Goeiedag, enchantée and welcome to this week's episode of Eight 2 Four presents: All-NBA Team of the Week. It is All-Star weekend, we’ve already seen the new and improved Rising Star Tournament which was won by Team Barry, coached by Rick Barry, a Golden State Warriors legend, and MVP was number 1 pick Cade Cunningham. Right now we’re waiting on the Skills Challenge, 3-point contest and Slam Dunk, events I look forward to every year! My predictions are that Team Rooks, Scottie Barnes, Josh Giddey and Cunningham, will take out the skills challenge. Trae Young will crown himself 3-point king and either Anthony Cole or Jalen Green will go home with the massive Slam Dunk Trophy. Tomorrow is the long awaited All-Star game, Team LeBron are favourites over Team Durant but in an All-Star game, anything can happen. But that will do on the All-Star game, maybe we’ll go into more detail next week. This week, I wanted to go over a few players that have played really well going into the All-Star break. Get ready for your All-NBA Team of the Week!
PICK #1
Our first pick of the week is Josh Giddey of the Oklahoma City Thunder. He’s the 2-youngest player in the NBA, after Joshua Primo of the Spurs and is only a handful of days older than Jonathan Kuminga of the Warriors but he has no problem keeping up with the big boys. Picked at number 6 by OKC, Josh has played himself into the Rookie of the Year conversation, especially recently, becoming the youngest NBA-player ever to record a triple-double, and then doing that three times over, consecutively, to join the legendary Oscar Robertson as the only 2 NBA Rookies with 3 triple-doubles in a row. He also joins Ben Simmons and Luka Doncic who are the only 2 rookies in the last 25 years to have 4 triple-doubles in their first season in the league.
The NBA Rookie Ladder has Giddey now in third spot among all rookies in the league, behind Evan Mobley and Scottie Barnes. Both of them started the season really well but are going through a bit of a lull at the moment, where Giddey is only getting better as the season progresses. With SGA out with an ankle sprain until at least after the All-Star break and Lu Dort missing the last 2 games with a shoulder injury, Giddey has the opportunity now to carry this young Oklahoma team and show the world what he is capable of. And the world is watching, with LeBron James even complimenting Giddey on his play. At the All-Star media availability, LeBron said that Giddey is “really, really, really good” and “playing beautiful basketball”.
The future is bright for Josh Giddey, and he is on the right team to cement that future. GM Sam Presti already proved that he can build a potential championship team by drafting high quality players. He drafted KD, Westbrook, Harden and Ibaka in the past, the core of a team that made it to the NBA Finals in 2012. Presti is convinced he can do it again, and with SGA and Giddey he already has a championship-winning backcourt. All he needs now is to upgrade his front court. With 37 draft picks over the next 5 years, that should not be a problem.
PICK #2
Our second pick of the week is Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns. The Suns are the best team in the league by far. They’re currently leading the Western Conference by 6 and a half games on the Warriors and the Grizzlies are 8 games back. If we would include the East, the Heat and Bulls would be about 10 games back on the Suns. They have only lost 10 games so far this season and 3 of those losses were in the first 4 games of the season. They are currently on a 7 game winning streak and with OKC, the Pelicans and the struggling Jazz, they have a chance to make that 10 in a row. The Suns are ready to repeat their run from last season, only this time, they want a happy ending.
Because the Suns are so solid, it doesn’t happen very often that they stick out. They have made winning a normality, they do it as a team and no-one sticks out. Except for Devin Booker, that is. Book is averaging 25.5 points per game, 5 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game. Not as high as in previous seasons but thanks to Chris Paul, it doesn’t need to be. Booker plays with confidence and an incredible consistency. He has not finished a game with less than 10 points this season. In fact, he hasn’t done that in 14 months. The last time was against the Pelicans in December 2020, when he finished with 8 points. As much as Chris Paul has transformed this team, it is Devin Booker who is the true star on this team and he does deserve to be in the MVP conversation.
On the Basketball Reference MVP Tracker, Booker is listed as the number 10 in the MVP race, with only a 2% chance of winning. His running mate, CP, is in 4th with just under 10%. The reality for Phoenix is that both players play so well, they cancel each other out in the race. Paul let’s Book cook for most of the game, and takes over when the team needs it in crunch time. These guys compliment each other so well, it is nearly impossible for teams to disrupt them both on the offensive or defensive end. To me, this team has the biggest chance to win the championship this season. And if they do, Booker will most likely be Finals MVP.
