Hello and welcome to the game theory podcast. I'm your host Sam Vassini. We are presented

by The Athletic today on the show. Mark Schindler is in the building. We're going to dive deep

into NBA awards season. I do this show every year. I feel like I've done it probably for

four or five years now.

And I'm so excited to do this because this is the first time Schindler is going to get to join me in breaking down awards.

Mark, from what I know about you, I feel like you are someone that is less enthusiastic about the award discussion, about the award discourse about all of this.

It's an astute observation on your part.

My opinion is that these things are important.

I think that from a legacy perspective, I think that from a historical perspective,

these things are incredibly valuable and incredibly important in regard to the way that people look back upon the league and they look back upon the way that things were for a generation.

I don't know that you necessarily care about that.

No, I care about that for sure.

I think exactly like you mentioned.

It's just tough because I get like this MVP debate has been one of the more infuriating things in my lifetime that doesn't actually matter.

Like it matters exactly like you're saying.

But I think to the extent that it's getting

drawn out to i just could not give less of a damn um i'm just very ready for it to be announced

so i don't have to hear about it anymore and i'm ready to see basketball get played like that's

yeah the thing that frustrates me with it is that it's become like us against them it's become

yeah you know this player's team versus that player's team and everyone trying

to like get in on this.

It's like, look, all of Joelle and B.

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