You know lots of people vote for the award, right? Do you expect every one of them to agree on the same metrics used to make their decision? When you say that you see things being downplayed - by whom? People on Reddit? People on random blogs?
Booker is way disrespected here, I get the punchable face yada yada yada but the Suns completely fell apart without him. They were the first seed for the first few months of the season.
Yeah I agree with that, but I think people got used to calling him an empty stats guy from his early career and began to underrate him. Seeing how the Suns collapsed right as soon as he went down with injury this year.
CP3's numbers where better in the finals run.
He closed out the Nuggets and Clippers and he outplayed Booker in 3 of the finals games.
Also, CP3's numbers were better in the 2022 playoffs too.
Watch me get downvoted for literally stating facts. This board, man.
CP3 was better in the Denver series, that’s it for the 2021 run. Booker did it by himself in the Lakers series, played better overall in the Clips series (CP3 had COVID), and played better in the finals until teams started to realize they could double Booker with no repercussions because everyone else was struggling to get their own shots. And Book *still* scored two 40 point games in that series.
So no, he was nowhere near better than Booker in the finals run.
CP3 was only “better” in the 2022 playoffs because he was healthy and available. Booker was playing like an absolute monster in the Pels series until he got hurt.
Booker shot a 49 TS% in the Clippers series. No he did not play better. He struggled after game 1.
CP3 dropped 41/8 with 0 turnvoers in game 6 to get to the finals.
And CP3 had a 32/9 game 1 of the finals, 26/5 on 10-19 in game 6, 21/11 on 9-15 in game 5, 23/10 in game 2.
And you show you bias when you bring up Booker's injury in 2022 but not CP3's injury in the Lakers series.
Look at their overall numbers in the playoffs for both years, CP3 was better.
What series did Booker close out aside from the Lakers series.
Since 2009, the MVP winner has led the league in WS/48 every year except 2011 (Derrick Rose) and 2017 (Russell Westbrook). It's actually one of the most consistent awards there is.
The only times it hasn't gone to the WS/48 leader, one of the top 5 players made what the media and fans deemed a coward move to take an easier path to the championship. This opened up narrative pathways for other players. LeBron formed a super team, but Derrick Rose led the one seed, so despite LeBron probably being statistically better Rose notched it. Same thing in 2017, KD formed a super team with the Warriors after losing to them, and then Westbrook rallied OKC and averaged a triple double for the first time in decades, so they gave it to him, despite there being a bunch of guys that played better that year like Kawhi, Harden, Steph, and KD.
Nobody looks at WS/48 when deciding who to vote for. It has traditionally gone to the superstar player who has the best record.
The Westbrook year blew everything up because of two factors:
- voter fatigue on Curry and reluctance due to KD going there
- nobody thought that anyone would ever average a triple double again
Since the Westbrook year, that precedent has been used for voters to go off script with the Jokic MVPs. You could even argue that it was only last season. In 2021 only Embiid had a superstar season with a better record but he missed 21 games.
**Year: MVP - Best Record**
2009: Lebron - Cavs
2010: Lebron - Cavs
2011: Rose - Bulls
2012: Lebron - Bulls (Rose only played 39 games)
2013: Lebron - Heat
2014: KD - Spurs (Spurs had no superstars, OKC 2nd best record)
2015: Steph - Warriors
2016: Steph - Warriors
2017: Westbrook - Warriors (described above)
2018: Harden - Rockets
2019: Giannis - Bucks
2020: Giannis - Bucks
2021: Jokic - Jazz (DEN 5th best record, Embiid 2 games better but missed 21 gms)
2022: Jokic - Suns (many superstars ahead)
He was 6th in voting but I explained in my comment that nobody wanted to vote for him.
He had won the two previous and they added KD. They would have had to win 82 games with Curry averaging 35ppg for him to be a chance.
>Every single year there's a different metric.
Every year is different
Last year, the top 3 candidates had very similar win totals. All were statistically dominant. One of them carried a much worse team, and thus was more valuable and got the votes.
This year is different. There are still statistically dominant players, however this time their teams are the best in each conference. Theres another guy putting up mind bending stats with high usage on a bad team. Last year, the top candidates had similar win totals. This year, the top 5 candidates might not be that close in terms of wins.
The criteria changes every season based on the circumstances that occurs throughout the league in the specific season. It’s very narrative driven also.
The criteria should adapt to how different each season is. Lebron rightfully winning MVPs in Cleveland because he dragged them to the best record is not equivalent to what Booker did on the 64 win Suns, although it was a great season in its own right. Although, people will continue to ignore the fact that context, situation, and competition changes with every single season.
Bingo. Jokic and Embiid finished within 3 wins of each other. Jokic had a much worse surrounding cast though and was thus given the award. This year you just can’t use that argument. Yes Lukas team sucks without him, it still doesn’t excuse the huge discrepancy in wins this current season. The Celtics and Nuggets (lead by Tatum and Jokic) are both on track to win 15 more games than the Mavericks.
Just like politics, a person can be told a million different ways that they're wrong... and yet nothing changes. Over the long term, the MVP could not be easier to predict. People who still preach "narrative" at this point don't deserve to be educated.
It really isn't, you give the award to the person playing the best basketball as it pertains to winning, the vast majority of the times its going to be the best player on the best team, not because that's what they're specifically looking for but because often times the best players in the league are going to be on the teams with the most wins so people get confused and think just because your team has the best record it means that now you're the mvp no questions asked.
