NBA Predictions Week: Jokić, Wemby & Celtics vs. Nuggets headline Brou’s Ballot

Welcome back to Predictions Week. Today, we are getting an early preview of Gru's ballot. Chris Broussard, of course, is an official voter of the league's awards, has been for years, but this is just in pencil. Unlike our predictions, which we are staked to, even though earlier today, Gru tried to move off of his Clippers pick in the morning meeting. Gru, take it away. I do have an adjustment later on. These are the awards, and again, it's in pencil. There's a little time left, so maybe some of this will change. Rookie of the year, Wimby, he's going to be the face of the league. And I'm going to say this, and I don't even, this shouldn't even be a surprise. I'm not saying this is going to happen for sure. I'm not saying it's definite. Ceiling, go. Ceiling. That's the ceiling. He might not reach the ceiling, but that's the ceiling. And floor is a king. Probably, probably. His floor? I mean, unless he gets, if he's healthy. If he's healthy, yeah, the dude is crazy. Let me see that again. All right, so Wimby is a rookie of the year. Malik Monk, I'm sure you like this. Yes. You know what I liked about Monk is that you got a lot of scores off the bench. He's efficient. Yes. There are a few more that are efficient, but a lot of guys around 40% shooting, 41. He's at 45 and 37 from three. And he's a playmaker. Gives you five and a half assists a game. Very few guys are doing that. He's playing really well. Defensive player of the year. I know Knicks aren't going to like this. Go there. He's going to tie Ben Wallace and Dikembe Mutombo. He is the anchor of the best defensive team in the league. And it's best by a lot. Yeah. And he's individually, he's got the best defensive rating in the league. Mark Dagnon. Come on. Top seed in the West. Tied with Denver. They may end up at number two, but right now he's tied for number one with a team that's oldest starters 25 years old. Think about that. I mean, that's crazy. So this dude can coach. So, so if I may just, so this is, as you know, you guys know, I don't have a vote. I don't have a ballot at this point. It seems I never will. That's fine. I've come to terms with it. If I did, this would be mine at the moment as well. I agree with you. You don't need one, really. Exactly. There you go. But I would like to focus just for a moment on rookie of the year, because Wilds before the year was big on Chet and Chet probably would finish second. So that was a good, it was a good take. Like Wimby's been better than I think even Brew expected this season. And so I am not hesitant to bring up my category one instantly correct takes or my category two eventually correct takes. My scoot rookie of the year take might be the rare cat three brew. So we're going to throw it on there. Hasn't gone great for the third pick of the draft. Not a little, you know, more than a little disappointing for Scoot Henderson. And so I just, you know, I'm just being fair and being honest. You were at least up to one year in. I'm not saying Scoot ceiling isn't the goat. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that through one year brew appears to be winning that argument. So credit to you, my friend. Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm something, you know, there's something coming from route behind there. Some breakdancers, some bad. No. All right here MVP. Yeah. And this is where we'll have some fun. Jokic. It's not just yes. I think he's the best player in the world, but we know the best way to win it every year. But I Nick, he's the best offensive player in the league. I think I mean scoring. He does it all. There's nothing he can't do offensively and then defensively. I mean, he's not the greatest defender, but he's leaves the league and defensive plus minus, you know, he's up there and defensive rating like he's not a weak link defensively because he's so big. So they can get those fake reviews. Here's the, here's the other thing, Nick. He is of the Western Conferences, top eight teams. And you could even include the Lakers at 9 Golden State. Not really. They all there's two of them that don't have a second or don't have multiple all-stars that are pretty much still playing. Well, he's one of them. So this guy has the best record in the West running through the West and with no all-star teammate SGA, the second team, but they're the other team that doesn't have another all-star and I talked about how young they are. This guy's leading the league in steals second in scoring. I got to give him his props. Like he's just and he's got a bunch of young kids that he's carrying. He's young himself. Tatum. Look, we last week was a rough week for him. Totally fair. Wasn't clutch. But look, I can't say Giannis is