Michael Malone more or less echoing what Doc Rivers said recently about the NBA MVP debate turning into a toxic shit show:

Mixed feelings about all of this.

On one hand, we should all be able to appreciate these guys for what they are, which is unicorns. Joel Embiid is a unicorn, Nikola Jokic is a unicorn, and Giannis is a unicorn. There are what, 7 billion people on Earth? These guys are three out of 7 billion in terms of basketball prowess. From that perspective, people who love ball should be able to just watch and enjoy what these guys do night in and night out.

We arrived at this shitty plateau for two reasons – 1, because Twitter and social media is generally a turd pile in general, and 2, because the fake news media made the MVP race about VORP and RAPTOR and all kinds of other nonsense and sucked the life and the fun out of it. We can all have genuinely legitimate complaints about the voting body and how certain outlets are overrepresented, like THE RINGER and their 47 voters. It’s ass.

However, it also does not help when Daryl Morey rips the shameless Boston media publicly, even if it’s good for Crossing Broad site traffic. In countering what we feel is this laughable and biased pro-Jokic stuff coming from the media, are we here in Philly making all of this more toxic? It’s a thought.

I think the best point Malone hits on is making the case for your guy instead of bringing the other guy down. To that thought, most semi-educated Sixers fans see Jokic for what he is, which is an amazing facilitator and next level offensive pivot. He does amazing things on the floor. But while you see the occasional stuff like “this guy is fat and lazy on the defensive end,” a lot of what Malone maybe perceives as Jokic criticism is actually Philly fans expressing disapproval with the analytics dorks and fake news media. I think most Sixers fans love Jokic’s game and think he’s a fantastic player, while the toxic shit is more reserved for the fugazi voters who couldn’t throw a basketball into the ocean if they were standing on a Wildwood jetty.