NBA MVP Discussion Thread 2023-24 (Part 4: MVP Thread's Revenge)

[RB34]

This looks done and dusted for another year.

[Wolfgang630]

Joker with another usual game.

[AleksandarN]

Joker with another usual game.

6 steals though. Not usual for a guy who plays no defense

[BigGargamel]

I love SGA. I'm not trying to be a homer. But he just doesn't do what Jokic does. Jokic is just everything every single game. He has to be the best player in the NBA all the time or Denver just doesn't win.

[HotRocks34]

Denver beats Toronto

[iggymcfrack]

I think this is the main point here. We can ravage about Doncic's high usage all day, but it is hard to argue, (i) that it does not deliver results (while improvements can always be made, the Mavs have consistently been one of the best offensive teams), (ii) that it is forced or usurped by Luka and not designed -- Kidd stresses often enough that Luka is the system. Also, Doncic is a willing passer as demonstrated with high numbers for his assists, potential assists as well as passes.

Their problem is defending. One can argue that teammates feel unmotivated to play defense, because they are excluded on the offensive side, or that they simply follow the defensive-casual stance of their leader.

Both arguments make Doncic look bad, but they are both rather week IMO, since they are hard to substantiate with numbers. Moreover, in the 6-game span between the trades and the AS break, their now-pathetic defense was fine. There seems to be something else going on.

With all that said, I think all of this discussion is moot, since right now, MVP is only for Jokic to lose. And absent injury, I do not see that happening.

So, let's really be clear: In MVP conversations we're not talking about any star player being "the problem" on his team relative to his teammates. It's a question of whether the guy in question is the best of the best. The competition is brutal by definition, and it's why we see folks (such as myself in this case) make anti- arguments for guys. Not because we think any of the players here literally make their teams worse, but because we're implicitly comparing the players to other elite players.

Now, related to the specific usage question:

The point is not that ultra-high star usage is an inherently bad thing - it might actually be the right thing for the set of players in question - but that it runs the risk of making people overate the star and underate his teammates.

Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other star because his teammates are uniquely incapable of gaining more production themselves, and Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other stars because they are trying and failing to do what he's doing. He has these numbers because he's choosing to play in an ultra-extreme primacy way, and while it's fine for him to do this if it's the best move for his team, it doesn't mean his value increases in linear proportion to his volume.

This relates to why I brought Wilt earlier because these conversations with Wilt have been happening for forever.

Even after people acknowledge that Wilt's teams were better with him scoring less than he did at his peak, they still tend to see those peak numbers as a baseline for how good he was. And while it's certainly impressive that he could score so much, you really can't extrapolate from that scoring volume to figure out how valuable he was at his true value peak (which came later).

Luka is a very different player from Wilt in many ways, but in terms of extreme individual primacy in a team sport setting, they are very much cut from the same cloth, and so anyone looking to use the box score as their ground truth to assess their value will tend to overrate value.

And like always, you're totally ignoring, why Mavs aren't top Nba team. The problem is not in ofense, but in D. They have better offensive rtg than Nuggets and only 22nd defensive rtg. Nothing you have written about addresses Mavs D. What is the point of talking about Luka's impact in offensive side not being enough, if Mavs' opponents averaged 126 points in last 8 games? There's no player in the world, who can lead his team to wins, if their D is disastrous.

In last 8 games in which they were 3:5, they had 3rd offensive rtg and 30th defensive rtg. Mavs were 10.2 points worse in D, when Luka was off the court and they were 20 points worse in offense, when he was off the court. + 30.2 net rtg for Luka and Mavs have lost 5 games. So please tell me, what more can do a player to help his team winning? 37/10/11 with 64.5 TS% is evidently not even enough for the winning record. Maybe he should be better cheerleader, like Tatum for example.

The Mavericks have a higher ORtg than Denver only because of the minutes where Luka’s on the bench. Here are the ORtgs of the MVP candidates’ teams when they’re on the floor:

Shai: 124.2
Jokic: 123.8
Giannis: 122.8
Luka: 121.2

So yes, defense may be the Mavericks’ main problem, but Luka also leads the worst offense of any of the true MVP candidates. Like you can come up with reasons for why Luka’s so far behind in certain measures and some of those may be valid, but even so he’s not actually ahead of Jokić, SGA, or Giannis in any meaningful way. So 4th is pretty much his ceiling in the MVP race. If the Mavericks can’t maintain a top 8 spot in the West, he’ll likely fall behind Kawhi and/or Tatum too.

[Wolfgang630]

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[AleksandarN]

SGA is great and having a great season truly MVP type of season but Jokic has to be front runner since allstar break

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[Jaqua92]

SGA is great and having a great season truly MVP type of season but Jokic has to be front runner since allstar break

Read on Twitter

Lol

[Doctor MJ]

And like always, you're totally ignoring, why Mavs aren't top Nba team. The problem is not in ofense, but in D. They have better offensive rtg than Nuggets and only 22nd defensive rtg. Nothing you have written about addresses Mavs D. What is the point of talking about Luka's impact in offensive side not being enough, if Mavs' opponents averaged 126 points in last 8 games? There's no player in the world, who can lead his team to wins, if their D is disastrous.