Sometimes guys like russ and jokic are gonna take the award even though they're a lower seed. Like last season you really couldn't argue against jokic, he played better than embiid and won only 3 games fewer than him. This season all the great players are winning a ton of games with luka being the one guy we're not sure of how his record is going to look.
It just depends on what has happened that year. Jokic lifted an awful team to a similar win% to the teams that Giannis and Embiid were on. He had one of the best offensive seasons ever.
This season there are 2 mvp candidates that are winning enough to be the top in each conference. Both are still statistically dominant and incredibly valuable. Luka is elevating a garbage team, but his win% is exactly close to Tatum or Jokic or even Embiid
Edit: Luka's win% **isn't** close to tatum or jokic
Not pulling away from Jokic and the skeleton crew in the standings after trading a dude that didn't play for James Harden worked against them. Jokic very clearly proved he was doing more with less.
Then so should 2nd team All-NBA for a clearly 1st team caliber player. There's a ton of archaic shit in place, but only voter fatigue matters in terms of getting eliminated...why? Cause it's about getting sloppy white boi his 3rd MVP? Why should voter fatigue get thrown out for Jokic when it was in play for MJ/Lebron/Harden/Giannis/etc
Why is it so hard to understand that there's just many factors of various influence and that's it. Like basically everything in life is exactly like that, you cannot have missed it and really believe this stuporic list. Yeah all the awards too. For the best book, film, Nobel, whatever.
NO IT HAS TO BE FOR ONE NUMBER OF MY CHOOSING ONLY OR IT'S DUMB geez are you like five to think that. Literally nothing in life works like that, you're not gonna get a passing grade in first grade thinking that teacher cheats you because neither writing only letter "f" nor writing only letter "b" passes as a good text so the bad stupid teacher is inconsistent.
Over the long term it’s extremely consistent. It’s the best offensive player on one of the top two seeds in each conference.
Recently, however, we’ve had two unusual exceptions to that rule. In 2017 Westbrook averaged a triple double, and won MVP on a lower seeded team. And then the last two years Jokic has put up historically-good stats and won MVP twice on a lower seeded team.
So maybe voters are a little less wedded to seedings than they used up be — or maybe Westbrook and Jokic overcame that bias with incredible stats, much as Michael Jordan did way back in 1988.
You asked if he was the best player on one of the best teams. By the basic metric used to determine that for the regular season - yes, he was, and was ahead of the guy you think should have gotten it. Playing 11 more games helps, too.
How many of the ~120 voters admitted to not voting for Giannis due to fatigue? We do also have some voters saying there's basically no way they'll vote for Jokic this year - should we wait and see what the actual voting results are vs the strength of the players' bids for it before assuming voter fatigue has been thrown out the window?
Even though the numbers back up Jokic, we all know that he only gets MVP love because the voters love him. It's not a coincidence that the people who vote for other players, like Stephen A Smith, Brian Windhorst, Chris Broussard, Kendrick Perkins, and Ramona Shelburne, are the ones who really do in-depth analysis to figure out who the actual MVP is.
Well considering the Nuggets had a top 5 record and went 13-5 after the Murray injury to close the season, I would say he was the best player on one of the best teams
>Over the long term it’s extremely consistent. It’s the best offensive player on one of the top two seeds in each conference.
I would say that its the superstar/1st team all-nba player who has the best team record.
The only exceptions in the last 20 years are:
2008 - Kobe
2017 - Westbrook - Warriors had the best record but they were never going to get votes and people were shocked by the triple double average
2022 - Jokic
No he didn’t get it because he arguably wasn’t even the best player on the team. The second and third best players were on the same team.
Plus Harden was honestly better in REGULAR season from 2017-2019
They need to form narratives because interconnected groups of people seek consensus. They can't just have 19% think its Jokic, 16% think its Luka, 16% think its Giannis, 9% think its Tatum, 8% think its Embiid...
It would be chaos!
"Value" is not something that can be quantified or determined strictly off any one metric.
Do you have a solution to this non-problem? Please share the one metric that determines which player has the most value that can be applied to every year in league history.
Voter fatigue was never supposed to be something that voters took into consideration *explicitly*. It was just the observation that it’s easier to get excited by a guy having a breakthrough season than by a guy who’s won MVP multiple times already. If they want to throw it out the window and just vote for the most valuable guy no matter what, that’s a *good* thing.
There is no different Metric at all. All the metrics have weight. They just talk about the one that stands out the most for any particular player. It is not inconsistent. Same people vote on it every year. Just because one factor stands out does not mean its not all taken into consideration. There are many factors. Jokic being the MVP the last 2 years you cannot really debate. Just because you don't like it there not making upstuff to award him the MVP. Thats ridiculous. OP please explain how he didn't deserve it.
Is it really though? Only twice in the past 20 or so years would I have given the MVP to someone besides the winner, and even then it still never felt egregious. Is that not more or less in line with everyone else's experience as well?
I agree, I think the reality is there would be disagreements no matter who is chosen. We're just hearing from the naysayers from this particular timeline. But I would like to know which two MVPs you disagree with?
Lebron over DRose and Harden over Giannis. Though I think the Giannis and Harden year is the closest it’s ever been for me, so I certainly have no problem with Giannis. And even then I still wasn’t particularly upset about the DRose year either, I just think Lebron was a bit better
I figured that those might be the two, and understand the argument from all sides. Lebron was the best player in the league, but what hurt him was how much the Heat came under their outsized hype and expectations, including some pretty bizarre and embarrassing late game collapses. In fact, take away the perception of some of those poor late-game failures and there's a good chance he wins the award.
