Giannis Channeling His Inner Ricky Davis To Give Himself A Triple Double Was A Fantastic On The Court Troll Job

Patrick Smith. Getty Images.

One of the best, and by best I meant most pathetic, discourses around the current MVP race is the idea of "stat" padding. You know all those Nikola Jokic triple doubles? The ones that had led the Nuggets to a perfect 25-0 this season when they happen? Because people are morons, they immediately try and invalidate it by saying something like this from a center is actually "not" impressive because Jokic is just stat padding.

Yes, Nikola Jokic, known guy who cares about his stats

Just one of the more ridiculous things you'll ever hear as guys try and knock down Jokic because their favorite guy isn't leading for MVP.

You know how I know this whole idea of "stat padding" when it comes to the MVPs is silly? Giannis told us with maybe his best in game troll of all time

You may expect me to kill Giannis for such a selfish move, but no no. I respect the hell out of it. Any time an MVP decides to channel his inner Ricky Davis, I will applaud it. 

I'm a big Ricky Davis guy, not just for his Celts tenure but also because of how unstoppable he was in the early 2K days. Real ones know, the man was unstoppable.

It just goes to show how silly that "stat padding" argument truly is. Was there any outrage over Giannis doing this last night? Of course not! As there shouldn't be! But, can you imagine what the narrative/internet/TV would have done if Jokic pulled a move like this? I almost want him to do it just so we can see the difference. As you can imagine, those who were screaming loudest about Jokic stat padding had quite the reaction to Giannis making a mockery of it

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There are so many things wrong with the current MVP discourse, it's nice to see some hypocrisy play out in real time. Everyone apparently does it, but only Jokic (a weird choice to begin with) was the only one called out for it? Just weird behavior by Perk and really anyone who pulls the "stat padding" card when it comes to this kind of thing. I mean what should these guys do, not try and impact the game in every possible way? It's stat padding when your team is 25-0 when you do it? I'm not sure how that makes any sense, regardless of who the player is who achieves the triple double.

So thank you Giannis. Thank you for burying this insane take and narrative. Hopefully we won't have to hear about it again when it comes to the MVP race.