Assessing the top NBA player currently: Insights from Kris London and D’Vontay Friga

Come on bro. Let's not forget how good Giannis is. Middleton. He was an all-star. Listen listen to the first three letters Mo. Mid. That's all I'm gonna say. We re-asked this question. Who is the best player in the NBA right now? This is dropping dimes. Let's talk about it. Straight away I mean the best player in the NBA hands down is Nikola Jokic. That man. I will say I'm just gonna say it now i was a hater but after this postseason i am no longer a hater i i just want to put an apology out there Jokic i'm sorry i didn't believe in you but now i bow i bow to you and i just i love your game i love watching him play basketball why were you a hater though that's the real because he was too damn good and i just thought you know this guy like i i i didn't understand him but when you really like get to know like see his personality more which I think the NBA did a better job this season showcasing that a little bit more or the media even and you know I was like okay maybe he's just a guy just doing his job and he's a family man and I gotta respect that I don't know if just because like I'm a new dad maybe I have a different perspective on things that could be it and so I looked at him through a different lens and I was like let me watch this basketball game without an inch of hate in my heart when i'm just like because i'm salty like he would just dog everybody you know so it's just like i'm on the other side now and i just think like overall game like right now it's just dude if you want if you need a passer he gets people open he makes people better um he he makes the perfect reads it's crazy he can shoot a three like i don't i dude what can he not do i answer that what can he not do you ask any like old person who the best players are it's always somebody who's like dumb tall you know makes sense because they were so dominant right and i'm glad we're kind of seeing that come back right now with like Giannis' skill with his size and Jokic's skill with his size, um what's interesting to me about Jokic man is like if you just saw him walking on the street obviously besides the height Like, you just wouldn't think twice about him being, like, you know, able to average a triple-double, like, postseason, do all that. But, yeah, I mean, my vote for—my vote's Nikola Jokic if I was going to pick anybody up in the NBA to win a basketball game. Which is—I don't want to say it's a hard decision, but it's not. Who makes it hard? Only because, like, okay, it's like— Yeah, who makes it hard for you guys? I'm curious. Like, where's the difficulty here? so I'm having trouble with just the fact that like he doesn't give off basketball player to me you know what I'm saying but like who is the best player in the league I'm gonna say Jokic right it just it's so difficult because uh like he's just not he's just not typical like oh I can dribble the ball over here and take this shot over here and he's not like a shot maker but he does everything like you said Chris like you need somebody that's going to give you 12 assists boom you want him to also have 15 rebounds done you want him to have 25 as well cool you know you know what's interesting about Jokic too is like I swear when you're watching him he looks dog tired like he just looks so tired and gas but the gas never stops this man averages 42 minutes a game and then at the end of the game he looks like hey I could have gone 10 more minutes you know like his cardio is insane but he when like you said, Frigga, it's like when you look at him it's like all right this guy once he goes up and down 10 times he's he's gonna be calling for a sub so you know yeah so it's like it's that's that's another thing that's impressive to me when you like watch him because you're like wow like how is he able to just keep going you know and it almost makes me like I would be so interested in his workout routine too like now like i want to learn more about him like what his tendencies are off the court like i've heard stories where he can you know he just shows up does his thing and then he's going home to his horses you know like there's been off seasons where like the team just doesn't see him what's super interesting about Jokic and what separates him from the normal star is obviously like he doesn't look like a hooper he looks like he works at a meat processing factory or like he's at a horse stable area he looks like a lumberjack like he just don't look like he does the traditional he doesn't look like the traditional nba player and also his game speaks loudly to that as well like oh he's so unique yeah one thing on speaking right his game speaks for him clearly there's one thing i think he could improve on and is it's his post-game interviews you know it's like it we'll be like you know wanting this championship motivating like post-game championship speech this guy just said yep yeah i i uh good job i love i love that though bro it's like you it's it's it's the humble you know but it's like it's almost too humble for me to like really just come on give me give me something a little more extra get me going you know it's like but i respect it you know but that's the thing where i'm like in the culture that we are in we kind of touch on this a couple episodes ago like we're used to people talking at a talk we grew up with the Kobes and the MJs of the world and Nikola Jokic is over here after he won an NBA championship he asked the PR lady, "Oh, when's the parade? Oh, it's on Thursday" or whatever, I want to go home, you don't see that like he just want to go home and chill ride his horses feed his ponies and all that that's just some, I think that's a part of the reason why people do not see Nikola Jokic inspirational or like not even relatable in a sense or whatever but I think that at the same time that's like the beauty in him in something like him I think a lot of people a lot of players in the NBA what they talk about and what they do and why they get to the NBA some people get to the NBA for the wrong reason yeah they love the game yada yada but like I feel like this man really just loves basketball happened