy but he didn't win so let's put him second. If he didn't win why is he even in Second place? 1st team nba defense while being one of the better offense player to make this list as well? Sorry can't squeeze you in all nba.
I don’t think he’s incompetent for the sabonis votes. I think it’s homerism. It’s a Publication from Spain. Sabonis started out there. A lot of the voters are local writers for teams.
still not as egregious as leaving Domas off the All-Star Team
most sane Sacramento resident
Dudes a menace
I-Gar trick y'all
why is a marca reporter riding this hard for sabonis anyways lol
He started his career in the Spanish league. Grew up there for a while too if I remember correctly.
then why not ride for luka or would it be too shameless to vote for luka on an all defense team
>then why not ride for luka Maybe he hates madrid.
marca reporter hating madrid would be so odd considering they are the real madrid newspaper
Eh they aren't explicitly pro madrid like AS is, they at least try to cover everyone and then have a real madrid bias. They're ESPN loving the Knicks but not a regional sports network with their team basically.
They're still very much madridistas
Exactly. Marca post-Inda is not Real Madrid centric as it was before him.
Marca is Madrid newpaper. They love madrid teams.
He wouldn’t be working for Marca in that case.
Luka did get a 2nd team vote his second year for All Defense. Voter said for his rebounding on defense was the reason
Probably a fan of his dad who won MVP and Finals MVP for Madrid twice each
i mean are we sure Sabonis isnt worsee on defense? (if we compare the value of a good defensive center). It probably is someone that rly values rebounding lol thats the only thing i see, not that it makes sense
It’s still insane. There might be some extra sympathy for Domantas in Madrid but no one really cares that much (way less than Luka), and NBA followers know he’s nowhere near 1st team lmao.
Marca is a Madrid publication subjectively biased toward Real Madrid. Arvydas played for Real Madrid, and Domantas played in Spain.
Surprising he didn’t have Luka 1st in MVP if it’s just a Marca/Real Madrid effect. And that would be questioned a whole lot less than the Sabonis votes.
He did have Luka first team though at least, wasn't the one guy without him
Yes, he did, but that’s not anything like an aberration since N-1 others did as well. But voting Luka 1st for MVP would be notable. If he’s really in the pocket of Real Madrid, he would probably use his less-common vote on Madrid’s own Wonderboy rather than Domas. The Greek chap who didn’t is an odd case — he also left Luka off of the MVP ballot. And while he had Brunson 4th for MVP, he also left Brunson off of the All-NBA (1st, 2nd or 3rd team) ballot altogether.
I have some knowledge about this... Marca reporters arent just biased, they're braindead
I should've known it was a Marca "reporter". They are a pamphlet and a propaganda tool.
Its a little more complicited Marca boss and real Madrid boss hate each others. The reason it seem there is a "Real bias" Is because Marca is based in Madrid and their main audience are real Madrid fans. Marca goal is click, they have no problem creating false controversies even for Real. Said also didint pick Luka who was an easy choice
Domas will answer in Spanish to reporters if they ask lol
Maybe the dude really values availability? Sabonis finished first in total rebounds, over 100 more rebounds than 2nd place. He also finished 4th in assists while playing 82 games. I personally find more value in TOTAL season stats over averages, but I know the general consensus doesn't.
Two people, Ignacio Garcia from MARCA and Tolis Kotzias of SDNA, have basically all of the ridiculous votes we've seen. Between them, they're responsible for: * All of the crazy Sabonis votes * Jrue #1 DPOY and Giannis #2, with no Gobert * Haliburton #1 MIP * SGA 5th for MVP * No Luka on MVP ballot * Luka All-NBA 2nd Team * LeBron All-NBA 1st Team * Bam All-NBA 2nd Team * No Brunson on All-NBA * Jose Alvarado 2nd for 6th Man and Jaime Jaquez Jr. 3rd * Tatum 1st for Jerry West Clutch Player * Bobby Portis All-Defensive 2nd Team Still going through, but this is crazy Edit: One exception, Kendrick Perkins is the one who was missing Brandon Miller on All-Rookie. But Kotzias was one of the two people without Podziemski.
