Howard Beck

But Tim Bontemps hits me up for the MVP poll, and I'm always stressing, when do you need it by?

Give me some time.

He's like, don't think about it.

This is impressionistic.

So I've had to retrain myself to be quick and dirty on this thing.

But later we get in the season, the more important it feels like, especially because his poll ends up being...

source of a lot of conversation um it has proven to be fairly determinative and so i'm trying i'm trying hard to get this right but i was on the plane and so this is what i sent to him and i say that to say this is what i sent to him and i figured i'll just work off of that for our discussion yeah sga sga first yokich second um and that is mostly about the fact that uh shea has played 10 more games than yokich and his team has seven more wins than yokich's team

Ten more games is a lot of freaking games.

It's most valuable.

The value is in playing, and I'm sorry that Jokic got hurt.

Again, this was the quick and dirty version.

I had Cade third, Jalen Brown fourth, Wemby fifth.

Painful all the way down this.

And I just want to make clear,

MVP and All-NBA, the difference between these two for me has always been All-NBA is mostly about individual excellence, but there's some team success factored in.

MVP is very much about individual excellence backed by team success.

If the team success doesn't follow, then that hurts your case in my eyes.

If your team success is outstanding and you are the central reason for it, it boosts your case, right?

So Jalen Brown's in there right now in large part because...

He has put the Celtics in a place that none of us expected, and this isn't just about defying expectations.