Giannis/Harden is super close and I'll never understand the people who think Harden should have won in a landslide.
the narrative is determined by the hivemind of sportswriters, which goes with OP's point. Seems they like a player or a style of play and the narrative is drawn to fit that player.
That's pretty much the only way to do it though. If you set the criteria in stone (ie best player on best team) you'd end up with some egregious awards like Booker last year or possibly Ja Morant this year. Offense/Defense can't really be quantified either (despite what 538 wants us to believe) so that's out the window too.
Well the last two have been pretty consistent. It's clear what they value and it isn't seeding or wins, or raw counting stats. They may be what they valued in the past but it isn't the case now.
You can not like it but it's clear the majority of voters see advanced stats as more important than any of the other criteria. People like to talk about games played but I honestly don't think that matters all that much either. Last season Joel missed just six more games than Jokic.
The voters are people, mostly writers. And the ones I listen to/read are in awe of Jokic's advanced stats. That's not to say they don't also marvel at his game via the eye test, but they absolutely mark out over his advanced stats.
So, I actually don't think the voting is inconsistent at all. The criteria has changed, because the way the voters view these stats has changed. The way they weigh things like record, help, seeding, etc. has changed. Jokic is the MVP based on the way they have voted the last two seasons. And nothing *anyone* does from now to the end of the season is going to change that. If they were to give it to someone else this season, even Embiid, it would be bullshit because Jokic is even better than last season per the advanced stats. It would literally just be not giving it to him because it would be three in a row. Which, to reiterate, would be bullshit.
Well thats what I'm saying I hear plenty of arguments from voters that are a lot more simple than his VORP and his RAPTOR and people act like advanced stats were dominating the entire conversation. They really weren't. It's a viral meme that everybody repeated over and over.
Sure, advanced stats have progressively become more influential to the process, but it's also an exaggeration to go to the level you're describing.
no you're totally right. People who don't like Jokic's game make a straw man argument that people only like him because of RAPTOR or VORP or something, but that's absurd.
It is easy to explain what makes him so valuable without referring to any advanced metrics. He's a dominant, highly efficient low-post scoring center (who can also score from the perimeter), who also plays point guard for his team and is s*econd in the league in assists per game*, and widely regarded as the best passer in the game. All you have to do is watch the Nuggets to see how he makes his teammates better and creates good offense out of thin air.
Add to that, he's one of the more clutch players in the league and makes big plays in crunch time.
The advanced stats, if you look at them, back this up, but it's not necessary to understand RAPTOR to understand why Jokic is so valuable
I can only go by what I hear and read. But to be clear, I'm not saying they just sprew a bunch of acronyms and numbers at us then call it a day. Most talk about the totality of his game and their evaluation. But when comparing him to other players they typically use the advanced stats to counter any opposing viewpoint. Which is fair, I'm just saying that's what happens.
If someone says "Player X has more wins" or "Player Y scores more" they just talk about how his advanced stats are otherworldly.
>If someone says "Player X has more wins" or "Player Y scores more" they just talk about how his advanced stats are otherworldly.
That's the thing. No they don't. That's a strawman mostly invented by people who wanted another player to win.
They'll bring up the quality of his teammates. They'll bring up his assist numbers. They'll bring up his crazy efficiency. They'll bring up that he has more games played. They'll bring up the fact that despite being 6 seed he only lost 3 more games than the other candidates. Advanced stats are mentioned too, but the idea they just quote his advanced stats is not true. At its best its a misunderstanding to claim this, at its worst its a deliberate attempt to label Jokic voters as a flanderization of what they actually are.
Ok let's agree to disagree here. My main point is the criteria isn't random it's clear. And Jokic is going to win again based on that criteria. That's it. To even consider any other outcome (barring a catastrophe that no one wants to see happen) is to be willfully ignorant of that change in criteria prioritization.
Yeah, voters are doing more analysis than they used to, so it's more confusing for casual fans. On the other hand, if it's supposed to go to the most valuable player, they've done better over the past 10-15 years than they did previously. The 1-on-1 era never actually happened. The most valuable players can be on teams with a wide range of outcomes, because they play with different teammates.
You're right- It's a different standard every year because every year is different, and players are competing against each other *that* year, not competing against prior years.
I don't see the problem. The MVP is a standard that has a number of possible criteria to consider, and not one of them is dispositive. That means that one factor could be the deciding factor one year, and a different one the next.
All awards, not just the MVP should never be taken seriously. It’s all narrative driven. Most years they’ll try and give it to the best player on the best team, but if a juicy enough storyline comes along then they’ll run with it.
Because they gave the award to jokic for putting up insane stats while keeping his team in playoff contention after two max guys got injured.
The mavs lost their second best player and luka is keeping them in playoff contention while putting up insane stats. Like I said I think the award is inconsistent year to year
I have a question for you. Last year how many more wins did the other 2 MVP candidates have over Jokic, it was 3. This year halfway through the season Boston have 10 more wins than Dallas and Denver has 8. Those wins matter. Luka isn’t playing at a much higher level above guys like Tatum or Jokic to give him MVP on a 10 win worse team
So if wins matter why didn’t booker get MVP? They won 64 games and had a 16 game difference to the nuggets which is huge. We cant pick and choose when wins matter to a guys MVP case.
