![]() It’s not like Steph is some slouch when it comes to the art of dribbling (who can forget the time he made Chris Paul do the limbo back in 2016?). But this – an 69.7-vote gap between Irving and the second-place Curry – is some serious ankle-breaking in the player polling. We all know that Kyrie’s handles are just absurd. McCollum, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jamal Crawford, Dion Waiters, Paul George, Ben Simmons (1% one vote) All that being said, you won’t find many folks who disagree with the players’ perception that Kawhi is the most respected defender of them all. An analytics staffer for a Western Conference team expressed similar confusion, only his beef was that Embiid deserved much more love. Case in point, I shared these results to a Hall of Famer and he scoffed at the idea that Thompson only garnered two votes. Myles Turner Kyle Lowry Steven Adams P.J Tucker Royce O’Neale David Nwaba (1%)Įven in this era of advanced statistics and instantaneous “film” study thanks to technology, defense is still largely in the eye of the beholder.Klay Thompson, Torrey Craig, Mikal Bridges, Marcus Smart (1.7%). ![]() Giannis Antetokounmpo, Draymond Green, Kris Dunn (2.6%).But I really can’t pick between them now.” Team-wise, you’re going to say Giannis Antetokounmpo. If you want to go stat-wise, you’re going to say James Harden. 12 (in the West) and came back and they’re fourth now? (The Rockets have since moved up to third) It’s hard. 1 spot, but early in the season Houston was down to like No. “It’s very close you could pick either of them.” A few candid thoughts from some of the players polled… “Reigning MVP James Harden is putting up big numbers, but his Houston Rockets are a mess.”įast forward nearly four months, and Harden is garnering all sorts of well-deserved respect on this here poll as he tries to edge out Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo for the league’s top individual award. 13, when the Rockets were in the midst of their 11-14 start, the only mention of the Houston star in my 1,485-word column on the MVP race was this 16-word line. Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard, Kawhi Leonard (1%)Ī quick admission, for the sake of professional honesty: I gave up on Harden’s candidacy way too early.Not every player answered every question, but there was more than enough participation to paint a genuine picture of this fascinating NBA world. In all, we talked to 127 players – more than a quarter of the Association’s workforce. Thanks to the hard work of our 30 beat writers who gathered the results from March 16 to April 1, we now know that a player who you have likely never heard of is the most feared man in all the hoops land, that the grumpiest coach of them all is also the most admired, that the superstar who might win MVP is somehow not seen as franchise centerpiece material by his peers and that the same referee who is respected by some can be reviled by others. I still want the 1-on-1 game, and I know that if I texted him right now and I said, ‘Come to Vegas,’ and we had this same bet on the line, I don’t know what he would say but I know he would have some words for me.”Īlthough it would make for an interesting game, we doubt Kobe will come out of retirement.The inaugural NBA edition of The Athletic’s player poll was no different. Being a young kid in 2012, challenging one of the best players to ever play the game, thinking about his mentorship of me now and me being able to grow as a basketball player and a man, there’s nothing like it. While practicing for the 2016 Summer Olympics, Kyrie told NBA TV, “ It’s just unbelievable to even realize how far we’ve all come in that short of time. While the game never went down because Kobe, now 37, had a season-ending injury that year, Kyrie still fondly remembers the challenge.
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