clutch as far as like a mentality might be better than Tatum. But but he's not a goat. No Tatum. They got the best record in the league by a mile. Six games over the best team in the West, nine and a half games over Milwaukee in the East. He leads them in scoring and rebounded is right there tied with Derek White, essentially at four assists lead. I got to give him his props and they got the fifth best margin of victory ever. Correct. So then I got Giannis at number four. He's playing. Well, I do think they've been disappointed Nick though for them. He's got a great second guy in Damon. I get it. There's an adjustment, but they've been a little bit disappointing still got a shot and then Luca. I mean Luca is just a triple-double machine, even though they're not playing great as a team. Necessarily. I got to give this a great job. So if Joker wins his third MVP, this is the company he would be with everybody has three or more the bottom row Magic Larry Moses and then Joker if he got three. So how do you think this would affect his legacy neck? Well, yeah, I mean to me that's how I disagree with through an SGA and Tatum. I'd have Yokoch and then Giannis and I'd have a closer than Bruce seems to have it because Giannis would you could put his head there. We're joking. This is but that's right. That's what listen. That's the the company of which he is trying to keep the only person on that list that right now. He already is within reaching distance of in the all-time rankings is Moses and I think you'll get that. No, I think he's likely to surpass Moses and most people's all-time rankings. I think we don't have to get into it while it's gets annoyed when I do 80s basketball reminiscing, but I think most one of those underrated players ever. I think one of the 15 greatest players ever, but that's the area Yokoch is trying to encroach upon. I don't think that winning this MVP brew and the championship this year for Yokoch or Giannis would move them ahead of anyone else on that list. Moses though, or it would from a championship and MVP for either of those two guys move ahead of Moses, but not bird or magic or will. Okay, quickly title time Celtics officially the favorite in Boston. Dispatch to the Jazz last night for their 51st win the year. They also as Brew mentioned have 11 point margin of victory good for fifth of all time with the caveat that the teams ahead of them all won the title. So brew does this sway you to thinking the Celtics are going to bring home the Larry O'Brien trophy. It's an interesting thing. I mean there you can't deny that history, but I look I will say this. I talked to hubs about this. He said it was okay. He said stuff is written in the cement is wet still. So I still got Boston winning the East. I know I got by this still predictions week. I got Boston winning the East but instead of beating Miami. They're going to be Milwaukee in the conference. So it's Boston over Milwaukee in the talk to her. She got an issue. Who do you have in the final? All right, so I got Boston beating Milwaukee. Okay in the Eastern Conference. Yeah, so that is a change, but we got Denver beating Boston. I think Yokoch is just too good and Jamal Murray. Yeah, who you keep saying Yokoch gets MVP because he has a star and now you tell me how great Jamal Murray is. Interesting because you know what this is and you there are a few guys. You know, I think Calvin Murphy maybe made one all-star team. He's a Hall of Famer. He right now like on the Hall of Fame trajectory and he's never made it all. Well, then maybe we should look at this. He's averaging in numbers in the regular season 17 points. He's at 25 in the playoff. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, dude is bad. But you can't be like the Nuggets have nobody but he's never made it all. But now he's all-famer and he's not Dane. All right. I don't have to change anything that I did yesterday or the day before because Bruce also by the way, going to abandon the Clippers being in the final. No, I mean if they get hurt. I'm going to be the only person that's going to believe in. The Bucks the fear of the deer that Wilds Wilds used love the Bucks. He brought out a reindeer. The guy dropped his antlers on him twice. They haven't been the Fox over Nuggets in the for the finals. Who ruins beating Denver in a seven game series. We know it's going to go Denver in six, maybe even five. I like six. I like five. If it happens in five, the Celtics will make a major change. If the Celtics even if they make the finals and they get what worked then they'll make a significant. Denver has to play the Lakers that, you know, post-sweep. It's that long. You go into Boston. Close sweep though. Nick close sweep. Yeah, that's not a thing guys. Four games by a total of 15 points.