Worst MVP decision?

[ThatClockWork]

Rose was ballin, but that MVP should of been LeBron's.

[DrCoach]

Easily Nash

[FluLikeSymptoms]

Why is Nash's 04-05 MVP so controversial compared to Rose's? They both had the same case pretty much - best player on the best team.

And giving it to Shaq when that was clearly Wade's team would've been like giving an MVP to Durant when he was on the Warriors.

It wasn’t really Wade’s team, though. They made a performance of saying Wade was the guy but on the court they were very much the Shaquille O’Neals, even in the finals when Wade went off. Everything still revolved around Shaq because it had to, what else would you do with him, and the defence still treated Shaq like a 5-alarm fire. He shouldn’t have won the MVP, though.

[Statlanta]

I don’t understand why people shadowbox Nash’s MVPs. He was a offensive player who lead historic regular season offenses.

Rose, Iverson and Westbrook were all on defensive carrying teams and none of them are good defenders.

[Mac1958]

Embiid only got it because he whined and cried so much about it

Yep. But Jokic picked himself up a nice little consolation prize, though!

[FluLikeSymptoms]

The first Moses Malone MVP looks like a weird one but it was before my time. Kareem and Gervin had real shouts, I think people really liked rebounding back then no matter if it was off your own shot. If anyone who lived the nba back then wants to share some perspective I’m into it.

[Chanel Bomber]

Kobe and Westbrook shouldn't be on the list. They both deserved to win MVP.

I think the ones that are most debatable in the modern era are the Karl Malone ones, and the second Steve Nash MVP.

I don't think Embiid was the MVP, but he had an MVP-caliber season. Rose was also debatable but there was no real standout candidate, and Chicago ended the season with a better record than Miami and Orlando - it was far from controversial.

[FluLikeSymptoms]

Of course the most recent MVP that went to the wrong guy is going to win this vote.

But in terms of the vote that got it wrong by the greatest amount I’d have to say 1999 Karl Malone. It’s kind of hilarious that he won it that year because that was Malone’s individual worst season out of his prime years. His efficiency and impact numbers were all way down compared to what he averaged over his entire prime.

But these were the days of box score watching. Even though it was clear that Shaq and Duncan and a few other players were just better at basketball than Karl Malone was, he had a big number next to the PPG section on the stat sheet and that’s what voters cared about back them.

I mean people today criticize the Westbrook MVP or James Harden in general because of the empty stats that don’t translate to playoff impact, but Malone was the king of that back in his day. Fake stats propped up by an unsustainable free throw rate and it’s very unfortunate that voters decided to reward that over other, better players.

He had the highest WS and VORP that year. It was a down year across the board. Sure Zo or Shaq imo might have been better choices, but I don't see it as something terrible.

Even back then people who knew basketball knew Karl Malone’s numbers were kind of falsely inflated and his production wouldn’t carry over to the playoffs though. It’s not like he won his MVP and then surprised people by being this regular season performer who went down a level when it mattered. That was already well known.

I’d love to say it was a bad choice for MVP but you just can’t. He had the best statistical case and all 3 made 1st team All-NBA and 1st team all-defence(yes there were 6 on the team and no I never bought it with Karl). Also I think it was such a wild, unrepresentative 50-game reg season that people didn’t want to give it to a 1st-timer.

[timO]

Nash.

[hauntedcomputer]

Cousy in 57. Pettit, Johnston, and Arizin probably had better cases. (They probably docked Pettit because he'd won the first one the year before).

And any of the years where Russell or Wilt won MVP while the other was first-team all-nba center.

This award has always been about the voters and their biases, not on-court performance. But if you look back at the list there are really only two who weren't all-time greats, and that's Derrick Rose and Bob McAdoo (Embiid may well join them but time will tell). Probably Cowens, too, because he didn't have longevity but his defense like Unseld's was outlier great and they both won rings as the best player. Archibald led the league in scoring and assists that year but Celtics had the best record and Kings were 36-46 with Cousy as head coach.

https://www.espn.com/nba/history/awards/_/id/33

[FluLikeSymptoms]

Pitchin’ Paul got hosed!