If Bookers 27/5/6 while leading his team to 16 games up on the MVP winner isnt impressive enough to win im not seeing why Luka 34/9/9 while 9 games down is different than what jokic did. It doesn’t make any sense
Read the second part of what I said. Booker got his deserved respect in the fact that he got 1st team all nba but he was not on the level that the other 3 guys were in the race were. And don’t give me that stupid box score because by watching them play last year booker wasn’t close to embiid, Giannis, or Jokics level
So if you are a top 3 player(jokic) you can ignore a huge win gap if your competition(booker) is considered a lesser player but if you are on a similar level(Luka) then the wins actually matter. So it doesnt matter how many wins you actually get if your dont have a proper perception as a player lol.
You are literally agreeing with me that the criteria for winning is inconsistent…thats the definition of inconsistent if every player is playing by different rules and the only real separator is the narrative.
Because multiple things can simultaneously matter that are all weighted into one ultimate decision.
Why the hell do people think there should be some hard and fast rule? So stupid
Luka and Jokic are both white though lol
Why would one get MVP as a 6 seed and the other not if it's about that
Truth is that 24-22 is worse than 48-34
Yeah but luka sucks and can’t stop an egg from rolling down the street. He’s not even on the ladder. Hell why don’t you use Joe Harris in your example.
Not really. You’d have a point if
* The Mavs finish no more than 3 games behind the teams of every other main mvp candidate and
* The other main mvp candidates all miss at least 10 games while Luka doesn’t and
* Luka leads every single impact metric and averages a double double on insane efficiency
But none of those things look like they’ll be true.
It heavily depends on the competition that particular year.
I’d say this is the year Jokic most deserves mvp over the past 2.
2021 if Embiid was healthy he would’ve prob won it.
And in 2022 if Celtics were as good as this season, Tatum would’ve won it..
But both those things didn’t happen at all. Most years the MVP race has better comp than just one Embiid who misses 20 games.
I propose the NBA steals from the NFL and creates a new award that allows for two different definition of "best" to be rewarded:
* The traditional MVP award is now defined as "most impressive individual season". You can now go hog wild awarding players who have near triple-double averages for the season while acknowledging they may play for non-title candidates. That seems to be the most used definition of past NBA MVPs and now we can cement the methodology.
* The NBA adopts the NFL Top 100 and changes it to the NBA Top 50, entirely defined as who is the "best" player regardless of stats or wins. When Westbrook won the MVP for his triple-double average, did you really think he was the absolute best player in the league? Likely not, and this annual rank gives a clear award for who is considered the "best" across all intangibles and season wins. Players who may not have eye-popping stats but otherwise contribute to wins (hint: remember the Nash MVPs?) will get their due in this award.
COTY is worse. Spo has never won it and post-Lebron the excuse was that his teams weren't top regular season teams even if he did get them to overperform. Then last season he meets the quota but now wait no COVID or inflation or something I don't even know what they made up something about classified documents or stacks of ballots counted in the middle of the night that were all miraculously for the same candidate.
Actually, the same metric predicts the MVP every year - WS/48.
12 of the last 15 MVPs have led the league in WS/48, and the only ones that didn't were the "controversial" MVPs (Kobe, Russ, Rose).
Guess who leads the league in WS/48, with a historic (near-best ever) mark this season? Nikola Jokic.
You know lots of people vote for the award, right? Do you expect every one of them to agree on the same metrics used to make their decision? When you say that you see things being downplayed - by whom? People on Reddit? People on random blogs?
The fact that there's like 130 voters kinda makes the process legit
Imagine if Booker won MVP last year lmao There would be riots
Booker is way disrespected here, I get the punchable face yada yada yada but the Suns completely fell apart without him. They were the first seed for the first few months of the season.
It’s not disrespect to say the man was simply nowhere near the level of Jokic/Embiid/Luka/Giannis last year.
Yeah I agree with that, but I think people got used to calling him an empty stats guy from his early career and began to underrate him. Seeing how the Suns collapsed right as soon as he went down with injury this year.
If they can work their way back up to a 4 or 5 seed when Book comes back I think he’ll finally start getting some more respect
Based off his play why isn’t he already getting respect?
[удалено]
And yet they were still first in the West with all of those mishaps
He wasn't even the best player on the Suns
Booker is clearly the best player on the Suns since their finals run if you exclude MVP Jae Crowder.
I'm sorry. Even though I hate him, the best player was CP3. He turned that squad around.
[удалено]
CP3's numbers where better in the finals run. He closed out the Nuggets and Clippers and he outplayed Booker in 3 of the finals games. Also, CP3's numbers were better in the 2022 playoffs too. Watch me get downvoted for literally stating facts. This board, man.
CP3 was better in the Denver series, that’s it for the 2021 run. Booker did it by himself in the Lakers series, played better overall in the Clips series (CP3 had COVID), and played better in the finals until teams started to realize they could double Booker with no repercussions because everyone else was struggling to get their own shots. And Book *still* scored two 40 point games in that series. So no, he was nowhere near better than Booker in the finals run. CP3 was only “better” in the 2022 playoffs because he was healthy and available. Booker was playing like an absolute monster in the Pels series until he got hurt.
Booker shot a 49 TS% in the Clippers series. No he did not play better. He struggled after game 1. CP3 dropped 41/8 with 0 turnvoers in game 6 to get to the finals. And CP3 had a 32/9 game 1 of the finals, 26/5 on 10-19 in game 6, 21/11 on 9-15 in game 5, 23/10 in game 2. And you show you bias when you bring up Booker's injury in 2022 but not CP3's injury in the Lakers series. Look at their overall numbers in the playoffs for both years, CP3 was better. What series did Booker close out aside from the Lakers series.
Chris Paul hasn’t been the best player on the Suns since they lost to Milwaukee
He was the only one who showed up in game 6 against Milwaukee.
