Tag: Stephen

NBA MVP Rankings: Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic battling for top spot; Stephen Curry still in striking distance

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We’re well past the halfway point, nearing the trade deadline and less than three weeks out from All-Star Weekend. Every year I say this, but the season just always goes faster than you expect. The playoff race is taking shape and so are the awards. Below is where, in my opinion, the MVP race stands entering play on Friday, Feb. 4th. 

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Joel Embiid is the new betting favorite (+225 at Caesars Sportsbook), but I’m sticking with Jokic (second at +300) at the top for now. Jokic has been the best player all season, plain and simple. Embiid is going to be tough to beat with the aid of everyone rooting for him because Ben Simmons left him in the lurch, but Jokic, let’s not forget, has been without his second-best player in Jamal Murray all season, too. And Denver’s third-best player, Michael Porter Jr., only played in nine games. 

Jokic’s case rests on the same on-off foundation that has supported it all season: When he’s on the floor, the Nuggets are elite; when he’s off the floor, they’re literally one of the worst teams, statistically speaking, of the past 20 years. 

To put a number to it, the Nuggets are a staggering 26.7 points per 100 possessions better with Jokic on the floor, per Cleaning the Glass (plus-10.7 when he’s on, minus-16.1 when he’s off). Take Jokic off the floor, and the Nuggets post an offensive and defensive rating that would register as the worst in the league. 

Yet here they are — with Jamal Murray having missed the entire season and Michael Porter Jr. all but nine games — sitting at No. 6 in the West just two losses back of a top-four seed. Absolutely remarkable. 

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Since Dec. 1, Embiid is the league’s leading scorer at 31.5 points per

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NBA coaching hot seat: With Luke Walton fired, Frank Vogel, Dwane Casey, Stephen Silas could be next to go

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Luke Walton’s firing was almost inevitable. The Sacramento Kings have missed the playoffs 15 years in a row and is now on their 11th coach in that span. Monte McNair didn’t hire Walton, but he oversaw many of Walton’s failures both tactically and within his locker room. He was the obvious first NBA coach to be fired of the 2021-22 season. 

There isn’t an obvious second. Of the other nine teams currently outside of the play-in picture, six have coaches in their first two seasons, and two of the others have coaches who have won championships for their current employer. There has been no substantial reporting regarding specific coaches who are in danger, nor are their any clear situations in which a coach and his top basketball executive don’t fit. We could all predict who the first coach to be fired would be because he deserved to be fired based on what had happened over the course of multiple seasons. The next coach who gets fired will lose his job because of what happens this season, and it’s still so new that making any firm predictions would be impossible. 

Even if we can’t figure out exactly who’s coming next, we can at least speculate about who’s under pressure. Three coaches stand out as obvious hot seat choices now that Walton has been fired.

Casey fits the traditional profile of a coach on the hot seat. Detroit is now in its third season as a lottery team having won exactly 20 games in back-to-back seasons. He was not hired by top basketball executive Troy Weaver, and while he extended his

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Warriors’ seven-game win streak comes to end: Stephen Curry, Golden State shooters lay an egg in Charlotte

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The Golden State Warriors raced out to an 11-1 start behind the top-rated defense in the league and an MVP start to Steph Curry’s season. They’ve also played the league’s softest schedule thus far. They’ve gotten away with some sloppy showings against inferior competition; a couple big runs was all it took to quell their turnover demons.

But you can’t get away with throwing the ball all over the court forever, particularly when Curry — who’s a central part of the turnover problem himself — doesn’t bail you out with a personal fireworks show. 

On Sunday, Curry had what was probably his worst game of the season as the Warriors fell to the Charlotte Hornets 106-102 (box score). The loss snapped Golden State’s seven-game win streak, all of which had come over more than a two-week home stand vs., again, some pretty soft competition. 

The Warriors are opening a four-game road trip, and it didn’t start well. They turned it over 15 times against the Hornets, and that number does not do justice to how lazy and shaky they were with the ball. 

Turnovers are something you have to accept with the way Golden State plays on the edge, forcing the issue in the half-court with never-ending cuts and needle-threading assists, and always pushing the pace in transition. But every game there are a handful of giveaways that just make you shake your head. Curry is never going to fully stop making those one-handed flip passes over double teams that are just waiting to be deflected and/or picked off. 

After posting 50 and 40 points in two of his last three games, Curry shot just 3-of-13 from 3-point range and 7-of-22 overall on Sunday. He still put up 24 points, 10 assists, six rebounds and three steals, and to be

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