A Sixers fan posted a picture Monday of the confirmed ballots from NBA media members with a MVP vote. It’s not looking good for Joel Embiid:

 

Try to forget the fact that Nikola Jokic is going to win MVP with his team being a six seed and lets focus on the people who get votes for these awards.

The Ringer gets three votes? It’s at least four since Kevin O’Connor isn’t on the sheet and mentioned that he voted Tyrese Maxey first for Most Improved Player. I actually like The Ringer, well I like Ryen Russillo’s podcast, and he absolutely deserves a vote. Bill Simmons has fallen off a little, but I still respect his basketball opinion enough to have him cast a vote. But four is entirely too much.

What makes no sense is that Chinese media partner Tencent gets at least two people voting on these things. You might remember Tencent pulling NBA games after Daryl Morey made his pro-Hong Kong comments and cost the NBA billions. They weren’t even showing NBA games in China when this season began, and only recently started broadcasting again (sans Sixers games) after a boycott. But yes, let’s go ahead and give Tencent a say in the MVP race.


Also, how the fuck does Greeny have a vote? Are we giving every studio host an MVP vote because they host a show that leads into a game? Does Suzy Kolber get an NFL MVP vote? How about Karl Ravech? Greeny doesn’t give one fuck about the NBA. They shove football down our throats on Get Up like WIP does the Eagles. Stephen A, Jalen Rose, and Wilbon carry that show while Greeny does his worst to keep the train on the tracks:

I’d love to know the narrative that changed voters’ minds the last two months of the season, because this was Joel’s MVP in February. Then ESPN’s straw poll came out and it all went in favor of Jokic. Is it because the Sixers don’t look as good with James Harden? It can’t be because Embiid’s performance suffered. He won the scoring title. He’s had the most 40 and 10 games in the last 15 years. He carried this team through the depths of hell while his All-Star/All-NBA teammate sat on the bench. I promise you five years from now the NBA is going to look at this MVP vote like they did Russell Westbrook over James Harden, Steve Nash over Shaq, and Charles Barkley over MJ. Especially if the Sixers go on a run on the back of Embiid after they looked dead in the water to end the season.