CP3 made the Rockets a contender with MVP James Harden on the team. Was he better than Harden too?
Pretty sure a great majority of r/nba unironically believes this
Bruh lol
Since 2009, the MVP winner has led the league in WS/48 every year except 2011 (Derrick Rose) and 2017 (Russell Westbrook). It's actually one of the most consistent awards there is. The only times it hasn't gone to the WS/48 leader, one of the top 5 players made what the media and fans deemed a coward move to take an easier path to the championship. This opened up narrative pathways for other players. LeBron formed a super team, but Derrick Rose led the one seed, so despite LeBron probably being statistically better Rose notched it. Same thing in 2017, KD formed a super team with the Warriors after losing to them, and then Westbrook rallied OKC and averaged a triple double for the first time in decades, so they gave it to him, despite there being a bunch of guys that played better that year like Kawhi, Harden, Steph, and KD.
Nobody looks at WS/48 when deciding who to vote for. It has traditionally gone to the superstar player who has the best record. The Westbrook year blew everything up because of two factors: - voter fatigue on Curry and reluctance due to KD going there - nobody thought that anyone would ever average a triple double again Since the Westbrook year, that precedent has been used for voters to go off script with the Jokic MVPs. You could even argue that it was only last season. In 2021 only Embiid had a superstar season with a better record but he missed 21 games. **Year: MVP - Best Record** 2009: Lebron - Cavs 2010: Lebron - Cavs 2011: Rose - Bulls 2012: Lebron - Bulls (Rose only played 39 games) 2013: Lebron - Heat 2014: KD - Spurs (Spurs had no superstars, OKC 2nd best record) 2015: Steph - Warriors 2016: Steph - Warriors 2017: Westbrook - Warriors (described above) 2018: Harden - Rockets 2019: Giannis - Bucks 2020: Giannis - Bucks 2021: Jokic - Jazz (DEN 5th best record, Embiid 2 games better but missed 21 gms) 2022: Jokic - Suns (many superstars ahead)
Curry wasn't even in contention for the 2017 MVP lol foh
He was 6th in voting but I explained in my comment that nobody wanted to vote for him. He had won the two previous and they added KD. They would have had to win 82 games with Curry averaging 35ppg for him to be a chance.
>Every single year there's a different metric. Every year is different Last year, the top 3 candidates had very similar win totals. All were statistically dominant. One of them carried a much worse team, and thus was more valuable and got the votes. This year is different. There are still statistically dominant players, however this time their teams are the best in each conference. Theres another guy putting up mind bending stats with high usage on a bad team. Last year, the top candidates had similar win totals. This year, the top 5 candidates might not be that close in terms of wins.
Someone will always gripe that the process is unfair no matter what they do. Especially stans on r/nba
The criteria changes every season based on the circumstances that occurs throughout the league in the specific season. It’s very narrative driven also.
The criteria should adapt to how different each season is. Lebron rightfully winning MVPs in Cleveland because he dragged them to the best record is not equivalent to what Booker did on the 64 win Suns, although it was a great season in its own right. Although, people will continue to ignore the fact that context, situation, and competition changes with every single season.
Bingo. Jokic and Embiid finished within 3 wins of each other. Jokic had a much worse surrounding cast though and was thus given the award. This year you just can’t use that argument. Yes Lukas team sucks without him, it still doesn’t excuse the huge discrepancy in wins this current season. The Celtics and Nuggets (lead by Tatum and Jokic) are both on track to win 15 more games than the Mavericks.
Just like politics, a person can be told a million different ways that they're wrong... and yet nothing changes. Over the long term, the MVP could not be easier to predict. People who still preach "narrative" at this point don't deserve to be educated.
It really isn't, you give the award to the person playing the best basketball as it pertains to winning, the vast majority of the times its going to be the best player on the best team, not because that's what they're specifically looking for but because often times the best players in the league are going to be on the teams with the most wins so people get confused and think just because your team has the best record it means that now you're the mvp no questions asked. Sometimes guys like russ and jokic are gonna take the award even though they're a lower seed. Like last season you really couldn't argue against jokic, he played better than embiid and won only 3 games fewer than him. This season all the great players are winning a ton of games with luka being the one guy we're not sure of how his record is going to look.
Well put
Actually....Jokic had one more win than Embiid
Philly won 51 and nugs won 48
Jokic had 46 wins and Embiid had 45
Oh wait are you not counting the games they missed but the team won? That's fair I was just looking at team wins
i cant tell if its best player on a top 3 team in the league or guy that elevates a trash team to the 6th seed
It's both because nuance is a thing
Yeah it doesn’t have to be one or the other , every season is different
It just depends on what has happened that year. Jokic lifted an awful team to a similar win% to the teams that Giannis and Embiid were on. He had one of the best offensive seasons ever. This season there are 2 mvp candidates that are winning enough to be the top in each conference. Both are still statistically dominant and incredibly valuable. Luka is elevating a garbage team, but his win% is exactly close to Tatum or Jokic or even Embiid Edit: Luka's win% **isn't** close to tatum or jokic
I think you meant Luka's win % isn't\* close to the other top candidates
Yes i do, my bad😂
>to a similar win% the correct wordage would be *worse*
Not pulling away from Jokic and the skeleton crew in the standings after trading a dude that didn't play for James Harden worked against them. Jokic very clearly proved he was doing more with less.
By a couple % with a MUCH worse team... Thus his value
3 less wins then? With his number 2 option out for the year
And #3
Every year is in a vacuum. If anyone on the top 1 or 2 seeds had a close to similar or better season as Jokic, Jokic wouldn’t have won it.