PICK #3
Our third pick of the week is DeMar DeRozan of the Chicago Bulls. You know you’re doing something right, if you are breaking records set by Wilt Chamberlain nearly 60 years ago. DeRozan scored at least 35 points in 7 consecutive games at at least 50% shooting from the field. Chamberlain put together 6 of these games consecutively in his career, twice, but never made it to 7. And as a side note, he has scored more than 30 points for 8 games in a row. The only other Bulls player in history to do the same? Yep, Michael Jordan. DeRozan is playing a historic season, giving the Bulls an outside chance to win the title.
Considering his personal accomplishments this season, the progress he has made individually in comparison to his years in San Antonio, and the jump the Bulls have made as a team since they signed him in the offseason, DeRozan is very much overlooked in the MVP conversation at the moment. On the Basketball Reference MVP Tracker, he sits in 9th spot, just behind Ja Morant and ahead of Devin Booker. The numbers lean towards the big guys in the league, and even though Jokic, Giannis and Embiid deserve the love, DeRozan is definitely a worthy contender.
With only about 20 games left to be played this season, the Bulls currently sit in shared first position with Miami, leaning on a 5 game winning streak. Considering they missed Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso for nearly a month and Zach Lavine for the last 3 games, a fantastic performance by DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic. The Bulls will recover all 3 players sometime within the next month and hopefully they’ll get Patrick Williams back before the Playoffs too. I can’t put them next to the Bucks, or even Miami yet, but when this roster is healthy, they do have a chance to come out of the East. What a revenge that would be, for DeRozan, after being traded away from Toronto and having to watch his team win the title without him.
PICK #4
Our fourth pick of the week is Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks are going through a bit of a rough stretch, losing 3 of out their last 4 games, but Giannis averaged over 30 points per game in that stretch, including a 50 point game against Indiana. That’s his third 50 point game in his career, the first one of the season but he’s been close a few times before. But even that was not the best game for Giannis this week. That followed on Thursday, when they played against Philly. Giannis vs Embiid, Clash of the Titans in the East. Giannis lost the battle in the end, on the court and on the stat sheet but this will be a wonderful rivalry for years to come.
This season, Giannis is putting up better numbers and is more dominant than in his MVP seasons. And yet, right now he is not the best player in the league, he’s not even the best big guy in the league. He needs to leave that crown to Jokic and Embiid. But Giannis is not interested in personal accolades this season. He wants to be back-to-back champion, just like he was back-to-back MVP. He has the personal accolades, now he wants the rings. But even more than rings, he just wants to have fun. Don't get me wrong, Giannis is a winner and he will never sacrifice winning for fun but he likes to do both at the same time.
Giannis is all about having fun. He knows how tough life can be, there are very few NBA players with a history like Giannis, coming from a life of poverty in Greece, so now that he is in a position where he can do what he loves, why would you not want to make it fun. This All-Star Weekend, he is given an opportunity to take part in the Skills Challenge with his brothers, as Team Antetokounmpo. Together with Thanasis, who is also his teammate at the Bucks and Alex, who plays for the Raptors G-League team, they take a shot to win the Skills Challenge. And if they don’t win, at least they’ll have fun doing it.
PICK #5
Our fifth pick of the week is Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets. The loneliest of NBA stars in the league right now, surrounded by superstars like Will Barton, Aaron Gordon and Monte Morris. Nikola Jokic is taking his nickname as The Joker to a whole new level, surrounding himself with a crew of criminals, stealing games away from their opponents, and there is no Batman in sight. The Nuggets sit in 6th in the West, a Playoff spot, and have won 5 of their last 6 games, and I think they’re more likely to climb in the standings than drop.
Jokic is averaging some incredible numbers this season, with 26 points, nearly 14 rebounds and 8 assists per game. But he is not just lethal on the offensive end, having recorded more than 1 game-winning block so far this season. He is literally carrying this Denver team to the Playoffs on his own, hoping that he’ll get some help once Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr return from injury. We don’t know if or when they’ll return, but rumours are that we could see Murray back on the court fairly soon. If that is the case, all of sudden this Denver team could become a problem for a lot of teams in the West.
Nikola Jokic is the top candidate to win MVP this season, which would make him back-to-back winners of the trophy, following Giannis who won it twice in a row the years before him. He is not your typical NBA superstar, standing out like a sore thumb among the others at the All-Star weekend practices and press conferences. But Jokic is an easy going guy and seems to gel with them nonetheless. A very interesting development is the teasing relationship Jokic has with Doncic, because they clearly seem to enjoy each other's company. If those ever decide to team up down the track, it is game over for the rest of the league.
This is our All-NBA team of the Week. Please share our podcast and give us 5 stars. If you have any questions, you can contact the show on eight2fouroffice@gmail.com. Thank you for listening, ballers out!
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