Faintly, at the end of this video as Richaun Holmes was shooting free throws, I could hear “MVP” chants. It would be easy to dismiss the chants as ironic encouragement from a rowdy section of the stands for a player who had just missed their first free throw and was hoping to hit the second, but I think there was more to it than that. I think even the casual Kings fan is waking up to the fact that Richaun Holmes is, quite literally, the best player on the Kings right now.
In that case, MVP chants are perfectly legitimate and are even expected. Because Holmes is the most valuable player on the Kings. Would somebody like Harrison Barnes ever get MVP chants? How about Buddy Hield? No? Because those guys are just dudes filling their roles. Holmes is not only filling the bench role that he was signed for, but he took Dewayne Dedmon’s starting role as well, and he’s excelling at that role way past what anybody would have expected from him before the season.
The next step is to get opposing crowds to start doing MVP chants for Holmes. This will be significantly harder, but I think it can happen as long as Holmes starts averaging a 30/20 line on 70% shooting with ten dunks a game. Based on what I’ve seen from him so far this season, I think that’s completely doable.