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Veteran ESPN NBA writer Tim Bontemps is fed up with Brian Windhorst.
Earlier this week, Bontemps polled 101 media members about who they felt was MVP. As of now, media members polled by Bontemps believe Jokic had pulled way ahead of the MVP race after LeBron James and Joel Embiid suffered injuries in the past few months.
New ESPN story: With a month to go in the regular season, the latest MVP straw poll shows that Nikola Jokic is favored to win — and it isn’t close. https://t.co/i7M3ooZRge
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) April 15, 2021
Jokic, has been spectacular this season, averaging career highs of 26.0 points, 10.9 rebounds and 8.8 assists while also shooting career bests from 3-point range (41.8%) and the free throw line (85.3%). He was off to a strong start when this straw poll was last conducted, in mid-February, coming in third behind LeBron James and Joel Embiid, with just 164 points separating the trio. However, James and Embiid have missed significant time since then, allowing Jokic to pull away.
During the most recent episode of ESPN’s Hoop Collective podcast, Windhorst and Bontemps got into a heated debate after Windhorst suggested LeBron was way ahead of the MVP race before he got injured despite the Bontemps’ poll numbers saying otherwise.
Brian Windhorst vs Tim Bontemps 🍿 pic.twitter.com/X6UxlrI4s3
— Ahn Fire Digital (@AhnFireDigital) April 16, 2021
Bontemps: The race was tied two months ago
Windhorst: The race wasn’t tied, LeBron had a significant advantage.
Bontemps: No he didn’t, you can’t make up facts now and yell like people on Twitter…You just said LeBron had a significant lead and that is a lie.
Windhorst: I don’t give a flying bleep about the polling points, I know you put the total points in there and that matters to you, the only thing that matters to me is first-place votes. How many first-place votes did LeBron have?
Bontemps: I’m not going to bother looking it up, he was barely ahead.
Windhorst: There’s no way that’s true
An annoyed Bontemps went to call Windhorst a jackass for continuing to question his polling numbers.
😭😭😭😭 Bontemps called him a Jackass https://t.co/XTbk1RkxRi pic.twitter.com/Wo4fdBtIuQ
— David Mai (@dmai21) April 16, 2021
Windhorst: LeBron was way ahead and it was not a three-way race.
Bontemps: You can make up the rules to poll if you want, you want to do the poll in the future?
Windhorst: No, I’m glad that you do it.
Bontemps: Okay, then maybe you should actually listen to people because you’re being a jackass
Bontemps and Windhorst sound like they need to put on some gloves and vent their frustrations in the boxing ring.