[antonac]

I was always fine with Nash's wins. If you look back at the league no one is jumping out. Good players on bad teams or players that were well past their prime. I can understand why people felt weird about awarding 2005-2006 to Shaq (who's cited as the closes candidate) when was scoring much less than his Laker days. I actually kinda agree with the person who said Shaq is pulling an Embiid here a bit, whining it into reality, Shaq was down to a 20ppg player by this point, he just wasn't the force he used to be.

Nash played on a really good team and while it's not really meant to be a voting consideration, I think playing the game with the right style and attitude counts for something with a subjective award like this (while I said earlier, I had no problem with Embiid in 2023, this was a strike against him). Same reason I have no real problem with Rose winning.

Watch Nash and Rose's MVP highlights, they look pretty legit to me.

[p0peye]

Dude that won thanks to racial discrimination and voters fear from cancel culture.

There are many other bad MVP decisions, but none of them are as alarming.

Not sure the guy who won two previous MVPs is suddenly the victim of racial discrimination - almost as absurd as Perkins saying he won 2x because of a racial bias. The fact that there's arguments on both sides probably just means the one obvious answer of voting fatigue + Embiid publicly lobbing so much and it mostly being a regular season award.

edit: although I do think foreign players of any race suffer from stereotypes American born players don't.. but once they become established they usually push all of that aside

I disagree, as famous "voters fatgue" didn't impact any voters previous to Perkins comments, as they had Jokić as runaway favorite in the poll. That changed dramatically Immediately after Perkins declared anyone voting for Jokić as racist.

[giberish]

Dude that won thanks to racial discrimination and voters fear from cancel culture.

There are many other bad MVP decisions, but none of them are as alarming.

Not sure the guy who won two previous MVPs is suddenly the victim of racial discrimination - almost as absurd as Perkins saying he won 2x because of a racial bias. The fact that there's arguments on both sides probably just means the one obvious answer of voting fatigue + Embiid publicly lobbing so much and it mostly being a regular season award.

edit: although I do think foreign players of any race suffer from stereotypes American born players don't.. but once they become established they usually push all of that aside

I disagree, as famous "voters fatgue" didn't impact any voters previous to Perkins comments, as they had Jokić as runaway favorite in the poll. That changed dramatically Immediately after Perkins declared anyone voting for Jokić as racist.

What's more plausible, Jokic's MVP odds faded because Denver played bad for a month at the end of the season, or Perkins has god-tier influence?

I know it's shocking to those who live by conspiracy theories, but on-court play does have an effect on MVP voting.

[p0peye]

Not sure the guy who won two previous MVPs is suddenly the victim of racial discrimination - almost as absurd as Perkins saying he won 2x because of a racial bias. The fact that there's arguments on both sides probably just means the one obvious answer of voting fatigue + Embiid publicly lobbing so much and it mostly being a regular season award.

edit: although I do think foreign players of any race suffer from stereotypes American born players don't.. but once they become established they usually push all of that aside

I disagree, as famous "voters fatgue" didn't impact any voters previous to Perkins comments, as they had Jokić as runaway favorite in the poll. That changed dramatically Immediately after Perkins declared anyone voting for Jokić as racist.

What's more plausible, Jokic's MVP odds faded because Denver played bad for a month at the end of the season, or Perkins has god-tier influence?

I know it's shocking to those who live by conspiracy theories, but on-court play does have an effect on MVP voting.

There are no relations with god in cancel culture. It is very real and has destroyed many lives and careers, deservedly or otherwise.

So, this MVP was not based in basketball achievements, but cancel culture threat to racially discriminate against basketball player who had done nothing to deserve that. Nothing against Embiid personally as he made no such comments, as far as I am aware of, to contribute to that, crying for sympathy to the side.