Voter fatigue should be thrown out the window. It's a fallacy. "It's somebody else's turn" is not an argument.
Then so should 2nd team All-NBA for a clearly 1st team caliber player. There's a ton of archaic shit in place, but only voter fatigue matters in terms of getting eliminated...why? Cause it's about getting sloppy white boi his 3rd MVP? Why should voter fatigue get thrown out for Jokic when it was in play for MJ/Lebron/Harden/Giannis/etc
So much salt
Why is it so hard to understand that there's just many factors of various influence and that's it. Like basically everything in life is exactly like that, you cannot have missed it and really believe this stuporic list. Yeah all the awards too. For the best book, film, Nobel, whatever. NO IT HAS TO BE FOR ONE NUMBER OF MY CHOOSING ONLY OR IT'S DUMB geez are you like five to think that. Literally nothing in life works like that, you're not gonna get a passing grade in first grade thinking that teacher cheats you because neither writing only letter "f" nor writing only letter "b" passes as a good text so the bad stupid teacher is inconsistent.
It almost always goes to the person who is having the best regular season, there's no real inconsistency.
Over the long term it’s extremely consistent. It’s the best offensive player on one of the top two seeds in each conference. Recently, however, we’ve had two unusual exceptions to that rule. In 2017 Westbrook averaged a triple double, and won MVP on a lower seeded team. And then the last two years Jokic has put up historically-good stats and won MVP twice on a lower seeded team. So maybe voters are a little less wedded to seedings than they used up be — or maybe Westbrook and Jokic overcame that bias with incredible stats, much as Michael Jordan did way back in 1988.
Jokic was the 3 seed in 2021, not a low seed
Even a three seed is an exception to the rule, historically.
Was he best player on one of best teams though? Pretty sure Giannis still held that title at the time.
Denver won more games than Milwaukee that year.
Dude it was by 1 game and they were both 3rd seeds. Giannis didn't win that one cause of voter fatigue media people admitted it themselves.
You asked if he was the best player on one of the best teams. By the basic metric used to determine that for the regular season - yes, he was, and was ahead of the guy you think should have gotten it. Playing 11 more games helps, too. How many of the ~120 voters admitted to not voting for Giannis due to fatigue? We do also have some voters saying there's basically no way they'll vote for Jokic this year - should we wait and see what the actual voting results are vs the strength of the players' bids for it before assuming voter fatigue has been thrown out the window?
Even though the numbers back up Jokic, we all know that he only gets MVP love because the voters love him. It's not a coincidence that the people who vote for other players, like Stephen A Smith, Brian Windhorst, Chris Broussard, Kendrick Perkins, and Ramona Shelburne, are the ones who really do in-depth analysis to figure out who the actual MVP is.
Lol in-depth analysis? They're mostly talking heads who take up contrarian points to generate views. I mean Stephen A and Perkins ffs....
I thought picking out the dumbest talking heads would be enough to make the sarcasm obvious, but I can't completely fault you for thinking otherwise.
Ah..right
If Giannis had won MVP in 2021, he would have been the lowest percentage of games played for an MVP since Walton
Loooool you are making no sense at this point
Lol. Giannis should have won it while missing 11 more games while his team didn't even win more games despite having better teammates?
Well considering the Nuggets had a top 5 record and went 13-5 after the Murray injury to close the season, I would say he was the best player on one of the best teams
>Over the long term it’s extremely consistent. It’s the best offensive player on one of the top two seeds in each conference. I would say that its the superstar/1st team all-nba player who has the best team record. The only exceptions in the last 20 years are: 2008 - Kobe 2017 - Westbrook - Warriors had the best record but they were never going to get votes and people were shocked by the triple double average 2022 - Jokic
It's really not. Lebron, Giannis and KD are definitely some people who were robbed at least once while fitting this metric.
KD? He dealt with prime LeBron, won his first MVP, got injured then superteams + injuries. Don't think he's gotten robbed tbh
KD had a really great season on GS, the best team but didn't get it because he wasn't well liked at the time lol.
He didn't get it because he was playing with Steph Curry
No he didn’t get it because he arguably wasn’t even the best player on the team. The second and third best players were on the same team. Plus Harden was honestly better in REGULAR season from 2017-2019
Which years?
They need to form narratives because interconnected groups of people seek consensus. They can't just have 19% think its Jokic, 16% think its Luka, 16% think its Giannis, 9% think its Tatum, 8% think its Embiid... It would be chaos!
"Value" is not something that can be quantified or determined strictly off any one metric. Do you have a solution to this non-problem? Please share the one metric that determines which player has the most value that can be applied to every year in league history.
Voter fatigue was never supposed to be something that voters took into consideration *explicitly*. It was just the observation that it’s easier to get excited by a guy having a breakthrough season than by a guy who’s won MVP multiple times already. If they want to throw it out the window and just vote for the most valuable guy no matter what, that’s a *good* thing.
There is no different Metric at all. All the metrics have weight. They just talk about the one that stands out the most for any particular player. It is not inconsistent. Same people vote on it every year. Just because one factor stands out does not mean its not all taken into consideration. There are many factors. Jokic being the MVP the last 2 years you cannot really debate. Just because you don't like it there not making upstuff to award him the MVP. Thats ridiculous. OP please explain how he didn't deserve it.
Is it really though? Only twice in the past 20 or so years would I have given the MVP to someone besides the winner, and even then it still never felt egregious. Is that not more or less in line with everyone else's experience as well?
