The Game | 2023 NBA Season: The Game special awards

Well, as the curtain draws on a historic Cane Bay season, it's time to look back at another epic year with a special set of awards, courtesy of Basketball Analyst Coach Mark Molina. Coach, you have a lot of interesting points here, including ones that I feel aren't as bad as we painted it out to be, but we'll get to that in just a bit. There are these awards, unofficial, all selected by you, so I think, boom, we're going to start out here with the Comeback Player of the Year, and that is no other than Jamal Murray. A lot has been said about Jamal. Why him for you? It's obvious. ACL injury a year and a half ago, did play the whole season of last year, played this year, struggled in the beginning, and then saved the best for last, 25-5-5 in the playoffs and ending up a champion. How many people can say that within a year of rehabbing his ACL and then winning a championship within the same calendar year? That's why he was in tears. I mean, Jokic was unemotional when they won the championship, but Jamal was really in tears because of what he went through to be able to reach this point. Makes it sweeter, right, when you come back from that kind of adversity, and the champion, and put up historic numbers too. That's another part of it. The other guard that you chose was the breakout star of the year from the New York Knicks, at least they got something this year. Sorry, New York Knicks fans. No, you're not. Jalen Brunson. Okay, tell us why. He was a part-time starter last year with Dallas. He started pretty much maybe the latter half of the year, but was a six-man for the most part, and then free agency came, New York gave him a nice offer, which included his dad to be part of the coaching staff. And there were a lot of nice things that you can say about Jalen Brunson, but to average 27 points in the playoffs, better than Embiid, better than Giannis, better than a lot of the other superstars, and suddenly became the focal point of the New York office. They all thought this was Landell's team. No longer. This is Jalen Brunson's team. And I don't know if a lot of analysts really saw this coming. In fact, he wasn't even an all-star. Yeah, you're right. But I think he's playing at an all-NBA level right now. And in the playoffs, even got better. Major problems with Cleveland. Gave Miami Heat a lot of headaches. The others didn't deliver. It was him who gave Miami Heat headaches. The toughness that he brings on the floor, it's something else. He did that in Villanova, national championship there. Nobody thought he could do it in the NBA because of his size. He is not fast at all. But the toughness, the smarts, he's turned into an all-star. Not fast, but he's quick. Yeah, he is. Very quick. He changes direction as well. I remember that when he was being traded to New York, they were all upset that Donovan Mitchell was not moving there and they had to settle for Brunson. And he eliminated Donovan. I don't think that's settling. They got further. That's not settling. That's actually, that's not so bad. The New York Knicks fans should be happy about the future. Of course, the best performance of the year. There are so many performances to pick from, but we have to give our flowers to a certain Jimmy Butler, who really, in that series against the Bucs, seemed like a man possessed. They were not afraid of Milwaukee. Prior to that ankle injury, he was a beast. With all due respect to Jokic, 30-20-10 in the finals, which was something else. Because nobody was believing Miami at this point. Even though they won Game 1, people were still saying, Oh, Giannis is coming back. They're going to beat Miami. But in Game 4, I think that was a statement there because Milwaukee was up in the fourth quarter, then Jimmy just took over. Exploded. Withdrew Holiday on him. 56 points. It was all Jimmy Butler. It was a performance for the ages. And then the next game, he scored, I think, 42. It was like almost 100 points. And the overtime putback. Exactly. He was the one who forced the overtime. He called that play, by the way. He wanted it. And when you have somebody like that, we talk about the Miami undrafted players a lot. But those guys can perform because they have a star they can rely on. They know when push comes to shove, this guy is going to carry us. And he did it in the first round, which gave Miami the belief to make it to the finals. I agree. And, you know, I love these next two categories, Boom, because these are executive decisions. And we all know that Coach Mark is also good at making executive decisions in his day-to-day. So, the best move of the year for Coach Mark is the Nuggets acquiring KCP and Brown and drafting Christian Brown. Just how impressive was this front office of the Denver Nuggets? Very impressive, especially since this is the first year of Calvin Booth as the GM. First year as the decision maker. Good point. A lot has been said about what Rob Pelinka has done with the Lakers. I was about to say. And I think it was Sacramento's GM who won the Executive of the Year. But these two or three low-key moves to get a Bruce Brown as a free agent for, what, five, six million? Yeah. And then to trade for KCP. They gave up two key players in Monte Morris and Will Barton to get this guy because the advantage of KCP is his outside shooting and defense. He's a 3-and-D guy who's perfect for Denver. And he was able to get that, plus the drafting of Christian Brown, who was a contributor in the playoffs. I think those moves took Denver over the top and they won the championship because of that. If they didn't win the championship, let me just poke you here a little bit. If they didn't win the championship, and I'm no Lakers fan, but was the Lakers move the best if they didn't win the championship? Only because, hear me out here, only because they were not considered to be a playoff team prior to the move, and then they went as far as they did. What do you think about that? It was very good because it turned a bad team, a lousy team, into a contender. So you can argue that. Okay. But I love the little traits. Right, right. To me, it's harder to be a contender and take them to the championship. Those small things, small moves, like getting, it's not a big deal to get a Bruce Brown. Right, right. But when you watch the finals, you see him. Probably the most consistent. You see the value. You see him perform. Then you know that this is a staff. Speaking like an executive. That's right. I told you, it's perfect. They know their personal well, they recognize what they need, and they went after it. Yeah. We had the best, but on the opposite side. This is the best move of the year. What's the worst? I don't know. For me, it's the best move of the year. For Coach, it's the worst. Because? Because the Timberwolves trading for Gobert is so beneficial to me. But let's put it in the face of it. It is really a lopsided trade, results-based. First of all, in the NBA of the 2020s, you cannot play Gobert and Carl Anthony together. So that itself is already a bad move, to pair them together. And then you look at what they gave up for Gobert, what four or five first-round picks, including your boy, Walker Kessler, who I think was already better than Gobert at this stage. And then you have one guy who's already at par or better than Gobert, and you're paying him a rookie scale, and this guy's making so much money eating in your cup. And then you add all of the other picks. I don't really know how this happened in today's NBA. Yeah, I don't know either. But I love it. I love it. I mean, like, being completely biased there. Yuta will probably win the championship down the road because of this pick. Because of all the assets that they got. Can we end the show now? No. But you take a look at all of that. Not the show. The segment. The segment now. What are you going to talk about? Oh my goodness. But before I completely lose track of everything we're supposed to be doing here, there is a, quote-unquote, the real MVP award. And that one will go to Nikola Jokic. Coach, can you define the real MVP? This is very painful. Because I'm a Joel Embiid. I know, exactly. But you have to be real here. The real MVP is really the best player in the game. This happened in the 90s when they gave awards to Karl Malone. They gave awards to Barkley. But everybody knew that the real MVP, the real best player of the game, is Michael Jordan. Yes. And it happened again this year. I think it's obvious. Maybe before the playoffs, you can make a case for Embiid. And I myself, I will be making cases for Embiid before the playoffs. But now, it's obvious. You can say Giannis is there as well. But hands down, Nikola Jokic is the best player in the world right now. I agree. I don't think that can be disputed. I was going to say. There's no way. Coach Mark, thank you as always for entertaining us with your choices and making my partner happy. Oh my goodness.