to get to the NBA plays the game exactly how you're supposed to play and just works hard and ends up being one of the better players I feel like his morals are right and he understands what his real life is. You mentioned a second ago, Chris, NBA did such a good job showing his personality off the court too. And I can second that too because for some reason I was looking up a few months ago, just looking up the video of when they delivered his MVP trophy years ago back in his hometown I was like, why am I looking this up right now? you know yeah chilling with his horses and I guarantee you that trophy is just somewhere lost in a garage and he he does not care he might like you know make it a little i don't know doorstop or something like so quick question just out of curiosity before Jokic who do you think was the best player in the NBA Steph Steph Curry i would argue um i think just someone that is like the fact the it factor for a team you know and i'm just talking maybe in the last like you know four years right because you know LeBron before that what that was that it was LeBron's league but past LeBron i i could argue Curry and i mean Giannis i mean he's just been he's just been so dominant yeah i just i just think on the the skill like Giannis is but he has a god-given gift and skill of like you know the athleticism and the the length and you know just all around it's hard for me sometimes when you know his shot just isn't there which is good because he has a he hasn't reached his like ceiling yet whereas Curry you could argue like he's kind of like reached that ceiling i don't really see where he could fill like how much more he could fill in his game let's pivot you mentioned LeBron and i think this is a fantastic transition to ask you guys who is your NBA GO who is the greatest player of all time a lot of people have very very hot takes when it comes to this and i want to hear y'all's i could predict it but to be honest i want you guys to really get into it to it yeah i mean it's tough like i'm from Cuyahoga Falls which is like five minutes from Akron Ohio it's always been LeBron for me but then i actually like gave it some thought the last few weeks because i saw this video online i can't remember who was being interviewed but they were like i can't say michael's the greatest of all time i can't say lebron's the greatest of all time because like they didn't play in all time and i think it's like the era's totally like different maybe so um i'm just gonna tell you lebron because that's like the best answer i can give you i know it sounds cliche but i mean cliche for a reason i'm also like literally like have these big windows right next to me i can see akron right now so it's in his blood you're the wrong it would almost be disrespectful for me to be inaccurate and say something else too uh you say that as if like lebron fan club is outside of your door waiting for you to say something so if you need help i'll be right out there no um no i think like the goat talk is obviously subjective in the sense of like you like Freaka said you really won't know because they didn't play in the same eras or the same time so it's hard to really have that debate but I always like to think of it like this right as a as a human being we we evolve over time so it's almost inevitable for some somebody now to be better than somebody then right because just as a human nature like we evolved like you're seeing literal 10 year olds doing east bays and warm-ups like when i was playing that wasn't a thing so for someone to argue like oh LeBron isn't better than Jordan you're just like you were probably around watching Jordan like you probably physically went to a Michael Jordan game like I didn't have that pleasure right so I might be a little biased but I just go off of just like just statistically and factual LeBron James is the best ever like the GOAT of the game basketball but as a like a competitor and what Michael Jordan brought for the influence of the game I think really he's the GOAT of that like for example like when you think basketball right there's probably two names you you think of automatically Michael Jordan and LeBron James right or Kobe but I think worldwide It's Michael Jordan right now because the the Jordan sneakers like there's so many things off the court that Jordan has done because of his game and You could argue like that's what makes him like the goat like the basketball goat But if we're going off of like the goat of who can play better the game of basketball better LeBron James just all around is just a better player like he can pass the ball. He can shoot He can he's the clutchest player ever like statistically you could see you could argue like just because maybe Jordan was more flashy with his clutch points but LeBron James has more clutch buckets so he's just a clutch more clutch player so it's just like I don't like to argue too much on it because statistically like the numbers don't lie and you could say oh well six and oh versus like what is LeBron's record like four and eight or Four and six, four and seven, four and seven, regardless, the man has made it to 10 NBA finals, right? Which is more impressive, I'd argue, than like not going to 10 finals, going to six finals. Yes, you won all six, but like he went to 10 and then look at the teams he's carrying, right? And then who was the favorite in the finals? LeBron, I think, was favored twice out of those 11, 10 times. um and only like he won one of them lost the other to touch back to what you guys said holistically speaking like you're meant to be better in every single way imaginable like as human beings that's like me comparing oh what's better this 1999 BMW versus this 2024 BMW that's exactly like it's like bro for nostalgia reasons it was really good for its time but right now like you know you can't really compare the two it's really hard to so many things are different three-pointer was not as emphasized back then there's the uh there's so many defensive rules that has changed then compared to now so it's a whole different conversation when you when it comes to arguing who is better when you apply like all the little things that have