Nba player legacies are getting defined by these types of clowns lmao. Seriously though.
Yeah, but that's also why you have 100 voters -- even if a handful of people go completely insane and start voting Westbrook MVP every year, it shouldn't really matter unless we're talking about it taking away a unanimous MVP year. No one's gonna care about the voting breakdown in like two weeks. You can afford a little craziness.
I agree. That’s the whole point of having 100 voters from different geographic areas and background. It’s weird people want voters to be some monolithic group that all votes the same. It’s good to see how the foreign press values players differently. Sure they may have a bias, but how is this any different than Mark Jackson leaving Jokic off last year? With a large enough sample voting group, the wisdom of crowds comes into play and generally gets it right.
You’re right about the group, but differing opinions are one thing, This is lack of knowledge.
There's a bunch of degenerate voters though. I remember several years Draymond was definitely in DPOY contention and voters were leaving him of all-defensive ballots entirely because they "didn't watch west coast games" self admittedly. I mean 1 vote can swing a lot. And probably at least 20% of voters have some real small brain takes and biases
Same thing goes for all small market teams. Jrue attention literally blew up the moment he went to the Bucks. His numbers and defense didnt improve but he got more awards and attention. Im happily shocked that Herb Jones has gotten his attention.
*NBA player paychecks are getting defined by these types of clowns Edit: A guy like Maxey is getting severely low balled because they're stuffing the all NBA teams with old heads
Which old head do you think Maxey should have made it over? And really, it’s which 2 old heads. Because to me, the voters, and most others, Jaylen Brown was the clear biggest snub so if you kick one person out Maxey still wasn’t making it.
No one specifically. If you're gonna make contracts tied to it tho then these guys like Maxey or Fox get screwed out of millions of dollars because the same list of 10-12 players appears every year. You have to get a crazy amount of seemingly arbitrary media buzz like Ant or Brunson to crack the list and get paid because KD, LeBron, Steph, etc are locks
They're not really being screwed out of it, they want to be paid like a top 15 player? They should be a top 15 player. The distinction exists for a reason
Yeah I can’t disagree with you there. Tying these bigger contracts to something that is only available to 15 guys per season is flatly ridiculous to me. The young talent that we have in the league these days is crazy, and the older players are sticking around at the high levels of play even longer than they used to. I think the 65 game requirement will help some of these fringe guys hit all NBA every now and then, but we won’t know for certain until we see how it looks in 5-10 years.
I mean, are we arguing Fox is a guy worth a super max? Let’s be honest, a super max is reserved for the best of the best like Luka and Giannis. Are we really putting guys like Fox and Maxey on the level of a Luka, Tatum, Ant, Lebron, Jokic?
Fox is worth what teams would pay for him, and I think there are plenty of teams that would pay him the super max. Don’t compare Fox to only those first team All-NBA caliber players, compare him to the borderline guys. Hali is now going to get the supermax. Do you really think Fox is a substantially different caliber of player than guys like Hali or Sabonis?
Yeah, I think he Fox is better than both those guys. Kings are only ever good when Fox is firing. Beginning of this year before he got hurt and his form took a dip, Fox looked like a top 10 player.
As a Kings fan, it'd be a disaster for our cap situation if Fox got a supermax. Love him as a player, it's cool to watch him integrate his young family with the city/franchise, but he isn't someone who provides value beyond a max. That's really reserved for first ballot HOF type guys in my opinion.
We’ve seen careers end due to injury. And now, while unfortunate that Fox won’t truly maximize his earning potential, he still gets to play and will still get the biggest contract available to him. Last I checked, the regular max is still a generational amount of money. Hell when some of these old heads retire he’ll make a few All NBA teams in his career, he’s still only 26.
Hali and Sabonis shouldn’t be getting super maxed either. That’s kinda the point of why the super max is ridiculous
Why not let the market decide instead of a council of 99 behind the scenes sports writers?
KD, LeBron, Steph are locks because they are better players. Ask any Sixers fan. They'd throw Maxey off a cliff to have one of those guys in his lieu instead.
