MVP Discussion [19/20] [part II] - voting opened

[RaptorsLife]

Lakers have played 31 games over teams 500

20-11

Bucks 25

16-9

[OriginalRed]

lebron has been robbed of mvps and fmvps before so this could still go to giannis but lebron is the clear-cut best player in the game still in his 17th season, also the undisputed goat and it's not even close anymore.

Shannon Sharpe spotted

[NyKnicks1714]

Whether people like it or not, LeBron gained some ground this weekend. Most of the voters don't sit around looking at advanced stats, nor do they watch every single game on LP. Two nationally televised wins against the two other best teams and players in the league is going to have an impact in the voting. If I had to guess, I'd say the voting is 75-25 in favor of Giannis right now and falling.

[_Game7_]

Big win! Things just got interesting. If you think Giannis can just limp to the finish line you are a fool, Lebron can steal this with a late push.

[OriginalRed]

Must be nice to have a second option in AD who can drop back to back 30 point/8+ rebound games.

[AirJordan213]

Giannis easily. Also Davis>LeBron, Davis is doing a lot of the dirty work and brings the intensity consistently.

[MisterHibachi]

**** it, LeBron for MVP. He's still clearly the best player in the world and these two wins are MVP-sealing type of wins. Lakers only a few game behind the Bucks despite playing in the West.

[HotRocks34]

It's all about Giannis' knee now. If he's healthy, the race is over and it's been over. If Giannis is not healthy, then the MVP is up for grabs.

LeBron getting to 1-1 against the Bucks and 1-2 against the Clippers doesn't move the needle an inch. It's the "Trae finished strong" argument against Luka's all-year dominance. It's simply not enough.

Going to be interesting to see when Giannis returns to the lineup.

[OriginalRed]

"The Bucks are stacked even without Giannis"

Getting smoked by the Suns

[mademan]

Giannis is gonna have to play. This knee injury cant keep him out too long. He gets himself to that 10+ games missed territory and the Bucks slide back a bit in record, Lebron might just end up stealing it.

[yoyoboy]

LA would have to finish with at least the same record as the Bucks, LeBron would have to keep this post All-Star play up, and Giannis would have to miss 4 or so games for LeBron to be able to steal it imo. LeBron has definitely made up ground this weekend, but on the whole of the year it’s hard to argue against Giannis when he’s the best offensive player and best defensive player on an 11 SRS team, posting a +16.4 on-court rating, and beating him in most advanced metrics.

I’d still take LeBron over Freak in the playoffs but Giannis has had a slightly but clearly better season overall.

[Ainosterhaspie]

Lot of overreaction going on based on two games. The race is obviously closer than it was Thursday, but GA still has a comfortable lead.

[Joey Wheeler]

Giannis is going to win, but just like last year it's going to look laughable after the playoffs are played. Lebron is clearly a level above.

[ken6199]

This is when those chest pumping Giannis fans go quiet. Where you at Lazy Potato and your gang?

[TD75]

Funny how the narrative stops mentioning the "amazing" options that the Bucks have beyond Giannis to help him.

If anything, the last couple of days should reinforce Giannis' bid for MVP.

[TD75]

Giannis is going to win, but just like last year it's going to look laughable after the playoffs are played. Lebron is clearly a level above.

I know it may be a novel concept but the MVP award
- does not include the playoffs
- is not the same as the "Best player/Top player you would pick if you wanted to win this specific playoffs series".

[NyKnicks1714]

Funny how the narrative stops mentioning the "amazing" options that the Bucks have beyond Giannis to help him.

If anything, the last couple of days should reinforce Giannis' bid for MVP.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jamesle01/on-off/2020

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/antetgi01/on-off/2020

The Bucks without Giannis are better than the Lakers without LeBron.

Seriously, Giannis has the better case right now, so why are some people trying to use teammates as a pro-Giannis argument when it favors LeBron?

[greekbuck34]

This is when those chest pumping Giannis fans go quiet. Where you at Lazy Potato and your gang?

We go quite because Giannis got injured and we lose from the Suns without Ayton and Kelly Oubre by them scoring +130 on us.
Lebron made it interesting but let's not kid ourselves. The Lakers lose both games without AD. A guy puting 30pts with DPOY defense is a lot of help.

[ken6199]

This is when those chest pumping Giannis fans go quiet. Where you at Lazy Potato and your gang?

We go quite because Giannis got injured and we lose from the Suns without Ayton and Kelly Oubre by them scoring +130 on us.
Lebron made it interesting but let's not kid ourselves. The Lakers lose both games without AD. A guy puting 30pts with DPOY defense is a lot of help.

I was mostly talking about Potato (and gang of 1 really, mr perfect) who act like Giannis nightly stats twitter accounts. In all honesty I think Giannis should still win this quite comfortably, even if he sits out for a week or two. It should be at worst Harden over Lebron in 2018, where Harden was leading the whole season with a decent supporting cast but LeBron also put up amazing stat lines and have a few nice stories around him (e.g. played 82 games for the first time in his career).

But we've seen this type of things happen before. A guy can play awesome for 50 games and pretty much wraps up this award, "just give it to him already", "this thing is over boiii", then another guy have a 10 game late season push, or worse, just a couple of statement games on national TV then it becomes "wow this race is wide open now". The latest example I can think of is Westbrook in 2017, a couple of games like his 50pt performance in Denver, which sealed their playoff spot, with a nice little triple double story, all of a sudden Harden's whole season body of work got thrown out of the window.

On the other end you have the LA media and those talking heads. A Lebron 5th MVP as a 35 year old will hit the headlines. Giannis can have excellent 60 games then if LeBron goes on a run those guys will try their absolutely hardest to make this thing a two man race even though they've spent the whole season worshipping Giannis and talking about how this thing has been over a while ago. I mean, guys are talking about unanimous not in December but in FEBRUARY, they are drawing comparisons to Curry '16 and Lebron '13, how can you change your tone after just 2 weeks and say this thing is open? Because they don't care. There are plenty of casual fans who will walk into a sports bar and talk to another casual fan "hey who will win the MVP" with Steven A Smith and Max Kellerman going on a shouting match on TV in the background. There will be 100x more of those guys than guys like us casting our MVP vote every month on RealGM, and the media only care about what they want those people think.

TLDR, I expected some LeBron kneejerk posts and it was pretty much what I expected.

[NyKnicks1714]

This is when those chest pumping Giannis fans go quiet. Where you at Lazy Potato and your gang?

We go quite because Giannis got injured and we lose from the Suns without Ayton and Kelly Oubre by them scoring +130 on us.
Lebron made it interesting but let's not kid ourselves.The Lakers lose both games without AD.A guy puting 30pts with DPOY defense is a lot of help.

You don't need this; just get rid of it. Giannis has the best case for MVP, but LeBron wins the teammates argument.