While the playoffs roll on, the Suns are already reportedly planning to shop Chris Paul. Also, Ja Morant lost $39 million and Mark Jackson was big wrong.
If the Basketball Gods favor us, we could end up with a trio of Game 7s between Sunday and Monday. But while you're waiting to find out what happens, catch up on the latest NBA rumors, award-voting debacles and contract updates.
NBA rumors: Mark Jackson apologizes for leaving Nikola Jokic off his MVP ballot
As the old viral Tweet says: "Each day on Twitter there is one main character. The goal is to never be it." The same can be said for MVP Award voting.
Sports fans in the greater Boston area know Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe as a reliable source of Celtics analysis and insight. Everyone else around the country remembers him as the guy who kept LeBron James from becoming the first unanimous MVP in NBA history with a 2013 vote for Carmelo Anthony. Andy Larsen caused a minor storm on social media a few weeks ago by defending his vote for Walker Kessler over Paolo Banchero as the Rookie of the Year.
And then, yesterday, Mark Jackson was outed as the lone voter to leave Nikola Jokic off his MVP ballot. To clarify, Jackson didn't just pick someone else over Jokic. He picked five other players over Jokic, leaving him off the ballot completely.
Jackson apologized for the oversight in a Sirius XM NBA interview later in the day:
"One thing I live by, you make a mistake, you own it. Absolute mistake made by me… In thinking how did I make that mistake: you can tell I put one center, two forwards and two guards. So I wasn't even thinking.
"I apologize to the Denver Nuggets. I apologize to Nikola Jokic, who is not only in the MVP discussion and deserved to be on my ballot but he is one of the greatest players in the history of this game and a top-10 center of all-time. So I own it. If you want to take away my vote or do whatever, more than welcome. I made a mistake."
NBA rumors: Grizzlies save $39 million as Ja Morant left off All-NBA team
For the most part, postseason awards are irrelevant, minor historical detritus, aggregated data points in a player's legacy and hypothetical thought experiments for fans to argue over as we wait for the next playoff game to start. But since the last CBA, a few of them have real, tangible implications for players and teams.
Since the last CBA, certain achievements trigger eligibility for a player to receive a supermax contract. One of those triggers is two consecutive All-NBA selections. Ja Morant made All-NBA Second Team last season but was left off this year's squads, negating his supermax eligibility and reducing the maximum possible value of his next contract by roughly $39 million.
Morant posted a similar stat line to last season and helped lead the Grizzlies to the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference. But he also saw some major regression in his shooting percentages and forced his team to navigate some serious offseason issues with new reporting on troubling incidents of violence and an Instagram Live video showing him flashing a gun inside a Denver strip club after a game.
Morant missed nine games after that last incident and never really looked quite the same after returning, topping 20 points just five times in the 13 games he played over the rest of the season and playoffs.
NBA rumors: Suns will be 'aggressively' trying to trade Chris Paul
The addition of Chris Paul before the 2019-20 season helped transform the Phoenix Suns into a legitimate championship contender and powered a run to the 2020 NBA Finals. But after blowout losses ended their postseason runs two years in a row, the Suns may be looking for a replacement.
On ESPN's Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective today, Tim MacMahon said he expects the Suns to "aggressively shop" Paul this offseason.
Before they traded for Kevin Durant, the Phoenix Suns were mentioned several times in Kyrie Irving trade rumors. And even after he was eventually traded to Dallas, there were rumblings that the Suns could still be interested in Irving this offseason.
A sign-and-trade that clears Paul from the books, sending him to Dallas and bringing back Irving is not outside the realm of possibility but it would have to include something else to entice the Mavericks. It seems likely that Phoenix may also shop Deandre Ayton this summer and he could interest Dallas as well. Perhaps Ayton and Paul to Dallas for Irving and JaVale McGee, with whatever other necessary assorted parts, turning one man's trash into another man's treasure?
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