Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo was named the Most Valuable Player of the 2024 NBA Cup on Tuesday night after leading Milwaukee to a 97-81 victory over the Thunder in the championship game in Las Vegas (Twitter links).
Antetokounmpo was selected as the MVP by all 20 media members who voted on the award and also received three of the five fan votes (Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander got the remaining two).
The two-time regular season MVP guided the Bucks to victory on Tuesday with a 26-point, 19-rebound, 10-assist triple-double. He also added three blocked shots and a pair of steals.
“I mean it’s… I could try but you know, I’ll just keep it simple: He’s the best player in the world,” Bucks center Brook Lopez told Jim Owczarski of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel after the game in trying to describe Giannis’ play. “He just keeps finding ways to get better in the offseason, in-season, every day, every game, it’s just so impressive.”
The MVP award is based on Antetokounmpo’s performance over the entire NBA Cup, including group play and the previous knockout round games. He averaged 30.5 PPG, 10.2 RPG, 7.7 APG, and 2.8 BPG across six NBA Cup contests as the Bucks went undefeated (7-0) in the in-season tournament.
As Owczarski notes, Antetokunmpo and last year’s in-season tournament Most Valuable Player LeBron James are now the two players in league history who have won MVP awards for the regular season, NBA Finals, All-Star Game, and NBA Cup.
While the NBA Cup championship game doesn’t count toward the Bucks’ regular season record or toward Antetokounmpo’s regular season stats, Tuesday’s win served as an exclamation point on the team’s early season turnaround — Milwaukee has won 13 of 16 games (including the NBA Cup final) since opening the season with a 2-8 record.
Antetokounmpo, meanwhile, is making a strong case for his third regular season MVP award. His 32.7 points per game lead the NBA and he’s also in the top five in rebounds per game (11.5) and field goal percentage (61.4%).
These fan votes confirm fans should not be allowed to vote for anything, ever. Exhibit #942
Don’t understand why the final didn’t count towards records/stats. It really doesn’t matter if 2/30 teams play 83 instead of 82.
The broader way that the league could improve the cup – by making it have actual stakes and thus players trying more – is to put all regular season wins on a point system. A normal reg szn win would count for one point. A quarterfinals win could be 2, semifinals 3, and championship 4 or 5.
To me, this would be the best way to improve it – give players a true incentive since it would impact the rest of the year, as racking up points could be rly meaningful for the standings. It also feels less extreme than guaranteeing a playoff spot.
If they want fans to truly care abt the cup, the league still has to establish true stakes beyond monetary ones.
Was my only in season tournament game of the season and I turned it off. Turning the game into a a gimmick. Whoever is to thank for a game of basketball turning into a pop concert is an idiot. Going all WWE. A little bit of well timed tunes sure but that game yesterday was ridiculous. Sensory overload with crap courts and the same crap song constantly playing the entire game….the coverage sucks. Anyways the pretend cash grabbing gimmick is over, yay. Time for the real competition.
Why do you even come here. Try venting in a lonely place outside ……. by yourself. It works lol.
This was one of best gms of the yr. Too bad both were missing important players. This was a playoff game. If you can’t watch a playoff gm. Then you should lear to sew.
Giannis wanted this one …
Congratulations MVP
Told ya …….. BUCKS will be okay, when they get KM back and get some more run.
All jokes aside, Doc’s a decent enough regular season coach.