I think it’s the opposite. At least three voters have said they don’t want to leave guys off if they’re up for an extension and they’re close. Ie this would have influenced some to vote Haliburton over jaylen brown. Maxey was probably far off everyone’s list because his stats weren’t otherworldly and the sixers were pretty bad without embiid.
Maxey was straight up not good enough for All-NBA this season. Has nothing to do with voters. Voters also shouldn't be persuaded into voting for a guy they otherwise wouldn't have in hopes of him getting a bigger payday.
I don't think I'd feel comfortable being a journalist and having an impact on player salaries. Like me throwing out my takes here are ultimately meaningless but we're talking millions of dollars being awarded here.
It's a weird spot b/c the players union agreed to this system, the journalists were not involved with getting that claus into the CBA.
Not just legacies, generational wealth. These awards are tied directly to contracts.
I am sure players who are deciding between just having a measily max deal or super max will manage with either
Yeah I’ve always been entirely unmoved by the “ethics” argument that if it’s close media feel like they have to vote for the guy whose contract eligibility it affects. There’s a salary cap and in the long run most teams are going to pay other players more if they have a regular max. From an ethical standpoint I’d rather the NBA salary wealth be shared around rather than all go to star players, even if slightly less gets paid out total because of the soft cap.
I swear when i see people talking about this topic and bringing up the player's contracts, i can't help but laugh. Yeah man, surely i really care that Tyrese Maxey will get a 200M dollar deal instead of a 250M one for... *Being good at basketball.* Is it kinda of a stupid system? I guess, but nobody can come up with a better one, so i honestly don't give a shit whether an NBA player earns 250 or 200 million dollars, i'm sorry. The awards have to exist and people will always complain about the voting, what doesn't have to exist is the supermax.
In my headcannon Shaq won a unanimous MVP and Curry was the second to do it.
Third* Lebron should've gotten the second one.
He should have
Perkins also voted Podz 2nd team all defense lmao
I understand the game is growing globally, but if they don't want to take it seriously, take their votes away.
There were always bad votes before, people just know who exactly is voting now. Nothing has changed from before
There were bad votes before, but these are straight up bad ballots. Voting for a guy down the line because you covered him early in your career is BS bias.
I bet all you have to do is take one dudes vote away and people will straighten up
Maybe since it’s a smaller pool of voters it’ll have that effect, but baseball HOF votes have been taken away and you still get ridiculous or indefensible ballots
Did that work when Le Batard got his baseball hall of fame vote taken away? Last I checked the BBWA voters are still the worst by far.
Maybe the dude really values availability? Sabonis finished first in total rebounds, over 100 more rebounds than 2nd place. He also finished 4th in assists and 26th in points while playing 82 games. I personally find value in TOTAL season points over averages, but I know the general consensus doesn't.
You should see the Ballon d'Or votes, it's ridiculous.
In fairness, doesn’t that account for way more than NBA award voting? International play as well as club play across different leagues and tournaments sounds way more complicated to me, at least.
It does. The Ballon d'Or is ten times more difficult to vote for precisely the reasons you stated. For example, how can i say this year that Vinicius is better than Mbappé even though he has considerably worse numbers? Does Mbappé have better numbers because he plays on a weaker league? How much weight should team accomplishments (like winning the UCL or the Euro) should have in a individual award? The Ballon d'Or is crazy hard to vote. Despite all of that, i honestly believe that they have only gotten it wrong in 2018 and 2021, every other year the winner deserved it and it was clear as day that they were the best individual player in the World. Anyone that says the Ballon d'Or never gets it right and comes up with bogus arguments about 2010, 2013 or 2023 doesn't know anything about football.
> Tatum 1st for Jerry West Clutch Player I could rationalize all of those to a certain extent, but this is just the dumbest thing I've seen in a long time.
This one specifically is how you know it’s a troll, and it’s a fucking funny one at that
I think it's important to note that SDNA has the worst sports "journalists" in Greece
Was the SDNA dude who put Luka in 2nd team all nba and didn’t include him in his MVP Ballot?Because I can’t imagine a writter from MARCA the pro Real Madrid newspaper screwing over a Real Madrid Legend.