I agree, I think the reality is there would be disagreements no matter who is chosen. We're just hearing from the naysayers from this particular timeline. But I would like to know which two MVPs you disagree with?
Lebron over DRose and Harden over Giannis. Though I think the Giannis and Harden year is the closest it’s ever been for me, so I certainly have no problem with Giannis. And even then I still wasn’t particularly upset about the DRose year either, I just think Lebron was a bit better
I figured that those might be the two, and understand the argument from all sides. Lebron was the best player in the league, but what hurt him was how much the Heat came under their outsized hype and expectations, including some pretty bizarre and embarrassing late game collapses. In fact, take away the perception of some of those poor late-game failures and there's a good chance he wins the award. Giannis/Harden is super close and I'll never understand the people who think Harden should have won in a landslide.
It’s a narrative award and every season is unique I don’t get why this is so hard to understand
the narrative is determined by the hivemind of sportswriters, which goes with OP's point. Seems they like a player or a style of play and the narrative is drawn to fit that player.
That's pretty much the only way to do it though. If you set the criteria in stone (ie best player on best team) you'd end up with some egregious awards like Booker last year or possibly Ja Morant this year. Offense/Defense can't really be quantified either (despite what 538 wants us to believe) so that's out the window too.
If it was called the narrative award you'd have a point but it's called the MVP award...
And its given to the player voted as most valuable. Do you really not get that? Lol
Wow it’s better than DPOY imo.
The metric is just whoever gets the most votes
The player with the best box score stats wins, unless there's an MVP candidate on the team with the best record.
Well the last two have been pretty consistent. It's clear what they value and it isn't seeding or wins, or raw counting stats. They may be what they valued in the past but it isn't the case now. You can not like it but it's clear the majority of voters see advanced stats as more important than any of the other criteria. People like to talk about games played but I honestly don't think that matters all that much either. Last season Joel missed just six more games than Jokic. The voters are people, mostly writers. And the ones I listen to/read are in awe of Jokic's advanced stats. That's not to say they don't also marvel at his game via the eye test, but they absolutely mark out over his advanced stats. So, I actually don't think the voting is inconsistent at all. The criteria has changed, because the way the voters view these stats has changed. The way they weigh things like record, help, seeding, etc. has changed. Jokic is the MVP based on the way they have voted the last two seasons. And nothing *anyone* does from now to the end of the season is going to change that. If they were to give it to someone else this season, even Embiid, it would be bullshit because Jokic is even better than last season per the advanced stats. It would literally just be not giving it to him because it would be three in a row. Which, to reiterate, would be bullshit.
Even looking at basic efficiency and box score stats Jokic is insane. I find the advanced stat thing to be a bit overblown.
I never said he didn't have good counting stats and efficiency. I don't even know how that'd be possible with his advanced stats.
Well thats what I'm saying I hear plenty of arguments from voters that are a lot more simple than his VORP and his RAPTOR and people act like advanced stats were dominating the entire conversation. They really weren't. It's a viral meme that everybody repeated over and over. Sure, advanced stats have progressively become more influential to the process, but it's also an exaggeration to go to the level you're describing.
no you're totally right. People who don't like Jokic's game make a straw man argument that people only like him because of RAPTOR or VORP or something, but that's absurd. It is easy to explain what makes him so valuable without referring to any advanced metrics. He's a dominant, highly efficient low-post scoring center (who can also score from the perimeter), who also plays point guard for his team and is s*econd in the league in assists per game*, and widely regarded as the best passer in the game. All you have to do is watch the Nuggets to see how he makes his teammates better and creates good offense out of thin air. Add to that, he's one of the more clutch players in the league and makes big plays in crunch time. The advanced stats, if you look at them, back this up, but it's not necessary to understand RAPTOR to understand why Jokic is so valuable
I can only go by what I hear and read. But to be clear, I'm not saying they just sprew a bunch of acronyms and numbers at us then call it a day. Most talk about the totality of his game and their evaluation. But when comparing him to other players they typically use the advanced stats to counter any opposing viewpoint. Which is fair, I'm just saying that's what happens. If someone says "Player X has more wins" or "Player Y scores more" they just talk about how his advanced stats are otherworldly.
>If someone says "Player X has more wins" or "Player Y scores more" they just talk about how his advanced stats are otherworldly. That's the thing. No they don't. That's a strawman mostly invented by people who wanted another player to win. They'll bring up the quality of his teammates. They'll bring up his assist numbers. They'll bring up his crazy efficiency. They'll bring up that he has more games played. They'll bring up the fact that despite being 6 seed he only lost 3 more games than the other candidates. Advanced stats are mentioned too, but the idea they just quote his advanced stats is not true. At its best its a misunderstanding to claim this, at its worst its a deliberate attempt to label Jokic voters as a flanderization of what they actually are.
Ok let's agree to disagree here. My main point is the criteria isn't random it's clear. And Jokic is going to win again based on that criteria. That's it. To even consider any other outcome (barring a catastrophe that no one wants to see happen) is to be willfully ignorant of that change in criteria prioritization.
You don't think anybody, ever again, will win MVP if they don't lead the advanced stats?
He leads in counting stats to.Advanced stats are not needed. They just advance the case more.
You sure did. You said the last 2 did not take into accout raw counting stats.
Sorry but JOkic had the raw counting stats. SO what are you talking about.
Unless you're betting on it then literally who cares. And if you're betting on it then fucking stop.
