Bill Simmons Bummed Out By the Toxic NBA MVP Discourse

Bill Simmons opened his Friday podcast with a quick thought on the current discussions surrounding the NBA MVP, saying it bummed him out and he was briefly boycotting the NBA. Simmons pointed out that he has probably written and podcasted about the award more than anyone ever, but this discussion took a turn for the toxic this week, referring to Kendrick Perkins' comments that have really capped off an increasingly contentious discourse about whether Nikola Jokic deserves another MVP.

"Somebody's going to start to pull away a tiny bit from the other two and it will become pretty obvious who to vote for. And if it doesn't, that's why we have all these voters. And everyone will vote and somebody will get slightly more votes than somebody else and they'll be the MVP and it'll be fine and we'll all live. But this stuff's supposed to be fun. And this week was not fun. It was toxic. It was terrible. I hated it. And this is not why I became a sports fan."

That pretty much sums it up. Someone will win the MVP and everyone should be able to live with it. Sports are supposed to be fun. Trying to manufacture outrage about the winner or losers is bullshit that does not actually matter. Some people - like Perk - need to take a step back and relax. If they don't, then the people that don't need to take a step back are going to start doing it.