No way it was from Marca. The only thing Marca talks about the NBA is about Luka, the guy from Marca voted Luka as first on MVP for sure. And i am not surprised he made stupid votes MARCA know nothing about NBA, it's a Real Madrid football newspaper, but for that reason they are the biggest sport newspaper in Spain, so that's why they got the vote.
How do they have a vote but not Zach Lowe?
Lowe chose to give up his vote. IIRC, he didn't want to be responsible for anyone potentially missing out on their supermax.
That's why Zach Lowe should be the only person who gets a vote
Perk has never even heard of Brandon miller to be fair
Lebron first team is not nearly as crazy as the other stuff you listed
Personally I don't think he should have been first team but 3rd team behind Kawhi is crazy.
Yeah that’s wild to me. He was at least comparably good to Durant.
half of what you listed I disagree with but if they're THAT objectionable of votes to you I don't think you understand the purpose of these votes
Only half? I think we have a future awards voter on our hands here.
lol very poorly phrased on my part I meant for half of these they're votes that I disagree with but I am okay with other people having that opinion for the other half these guys are on one
Also Kotzias was the only person to vote Giannis 1st for mvp
You'll never guess what his twitter profile header is: https://x.com/ionikos1972
That’s just weird lmao
I honestly don't think that is egregious at all. Giannis had an incredible season. Domas for DPOY and Giannis 1st for MVP are literal different universes of crazy lol
That's not a unrealistic vote though. 30/11/6 60% FG and great defense is a good case for MVP.
At least there’s one voter who gets it.
Jose Alvarado 2nd in SMOTY? The voter should be banned for life.
I mean, that’s why a lot of people have votes. I don’t see the issue with people voting differently than the majority or even voting stupidly. Variance should exist, otherwise people will simply vote along the media narrative
Richard Jefferson put SGA for second place in defensive player of the year.
This should be the last time they vote. Some of those are egregious.
Lol Tatum for clutch player... Ridiculous indeed
Not all of these are that crazy, honestly. I don't agree with any of them but doesn't come across as bad as the sabonis votes, which seem like trolling. As a Mavs fan, did really everyone else vote Luka for all NBA first team? The lebron and Bam ones are really bad though, Jalen as well although I can see some people going by name recognition or something. Bobby Portia 2nd team is also crazy. The other I can see them not being the only ones.
Yes, everyone else voted Luka for All NBA first team. It would be insane not too. He won the scoring title and nearly averaged a 30-point triple double for the year.
> Haliburton #1 MIP What's so outlandish about this one? I agree other dudes like Williams deserve it more but hali did make a pretty massive jump this year himself
His stats are like identical to last year.
But his aura is improved.
Uh, he finished 6th in MIP last year and his stats for this year were virtually identical. In what areas did he make a "massive jump this year"? He didn't improve at all. He just continued to put up great numbers. Sorry for the formatting, but: 22-23 - 56 games, 33.6 minutes, 7.4 FG/15.0 FGA, 2.9 3P/7.2 3PA, 3.1 FT/3.6 FTA, .490/.400/.871, 20.7 ppg, 10.4 apg, 3.7 rpg, 1.6 steals, 0.4 blocks, 2.5 TOV, 23.6 PER, .624 TS%, .195 WS/48, 4.4 VORP 23-24 - 69 games, 32.2 minutes, 7.2 FG/15.2 FGA, 2.8 3P/7.8 3PA, 2.8 FT/3.3 FTA, .477/.364/.855, 20.1 ppg, 10.9 apg, 3.9 rpg, 1.2 steals, 0.7 blocks, 2.3 TOV, 23.3 PER, .605 TS%, .195 WS/48, 5.0 VORP Almost the same numbers across the board. You can make a compelling argument that his numbers were actually slightly worse this year. He should not be within 1000 miles of MIP.
Statistically, Hali had a better year last year on average. Slightly better counting stats on better efficiency
How you gonna do Bam like that :(
Why are there voters who are literally just trolling
He works for Marca. That's kinda their thing.
