Heej wrote:Jordan competing for MVPs at age 25 isn't abnormal. That's what happens with all time greats. Just like how you see some still in the running at age 31 even though both years are removed from the commonly accepted age 27/28 Apex.
I’m not saying it’s abnormal for a guy like Jordan (though please do see my post below this about the age of MVPs in that era). I’m saying that the analogy isn’t a good one because the stage of the player trajectories that the duos you compared were at was different. I think there’s better analogies to make, and I noted what those might be.
And I disagree about there not being other MVP level players when you had guys like Wade and CP3 putting up years that were arguably better than nearly any player ever at their position sans the GOAT PG and SG in Magic and Jordan. Those guys not competing for more speaks more to the quality of their organization contexts as opposed to how high quality they were as players, which is precisely what I mean by this method you're proposing being reductive and missing the forest from the trees.
Chris Paul really wasn’t even strongly competing for consideration as the 2nd best player in the league during those years, let alone competing for #1. I know he grades out well in RS impact data, but that data does seriously overstate his stature in the league in those years. That said, I did list him in my OP, largely in recognition of what we know now about his impact data. I personally think he’s borderline here, but I probably take a dimmer view of him than most people here, and I did include him in the OP in order to not bother going down a rabbit hole about it. As for Wade, he was an MVP-level player, and once again I listed him in my OP. But LeBron also spent most of his peak years playing with Wade, so that kind of took Wade out of the equation to a degree for a while (though obviously that happened because Wade agreed to take the secondary role between the two, and he did that in large part because LeBron was better). When the other MVP-level guys in an entire seven-draft-class span are just Dwyane Wade (who LeBron teamed up with) and Chris Paul, I think it is safe to say it was a time period that was weak in MVP-level talent. I’d say Shaq’s era was even weaker, though (basically just Shaq, and perhaps arguably Kidd and Payton).
In regards to Denver, that's just false. They've managed to develop a top tier coaching staff and have shown themselves to make adequate periphery moves as far back as the Melo and Iguodala iterations. And once again in the Jokic era being able to build a Finals level team by the time we got to the bubble (imo Denver was better than Miami despite the number of games it went to). Not only that but they were able to shrug off losing Grant and replace him with KCP and eventually Gordon.
Not to mention clear organizational superiority in terms of little things such as how the Nuggets have shown a consistent track record in tracking playcalling rates by their coaches and making a concerted effort in decking out their bench with high level assistants. Along with doing an excellent job rehabbing both Murray and Porter who have turned out to be critical pieces.
You’re glossing over so much here. The Nuggets as an organization managed to waste multiple absolute peak years of Jokic’s career by giving him genuinely laughable supporting casts filled with borderline NBA players. That is an absolutely massive deal that by itself completely vitiates any point you’re making. Of course, a big reason those teams were so bad is about injuries to Murray and Porter Jr., but (1) those teams were so laughably bad outside of that that they’d probably have wasted those years even without the injuries; (2) Porter Jr. having injuries is not some surprise factor, but rather is a completely foreseeable event that was baked into the pie when the organization drafted MPJ; and (3) Murray being injured is no one’s fault, but is a massive part of the organizational context for Jokic regardless. And that’s not even getting into the fact that, talking about the current team, you mention where they did well (getting KCP and Gordon) but ignore where they’ve really failed (for instance, getting a remotely serviceable backup center). Overall, considering what happened in 2021 and 2022, I think it’s just not even remotely defensible to suggest that Jokic has had favorable organizational circumstances.
Meanwhile we have Jokic's contemporaries like Embiid and Luka mired by organizational instability in Philly both on the drafting and coaching side, or Giannis who has had it a bit easier but still dealt with an embarrassing coaching carousel this year.
I think you’re confusing the causative effect here. Those other players you’ve mentioned have largely had instability as a consequence of failing to win in the playoffs (or to make the playoffs). Ironically, the silver lining to the Nuggets putting out absolutely laughable teams in 2021 and 2022 is that those teams losing did not create much of any instability, because the teams were so bad that no sane person would’ve ever expected them to do anything.
Anyways, ultimately, the best players generally have less instability, because winning breeds stability and losing breeds instability (at least when there’s expectations of success), and the best players are able to win more in those scenarios where success could be reasonably expected. You tend to take an approach that excuses a player’s lack of success as being caused by organizational instability. To some extent that can be true, but there’s a huge extent to which the causative effect goes in the other direction, and failing to recognize that will lead you to way over-excuse players.