changed as the years has gone on so overall i feel like it's just like you know it's very objective people like to the keyboard warriors like to fight a lot this is what they do for a living um so it's it's it's just it's an interesting conversation but i ain't gonna lie you caught me i am a lebron fan frega i was getting ready to send some of my people at your front door if you if you would have said something else this is the perfect transition to the next segment it is tiktok time which player has potential to be better than lebron james all time i'm gonna name him i'm list them all right this is a very short list Victor Wembanyama I I don't think so no no no no i'm gonna say no no no why i hope he's i hope he stays healthy he's it's not even a health situation for me it's like okay size cool whatever but like the just overall domination of your competition like lebron's been doing that since he was 13 14 Wembanyama like yes he's playing with grown men you could argue since he was like 16 but he wasn't dominating like as to the point where he's averaging 20 10 and 5 right like lebron was doing that where he played so i just i i'm not sold yet Luka Doncic you're we're talking about lebron here mo yeah yeah there's just no luca has the as the skill potential to be better than lebron better than lebron no you know why he's already longevity longevity you got to think like these guys got to be able to compete at a high level at a goat level for 20 straight years like luca already he already said in an interview he already said like i'm not playing more than 15 seasons so he's already clocked out i love that i love that answer all right which all-time duo is better KD and Curry versus LeBron and D-Wade? I would go KD and Curry Yeah, yeah, it's KD and Curry, man I mean, you saw it. You're saying D-Wade can't hold his weight? I actually don't want to give that answer, but I just feel like if we're playing today. No, listen, what we saw, though, to debate that, we saw prime KD and prime Curry play together. We didn't see a prime D-Wade and prime LeBron James. So I don't care what anyone says. that was not prime D Wade when they were playing together this man like was struggling to stay in front of people like because of his knee injuries like like come on this wasn't '06 Wade playing with LeBron all right like nah but if that was i'd still pick Curry and KD so yeah all that just to agree all right Giannis and Chris Middleton versus Jokic and Murray come on bro let's not forget how good Giannis is Middleton he was an all-star listen listen to the first a little listen to the first three letters mo mid that's all i'm gonna say oh wow he was an all-star though Jamal Murray wasn't an all-star and look where he is he's a champion 30 and 10 who cares i i'm a huge Jokic uh believer i i'm Jokic and Jamal Murray over Chris Middleton and Giannis for sure wow yeah i agree with you guys you guys 100 right on that debate there you're playing devil's advocate over here which nba legend is better all time CP3 or Russell Westbrook all time i'm sorry Chris Paul like i i'm going Chris Paul Westbrook i love him right he's been great but chris paul there was debates for years who's better darren williams or chris paul best point guard in the in the league right i just haven't like even though westbrook won mvp there was still like debates you weren't fully confident that Westbrook was the best point guard in the league, right? So that's my argument there. I am going to say the opposite. I'm going to say Russell Westbrook. I know a lot of you, I know last episode you guys were on me about saying Russell Westbrook about something. But no, I think Russell Westbrook all time is better than Chris Paul. And I know there's been a lot of Russell Westbrook slander lately, but. Lately? The last five years. Five years? Since he left OKC It's been chalked Five years Kids have been calling his kids Westbrook Can you imagine that Can you imagine someone Walking up to both of you guys You guys are new fathers congrats I pull up to the school the next day and say who said it Point to it Russell Westbrook leads the league In triple doubles like all time Yes but But it's like For what though for where like i know what like none of them have a ring right but you're right okay i could you could argue he do got an mvp he do they both ringless so the mvp moved me i'm sorry next which nba legend is better cp3 or harden give me harden harden man i just i just feel like recency bias is making me say harden but a part of me it's just like like let's give it five more years and then come back to this conversation because you got to remember Chris Paul's on that last leg of retirement and he's played for a minute I mean was he what a couple years after LeBron like I'm going to just say Harden I like that answer yeah I think James Harden which NBA celebration is better LeBron chest pound versus Carmelo three to the head I do three to the head way more often than the chest pound so I think I think Mello's more. I think that's just so, you know. Everyone does it. Yeah. Also, it's like, yeah, it's more relatable. Like, people can actually, like, not everyone's doing a little stomp over. Sometimes my rhythm be off, and I'm over here, like, looking awkward doing it, you know? Yeah, nobody got that thing over chest like that. If I do that, I might have an asthma attack. Yeah, for sure, I agree. Harden, James Harden, cooking versus Curry's Night Night. i like the night night for sure yeah i like the that's actually kind of tough i say the cooking i feel like the night night's kind of corny that could be, i mean i feel like i feel like Harden retired it though, if he would have kept it kept it going maybe but i think the night night it's like i might have to take my answer back, i take mine back because like just just like doing the cooking just reminding like reminding your opponent like yeah i'm cooking you right now like I don't know. That's hard. I don't know. That's hard. That's Harden. Harden. All right. That's going to do it. I'm Christopher London with Moe and Frigga, and we just dropped some dimes. Make sure you guys give this a like and subscribe. We out. Peace.