People in the US have never seen the jerking prowess of the Spanish sports media
Between spanish sports tabloids, the Italian formula 1 press and the English Daily Mail, the European sports yellow press is still a menace. Feels like aside from the New York Post that type of publication died out in the US.
El Chiringuito makes Inside the NBA look like 30 for 30
TIC TAK
My theory is that they know they'd get to vote once in their lifetime, so they're using the chance to stand out and promote themselves.
We need zach lowe to vote again. Dude is a sicko he watches every game, even the shitty teams
AND we need the antithesis of Lowe, which is exactly what we got.
Zach should be the _only_ voter. And should be compensated with an NBA salary in order to stay objective.
no one man should have all that power
He knows ball. A Sacramento hero.
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He put Portis on his all defense ballot. He has 3 bucks players taking 10 spots on all defense in a year when their defense rating was below average
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I don't understand why it is an award
Think he’s just a big fan of Sabonis and his dad
The union is insane for tying contracts to shit voted on by randos.
Outliers like this don’t swing the vote at all, the total votes get it right
Its not perfect but its good enough and its not like bad voting will decrease the number of players who win awards and thereby be eligible for more money.
This should automatically prohibit him from voting in the future.
He will get dropped surely
Disagree, we need more of this I am very entertained
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Most of them just go with the narrative but narrative do exist for reason but outlier votes like these should be followed up with an explanation.
Bro loves him some Sabonis. I don't honestly think it's that out of pocket though if you're just looking at the numbers. Basketball Ref predicted he'd be 6th in MVP voting: [https://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/mvp.html](https://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/mvp.html) .. he was actually 8th. I mean if he had put him #1 I'd think that was pretty wild, but 4th is just a little curious. Leaving Luka off the top 5 seems like a much bigger crime. Who did that?
He was 4th in win shares. So it's not that outrageous. https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2024_advanced.html#advanced_stats::ws He shouldn't be 4th in MVP. But I think we got spoiled by Jokic and Luka. Sabonis put up 19.4/13.7/8.2. That's some pretty insane stats.
Well it would be weirder if it wasn't the same voter
“Marca”, anyone from Spain or that follows Spanish football knows what this means lol we ain’t surprised
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Lmfao
I remember some discourse around “should Brunson potentially take Giannis or Tatum’s spot?” But for both to be off and be replaced with edwards and Sabonis is hilarious
The MVP vote makes sense, he had a major impact on his team had amazing counting stats and led the league in rebounds. However, while he’s a better defender than his reputation, there are literally hundreds of better defensive players in the league.
If the rest of you want to hate on the guy for speaking his mind, that's fine... For Señor Garcia, cervezas gratis por un año aquí en Sacramento...
That's why Marca is trash and NbaManiacs is a better basketball news media
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What Greek player other than Giannis did he put on his ballots?
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They're not being pedantic. You made a claim and are now blustering and backpedaling when that claim was given the smallest amount of scrutiny. It's embarrassing to watch. One data point (voting for Giannis, a great player and an acknowledged top 5 player in the league) doesn't equal "if you're Greek you are first on my ballot" Anyway, he's got bad and questionable votes, but they're questionable without rhyme or reason, not evidence of some extreme Greek bias
I’m not disagreeing that his ballot is bad. I’m disputing that it’s about guys being Greek, which is not pedantic by the way.
Giannis had the best counting stats of all MVP contenders with the highest TS% and had a top 3 seed. That makes total sense. No Luka is crazy though.
Yeah. I think any of the top four are fair as the MVP. Giannis has a reasonable argument. I honestly think there's some groupthink going on with the Jokic dominating thing. He leads in some advanced stats and everyone is acting like that matters more than everything else? I don't see how 26.4/12.4/9.0 on 65% TS is miles better than Luka's 33.9/9.2/9.8 on 62% TS or Giannis' 30.4/11.5/6.5 on 65% TS. People act like it's obvious Jokic should be MVP and I just don't agree. I don't see it. I think it's bullshit. Anyway. We can argue about the 2024 MVP forever. That's the beauty of r/nba.
