Giannis Antetokounmpo won the 2019 NBA MVP award, as expected. This was a monumental moment for Giannis, of course, one of the most thrilling players in memory. It was a monumental moment for Europe, for Greece, for immigrants, for the Milwaukee Bucks. Giannis honored that moment with a beautiful, emotional speech befitting the MVP.
Then Rockets Twitter went ahead and declared James Harden the real MVP anyway.
When I say “Rockets Twitter” I’m not referring to Rockets fans on Twitter. I mean literally the Rockets’ official Twitter account, run by the team. In a three-tweet thread with actual bullet points, the Rockets declared “Congrats to the new MVP, but we respectfully disagree.”
You disagree? You disagree Giannis is the MVP? Antetokounmpo received more than three times as many first-place votes for MVP (78) than Harden (23). No one other than those two received a single first or second place vote. It was pretty decisive across the MVP voter base that Giannis is the MVP, and Harden was the runner-up.
This smells a whole lot like the Rockets’ audit of the 2018 Western Conference Finals that resulted in a memo that included the claim that referees “likely changed the eventual NBA champion” due to calls made in Game 7. So at least James Harden’s non-existent 2019 MVP trophy will have company with the Rockets’ non-existent 2018 NBA champion banner. Houston might have to build a whole ‘nother non-existent trophy case for all of these non-existent awards!
Anyway, it is truly worth celebrating what Harden has achieved these past five years. An MVP and three No. 2 finishes in five years is absolutely unreal! What a magnificent run
More winners
There was a definite international flair to the NBA awards this year!
Rudy Gobert won Defensive Player of the Year over Giannis and Paul George.
Pascal Siakam won the Most Improved Player award over D’Angelo Russell.
Luka Doncic was an almost unanimous winner in Rookie of the Year voting over Trae Young.
Mike Budenholzer won Coach of the Year. Lou Williams won Sixth Man of the Year. Jon Horst of the Bucks won Executive of the Year.
Awards!
Links
We have a trade! The Blazers sent Evan Turner to the Hawks for Kent Bazemore. No picks or salary, and the contracts are pretty identical. The word is that the Blazers want to add extra shooting and the Hawks wanted a back-up point guard and to do right by Bazemore by trading him to a competitive team.
The eight NBA season awards actually worth caring about.
I wrote about how things could go terribly wrong in free agency for the Clippers, like they did in 2008.
Emmet Ryan on what all of these NBA awards mean for European basketball. Martenzie Johnson on what Giannis’ MVP means for Nigerian athletes.
Danny Ainge has a whole lot of options for the Celtics this summer.
There’s a Don Nelson piece on Real Sports on Tuesday. That’s a must-watch, folks.
The Warriors will pitch Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson this week. It’ll be interesting to see how the Durant sweepstakes is framed by Golden State, if they talk any more at all.
Kevin Arnovitz on the Clippers’ very difficult task: convince Kawhi Leonard to walk away from the NBA champion.
Rob Mahoney’s top 50 free agents.
Jeanie Buss defended the Lakers from the media. She should focus more on defending the Lakers from the teams that have beaten the Lakers a combined 329 times in the last six seasons (492 games).
Dan Devine on the Nets’ decision between Kyrie Irving and D’Angelo Russell.
The NBA fined the Knicks for being the way that they are.
Be excellent to each other.