Welcome to Episode 4 of Islands In The League, presented by Draft Kings. In this episode, we dive into the discourse around The MVP. With the finalists being Joel Embiid (The Philadelphia 76ers), Giannis Antetokounmpo (The Milwaukee Bucks) and Nikola Jokic (The Denver Nuggets) we dive into one of the biggest myths about The NBA MVP award. Plus, our resident sports betting expert, Josh Appelbaum, joins us to talk about how some of the injuries (to Giannis, Tyler Herro and Ja Morant) have impacted betting odds. We also talk about The Phoenix Suns vs. Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors vs. Sacramento Kings.
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32 Comments
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I wish these late-night-show-esque monologues would be at least twice as long as they are now. Having 23 out of 30 minutes being about sports betting is garbage, I understand that they sponsor his channel, but cmon JJ that's a little bit selling out. Guaranteed his channel metrics show everyone clicks off these Island in the Sun videos as soon as its about covering spreads
blame kendrick perkins for all this mess
Jordan did it 4x
I picked it 6. U have 2 mvp's shut up
Wtf is this 2/3 gambling advertising? Shame
What's with the annoying camera angle switching? Stop it. Great episode though!
as a russ fan, love that random russ s/o 😂😂
They should be disqualified from being a 3 time MVP*
1 time is fine, but if you’re gonna be a 3x, you need a ring to sit at the table just my opinion.
I thought I’d be getting 30 mins of mvp analysis not 4 mins of it and the rest sports betting/gambling. Is this really what life as a sports fan is now? Constantly having betting odd and over under shoved down our throat every other second?
Not saying JJ is the sole problem but it’s just tiring especially when you’ve had a gambling problem in the past
If the "truly best player" in the NBA won the MVP each year, then who would win it:
MJ from 1991-1993, 1996-1998 (6)
Hakeem from 1994-1995 (2)
Shaq from 1999-2002 (3)
Duncan from 2003-2006 (2)
Dirk in 2007
Kobe in 2008 (1)
Lebron from 2009-2017 (3)
Giannis from 2018-present (1)
so the number of MVPs who would've won the NBA championship in the same year would be: 18 in 32 years.
JJ I want to know if you actually believe what you said in first take about the referees are favoring the kings. There have been bad calls both ways and this way I feel like people have been not giving any credit to fox and monk hitting big shots and game 2 Davion Mitchell’s defense on curry
Lets be real here, most people dont have an issue with Jokic win MVP they have issue with him winnimg his 3rd CONSECUTIVE MVP. And if he was to win this year MVP. He is gonna join a Super Elite group of guys with at least 3 MVP and still have no play-off success to show for.
1 mvp 2 number 1 seeds a year that's a bit skewed
You all sucomed to pressure of pity voting… stupid americans with everybody deserves an award culture. Jokic and Giannis are more valuable for their teams than Joel is to Philly. Its not a best scorer award its not even award for the best player, it is given to Most Valuable Player and numbers tell the story there.
My favorite show besides inside the naba of course but would love to see you with Shaq and Chuck and the rest of the crew
Great use of the word nauseating
If they want the fans to accept it as a regular season award, stop waiting until after playoffs to announce it because 9/10 whoever the media thinks the MVP is will not win a championship.
Ok pop off JJ, looking sharp today:)
So sick of this narrative that defenders on Steph are the only ones fouling. At least, AT LEAST, half of the screens he runs around flare their hips or elbows after he runs by.
Never gets called which is almost rigged in favor of the Warriors because they play outside in.
I feel like choosing the MVP was a lot easier when guys didnt sit out 15+ games a season.
If its supposed to be a regular reason award, how come they dont give it at the end of the regular season? Or atleast a week after? Why is it given after the playoffs? And who the hell decides the date anyway? And why is it different every year by up to 2 month?
It's funny how I always see the headlines "debunking the myth" and "toxic conversation" but never see "let's talk about subconscious racism in the media" 😂😂 What a joke the media is. Always insecure and defending itself, never accepting or recognizing any faults
JJ totally missed the mark here. Nobody points to playoff failures for a first-time MVP, and it’s never about whether you’re a championship caliber team that season. The playoff stuff starts to come up when you already have multiple MVPs, and in particular when you’re the back-to-back defending MVP. The reason it comes up is because that’s the way it always *has been done*. Nash is a great example. Nobody with 3 MVPs has 0 championships, and the precedent is set that you ought to be top 10 all time to win 3 in a row. History shows us this because it hasn’t been done since Bird, and the only other guys to do it are Wilt and Russell.
Now, people can disagree with whether it should be done that way, but you can’t argue against the fact that it has always been done that way. And I think there’s good reason to maintain that precedent, which is why I’m glad to see Joel (probably, hopefully) win this year’s MVP.
Correlation does not always equal causation. Easy to throw around stats
I definitely understand where JJ is coming from on the MVP should be regular season exclusive but just to play devils advocate there have been alot of MVP champions since 1980
Kareem , 1980
Moses , 1983
Bird. 1984, 1986
Magic. 1987
Jordan 1991,92, 96, 98
Hakeem , 1994
Shaq. , 2000
Duncan , 2003
Lebron. 2012, 2013
Curry. , 2015
And in between years are filled by guys who make the Finals o
Dr. J 1981
Bird. 1985
Magic 1989
Barkley 1993
Malone. 1997
Iverson 2001
Kobe. 2008
Curry. 2016
Or years where one conference is better than the other and the real match up of the 2 best teams happens with conference like
Durant 2014 Thunder vs Spurs
Harden 2018 Rockets vs Warriors.
Obviously what happens in the playoffs is after the fact but the point would be that the MVP should only come from a true contender because it can be viewed as easier to put up stats and add value to something that is bad, but there's a bigger gap between making something already pretty good great.
So for example to be consistent with this idea of MVP Westbrook triple double 2017 shouldn't win because Thunder aren't a serious contender
and Jokic last year 2022 shouldn't win even though he made a team that would horrible without him average.
Great video JJ! Would like to offer something that would strengthen your point about MVP’s correlating to their championship accolades. I’d say a better stat would be adding MVP’s who won championships prior to their MVP title. Might not add much, but it does play into the narrative that people who already got rings have when in the MVP discussion (ala, the debate of Giannis versus Jokic & Embiid as MVP this year. In that the topic of playoffs only come up with the latter two, since Giannis already won)
I like it better when you chat with your guy instead of just talking at me
NBA is gonna be trash with the new CBA anyway so it's dumbest topic won't mean squat
Just based on the title I feel like JJ is about to say something really stupid
The MVP should factor in value to the league. Personality, media availability, and jersey sales matter. Jokic isn’t turning on TVs
Say the name JJ….say the name…