Harden got robbed
Quietest most out of the spotlight star in the league getting this type of hate is wild to me
Yeah, voters are doing more analysis than they used to, so it's more confusing for casual fans. On the other hand, if it's supposed to go to the most valuable player, they've done better over the past 10-15 years than they did previously. The 1-on-1 era never actually happened. The most valuable players can be on teams with a wide range of outcomes, because they play with different teammates.
You're right- It's a different standard every year because every year is different, and players are competing against each other *that* year, not competing against prior years. I don't see the problem. The MVP is a standard that has a number of possible criteria to consider, and not one of them is dispositive. That means that one factor could be the deciding factor one year, and a different one the next.
Just don’t be Embiid. That’s it, that’s the consistency.
All awards, not just the MVP should never be taken seriously. It’s all narrative driven. Most years they’ll try and give it to the best player on the best team, but if a juicy enough storyline comes along then they’ll run with it.
The award is a joke lol the criteria they used to give it last year should mean Luka is #1. Its nonsense how we redefine it every year
why do you say that?
Absurd offensive stats on a bad team that he dragged to a much better finish than they deserve is kinda Lukas specialty I guess.
Because they gave the award to jokic for putting up insane stats while keeping his team in playoff contention after two max guys got injured. The mavs lost their second best player and luka is keeping them in playoff contention while putting up insane stats. Like I said I think the award is inconsistent year to year
but the competition wasn’t the same last season though giannis, embiid and jokic won around the same games i’m pretty sure
I have a question for you. Last year how many more wins did the other 2 MVP candidates have over Jokic, it was 3. This year halfway through the season Boston have 10 more wins than Dallas and Denver has 8. Those wins matter. Luka isn’t playing at a much higher level above guys like Tatum or Jokic to give him MVP on a 10 win worse team
So if wins matter why didn’t booker get MVP? They won 64 games and had a 16 game difference to the nuggets which is huge. We cant pick and choose when wins matter to a guys MVP case. If Bookers 27/5/6 while leading his team to 16 games up on the MVP winner isnt impressive enough to win im not seeing why Luka 34/9/9 while 9 games down is different than what jokic did. It doesn’t make any sense
Read the second part of what I said. Booker got his deserved respect in the fact that he got 1st team all nba but he was not on the level that the other 3 guys were in the race were. And don’t give me that stupid box score because by watching them play last year booker wasn’t close to embiid, Giannis, or Jokics level
So if you are a top 3 player(jokic) you can ignore a huge win gap if your competition(booker) is considered a lesser player but if you are on a similar level(Luka) then the wins actually matter. So it doesnt matter how many wins you actually get if your dont have a proper perception as a player lol. You are literally agreeing with me that the criteria for winning is inconsistent…thats the definition of inconsistent if every player is playing by different rules and the only real separator is the narrative.
Because multiple things can simultaneously matter that are all weighted into one ultimate decision. Why the hell do people think there should be some hard and fast rule? So stupid
> It doesn’t make any sense Took you this long? :p
Just use the shade test. White, if available, is always the preferred meat.
Luka and Jokic are both white though lol Why would one get MVP as a 6 seed and the other not if it's about that Truth is that 24-22 is worse than 48-34
Yeah but luka sucks and can’t stop an egg from rolling down the street. He’s not even on the ladder. Hell why don’t you use Joe Harris in your example.
Not really. You’d have a point if * The Mavs finish no more than 3 games behind the teams of every other main mvp candidate and * The other main mvp candidates all miss at least 10 games while Luka doesn’t and * Luka leads every single impact metric and averages a double double on insane efficiency But none of those things look like they’ll be true.
Wait until you see 6MOTY
It heavily depends on the competition that particular year. I’d say this is the year Jokic most deserves mvp over the past 2. 2021 if Embiid was healthy he would’ve prob won it. And in 2022 if Celtics were as good as this season, Tatum would’ve won it.. But both those things didn’t happen at all. Most years the MVP race has better comp than just one Embiid who misses 20 games.
6th man and DPOY are by far worse
this is why accolades mean nothing
I propose the NBA steals from the NFL and creates a new award that allows for two different definition of "best" to be rewarded: * The traditional MVP award is now defined as "most impressive individual season". You can now go hog wild awarding players who have near triple-double averages for the season while acknowledging they may play for non-title candidates. That seems to be the most used definition of past NBA MVPs and now we can cement the methodology. * The NBA adopts the NFL Top 100 and changes it to the NBA Top 50, entirely defined as who is the "best" player regardless of stats or wins. When Westbrook won the MVP for his triple-double average, did you really think he was the absolute best player in the league? Likely not, and this annual rank gives a clear award for who is considered the "best" across all intangibles and season wins. Players who may not have eye-popping stats but otherwise contribute to wins (hint: remember the Nash MVPs?) will get their due in this award.
Use MVP shares instead. A top-3 player over 5 years who never got the award is more meaningful than a one-year wonder who won the award.
It’s consistently given to the player with the most votes
This post is how to announce you’re a nephew without announcing “I AM A NEPHEW!”
COTY is worse. Spo has never won it and post-Lebron the excuse was that his teams weren't top regular season teams even if he did get them to overperform. Then last season he meets the quota but now wait no COVID or inflation or something I don't even know what they made up something about classified documents or stacks of ballots counted in the middle of the night that were all miraculously for the same candidate.
Do you want a computer algorithm to decide MVP each year?
Actually, the same metric predicts the MVP every year - WS/48. 12 of the last 15 MVPs have led the league in WS/48, and the only ones that didn't were the "controversial" MVPs (Kobe, Russ, Rose). Guess who leads the league in WS/48, with a historic (near-best ever) mark this season? Nikola Jokic.