Now everyone has their own opinions on which MVP decision was worst and this for me takes the cake as it should trip some alarms and set dangerous precedents for white players. You have your opinion, which I respect, but no need to use straw man fallacies with me.

[losmi]

Not sure the guy who won two previous MVPs is suddenly the victim of racial discrimination - almost as absurd as Perkins saying he won 2x because of a racial bias. The fact that there's arguments on both sides probably just means the one obvious answer of voting fatigue + Embiid publicly lobbing so much and it mostly being a regular season award.

edit: although I do think foreign players of any race suffer from stereotypes American born players don't.. but once they become established they usually push all of that aside

I disagree, as famous "voters fatgue" didn't impact any voters previous to Perkins comments, as they had Jokić as runaway favorite in the poll. That changed dramatically Immediately after Perkins declared anyone voting for Jokić as racist.

What's more plausible, Jokic's MVP odds faded because Denver played bad for a month at the end of the season, or Perkins has god-tier influence?

I know it's shocking to those who live by conspiracy theories, but on-court play does have an effect on MVP voting.

Jokic's MVP odds faded after one week, not one month. Everyone was waiting for just a few bad loses to validate the change in their vote caused by the fear of racial accusations. Yes, Perkins and ESPN had god-tier influence on this voting.

[Evenacus]

You could argue that there is recency bias here and I would agree. On the other hand, I have never seen such an agenda driven campaign to vote for Embiid for MVP.

In every other selection on this list, bar those oldies, which I have no context for, the selections were based on performance and there was no widespread campaign on any other grounds like this one for Embiid was. Not to say that his stats were not worthy, but the issue is there was someone else a little bit better.

[giberish]

You could argue that there is recency bias here and I would agree. On the other hand, I have never seen such an agenda driven campaign to vote for Embiid for MVP.

In every other selection on this list, bar those oldies, which I have no context for, the selections were based on performance and there was no widespread campaign on any other grounds like this one for Embiid was. Not to say that his stats were not worthy, but the issue is there was someone else a little bit better.

True, there was a strong - at times seemingly desperate - MVP push for Embiid, largely based on 'it's his turn, you have to give it to him'. This was season-long though and not driven by an insignificant talking head. It's also not that unusual for strong publicity narratives to push questionable MVP choices. Rose's MVP campaign was driven by 'he's not LeBron' and 'Chicago would be crap without him' , ignoring that Chicago was a defense-first team that would be a 50-win team with an ugly offense without Rose and that Dirk and Howard had better seasons while also not being LeBron.

[Michael Jordan]

Jokic should have won MVP and Finals MVP in the same season.

But Embiid had to cry and worst of all was too scared to play in Denver.

[Doctor MJ]

Which MVP was the most erroneously awarded? I'm talking about a year someone else should have won, but didn't.

So I actually voted for Karl Malone not realizing this was about 1999 rather than 1997. To me the 1997 is the one that bugs me most. Not about Malone "not being worthy", just that I think the decision making that year is the most problematic. If Malone had already won an MVP by then, I don't think there's any way he'd have won it in 1997, and with Jordan again leading the best team in the league during the regular season, and everyone in the world seeing Jordan as the best player in the world, to me this is a case of a bunch of journalists getting into a weird echo chamber that allowed them to consolidate around a stance that was dumber than what casual fans would do.

I don't really mind the 1999 pick. I think folks have to understand how weird the lockout made things. Fine to think someone else was a bit more deserving, but there was no clear cut pick. I'd say it's similar in a lot of the years where there's a weak MVP winner.

I will say that of the candidates actually on the ballot, I think I'd side with Embiid. As with 1997 Malone, the issue wasn't that Embiid was unworthy - I think he was more deserving than some previous MVP winners - but the problematic reasoning. It's better than 1997 Malone because I think many of the Embiid voters actually believed Embiid was the best player, which I don't really believe people thought about Malone, but other than meeting that standard it was awful because there was another candidate in Jokic who was considerably stronger, and because the reasoning that was given became so, so toxic.