Who is the best player in the NBA right now? Ryan and Matt discuss who they believe it to be and it shouldn't be that surprising.
Ryan Griffin: Who do you think is just the best player in the NBA right now?
Matt Bassin: Part of me wants to say Steph, but I don't know if I can say Steph for overall NBA player. Joker, I can say for a lot of reasons, but defensively he's a bit of a liability. Giannis might be, he's got it on defense and he's figured it out a lot more on offense. He's learned a bit of an outside jump shot to go along with his paint dominance.
If you put a gun to my head, I'd say the argument is Joker and Giannis with Embiid probably just outside of the group. It's probably these three, just of overall basketball play, offensively, defensively, getting assists, getting your teammates involved. Like to me, basketball is a team game. That's what I've always hated the whole greatest player crap.
Michael Jordan, LeBron, James, Kobe, Magic, Will, whoever, basketball is a team game. And, you can be the greatest at something, you can be the greatest at one particular spot of it. Position-wise whatever. But to me being the best at basketball means that you were playing great as a team and you are winning basketball games.
So I'm weird like that.
Ryan Griffin: So, I don't want to say Joker's not in the argument, but he doesn't even cross my mind for me because I do think Giannis is a better player. What he does on both ends. He's shown it in the playoffs. And not that Joker has been bad in the playoffs, but what you said, he doesn't have the team around him that Giannis did.
But for me, it's either Giannis or K.D, and as much as I want to say K.D cause I love shooting, it's a clear advantage that he has over Giannis is K.D can fire it from anywhere. The other night, I think he had 55 points, but they lost that game to go to your point, you got to win right here. 55 points in the loss.
I don't know, man. Giannis it's just every time I watch, he's adding more to his game and it's unbelievable becoming a better defender. He's becoming a better passer. He becoming a better shooter. I think his free throw numbers, I don't have them in front of me this year, but they're like respectable.
He's not taking the 10 seconds anymore. You can't even count down because he's not taking that long. He's making them. His three-point shot. I think he's at 30 or 31%, which not great, but, hey, it'll do.
Now if a team leaves you open, he hit a, not a dagger three the other night, but a three, to I think either take the lead real late or tie the game really late.
So he's, to me, he's just that guy when his team always needs someone, they call on him an awful lot and it seems like he always comes through, maybe it's the championship bias from last year and remembering the 50 PC drops in game six to seal the title. To me. I do think Giannis is the best player.
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