Josh Okogie outscored James Harden in this game, 21 to 20. That factoid tells you all you need to know about the MVP “candidacy” of Harden. It doesn’t tell us much about the MVP candidacy of Okogie, but safe to say, he doesn’t have much of a case. Even if you tried to help him out by making a new award called “MVN”, Most Valuable Nigerian, Giannis Antetokounmpo would win that one too. A hypothetical “MVO”, Most Valuable Okogie award would be seen as blatant favoritism by the league and shouldn’t be attempted. We might have to settle for him not winning any awards. I did some research, and it turns out that over 20 percent of NBA players don’t receive any hardware at the end of the season, so it’s not the most embarrassing thing ever.
We didn’t get to hear the Timberwolves commentators talk about Okogie’s excellent shot preparation because this game was nationally televised, and that’s a shame, because he actually converted that shot preparation into made buckets. It was only a matter of time, people. When he catches the ball, he’s ready to shoot, and that’s the first step to being a good shooter. The second step is being able to make the shots, and that’s the step he’s stuck on. But at least he didn’t just skip the first one.
I should mention that this performance ties a career-high for Okogie. He definitely gets the MVO award from me, just like he does for every game he plays.