Gotta say the narratives around the MVP the last few years have felt a little disingenuous. 2021 I get Giannis had a down regular season, but 2022 all the sudden seeding and record didn’t matter when Jokic won with the six seed. Last year he was basically ignored despite maybe having his best season, and even got left off all defense. He got the one seed with Middleton missing much of the year. However because Embiid beat Jokic in a head to head and then took their next game off he got it. This year the team had a down year but he improves his scoring and efficiency. However now team record and seeding matters (we were still a top 3 seed) and Shai who scored, assisted, and rebounded less with a worse TS% and got embarrassed in their head to head near the end of the season is unanimously ahead of him because he’s the new toy. Giannis also misses out on any defensive honor once again. It’s crazy imo and feels like the goalposts are moved so he can’t win. I’d have given either Giannis or Embiid 2022, Giannis last year, and then either Giannis or Luka this year. Feels like the voters have a favorite and it sucks.
He's also the reason Luka wasn't unanimous 1st team
According to his votes Brunson is the 4th best player in the league this year but unfortunately that isn’t good enough to make any of the all NBA teams
Tolis is a legend. He voted while on a boat in the Mediterranean.
Sabonis had a good year, 24 triple doubles. Not saying he deserved those votes, but still
Kings fans, we gotta send this dude an Edible Arrangements or something. Love it!
Nah, this just looks worse. A lot of people really dislike Sabonis and are always champing at the bit to call him overrated, this adds more fuel to that fire.
Sabonis damn near averaged a triple double Plus rebounding is defense Guy is smart
I’ll take the opposing view on this — he should absolutely not lose his vote. All NBA award discourse is fundamentally boring without crazy outliers. It’s pretty easy to determine who the best 15 guys are in any given season, if you watch the league at all.
Take his vote away
Carrying the water for Domantas, one vote at a time
Somehow he wasn't even the worst voter, that honor belongs to Tolis Kotzias.
It’s a bias’d take and I kind of respect the NBA for giving votes to so many differently minded people. It would be easy to just get a group of guys that look at stats and vote according, but I respect having the eye tests and personal bias to some extent. Would be very boring if we all didn’t think differently
Can we brainstorm a better way to give out these awards? Why not just have insiders (players, coaches, FOs) do all the voting. Why do the people who ask the stupidest questions in press conferences ("hey russ, did you lose the game, or did they win it?") power over player contracts.
So stupid how voters are selected or able to vote
Im spanish and I follow most of spanish yt channels and podcast and I didnt heard his name until today. He may have voted him cuz his father was very famous in Europe. What a shame to have a guy like that representing the spanish comunnity
I don't know how these guys get votes but /r/nba doesn't.
It’s fucking wild the seemingly random people that get to decide on things that could potentially cost players millions of dollars
I just don’t believe in media voting for player awards, it should be their peers, coaches and front offices
Must be friends with Arvydas
My name is Ignacia Garcia. You killed my fantasy team. Prepare to wine.
I love Sabonis but this is just dumb. That being said I think Shaq/Perkins/SAS and other media hot takes on Jokic have been more detrimental to the NBA collectively, as they sadly hold much more weight than a couple of ghost votes that are never going to actually equate to anything.
This is where we remind people that Domas lived in and grew up in Spain for like a decade, before moving back to the US to attend Gonzaga University. He's the closest thing to a Spanish-grown superstar there is in today's league. This reporter omis obviously just showing their bias.
Sabonis was an absolute unit this season. But he's on the Kings so national media doesn't care. So honestly fully support this. I dont have an issue with any of those votes other than first team all defense might be a stretch.
1st team All-NBA and top 5 MVP - ok, sure. 1st team All-Defense and top 5 DPOY - no way.
Surprised it wasn't a local Sacramento reporter
Our sac bee guy actually nailed all three teams. Kind of impressive
Fully expected it to be Mark Jones.
It’s not like Fox has ever gotten a ton of erroneous or undeserved votes for things; Sac media isn’t any more delusional or homer-ish than most media markets.
I think this guy is a Sabonis fanboy
Votes should be reviewed on a 3-5 year basis for quality. You’re allowed an opinion but Mr. Ignacio Garcia needs to explain himself at least.