In last 8 games in which they were 3:5, they had 3rd offensive rtg and 30th defensive rtg. Mavs were 10.2 points worse in D, when Luka was off the court and they were 20 points worse in offense, when he was off the court. + 30.2 net rtg for Luka and Mavs have lost 5 games. So please tell me, what more can do a player to help his team winning? 37/10/11 with 64.5 TS% is evidently not even enough for the winning record. Maybe he should be better cheerleader, like Tatum for example.

You're bringing stuff like it contradicts what I say, but it doesn't. We can talk about what you bring up, but it's not really the same thing as the point I was speaking to.

To your points:
1. Defense is of course the Mavs' "problem", in the sense that the Mavs are better on offense than on defense, just like Luka is.

2. While it may seem like I'm focusing on the wrong thing when I'm quibbling about the nuances in Luka's approach to offense, I'm only talking about Luka in this thread because I'm seeing a lot of people who think Luka simply has to be the best player in the world because of his offensive box score. Such people would acknowledge Lukas's defensive limitations but are stuck on the idea that those offensive numbers must overwhelm everything else. Thus it's my assessment that the thing that they need to understand most is their misconception of the area that dominates their holistic assessment.

3. But to be clear, things like Luka's less than stellar off-ball mold in this conversation. It's just that these things don't result in debates because no one really looks to fight this, because those who advocate for Luka are convinced by his offense and thus focus their attention there.

4. While the Mavs may have a better offensive rating than the Nuggets, they don't at this time have a Top 5 offense, and they haven't had a Top 5 offense since '19-20. I've seen some posts from folks here implying they think the Mavs always have an elite offense, but that's really not been the story in the Luka years.

(If this seems like a contradiction given my tendency to support Jokic, we can discuss further, but obviously it has something to do with how jaw-dropping Jokic's on/off & RAPM numbers have looked compared to Luka's over the course of their time in the NBA.)

5. Re: last 8 games. This tendency of Luka supporters to want to focus on this most recent small sample in this debate while dismissing the same stats in broader samples just isn't logically coherent. My response on all of this small sample size stuff is the same: Time will tell, and if things change, then things will have changed.

6. What more could Luka do? Well, since you ask, it would certainly be nice if he could defend like a big given that he's sometimes the heaviest guy in the lineup for the Mavs. There's something similar going on with Jokic so that gives us reason to hope for the Mavs that you can get away with someone that big who isn't a great defender in the modern NBA, but yeah, as you bring up defense, that is the biggest concern with Luka specifically, and it's something people seem to miss because Luka is classified as a guard.

So yeah, it's possible that the issues relating to Luka the defender will make it impossible for Luka the offender to emerge as the star of a champion, and that's just how it goes. It's not enough to keep Luka from leading a good team - we know that already - but reaching the top is hard.

You're talking like basketball is individual sport. Especially in D singular player can't do 0.

Like expected Luka's +/- skyrocketed with better bigs. His on court/ off court net rating in last 15 games is + 23.6.

What do you think would have happened with Shai's defensive numbers if he had to play with Kyrie, THJ and Powell?

So you want to trash everybody on the roster but Luka for the team having bad defense, and then defense Luka because he's just one guy and so can't make a difference? You're tying yourself into a pretzel here.

Re: +/- skyrocketed. Again, small sample size in a stat that you dismiss in large sample size. You don't have credibility when you talk like this...and we've been round and round on this.

[Doctor MJ]

4. While the Mavs may have a better offensive rating than the Nuggets, they don't at this time have a Top 5 offense, and they haven't had a Top 5 offense since '19-20. I've seen some posts from folks here implying they think the Mavs always have an elite offense, but that's really not been the story in the Luka years.

(If this seems like a contradiction given my tendency to support Jokic, we can discuss further, but obviously it has something to do with how jaw-dropping Jokic's on/off & RAPM numbers have looked compared to Luka's over the course of their time in the NBA.)

5. Re: last 8 games. This tendency of Luka supporters to want to focus on this most recent small sample in this debate while dismissing the same stats in broader samples just isn't logically coherent. My response on all of this small sample size stuff is the same: Time will tell, and if things change, then things will have changed.

I wonder why the Mavs haven't had a top 5 offense with Kleber, Bullock and Dwight Powell hmm, must be that awful Luka guy...

as for the small sample, it's getting bigger with each game my friend. tonight Luka was +34 with the 2nd best starter with +19.

You just can't help but see it as me literally blaming Luka whenever I insist on presenting things as they are.

Re: bigger with each game. Sure, but if the stat matters, you've already got a ton of sample to try to make sense of, and if it doesn't, you're just parroting my language to discredit me rather than consider what I've presented dispassionately.

[jordanwilliams6]

This is undeniably a no contest. Luka would be hot on his heels if his team had a comparable record but he simply doesn't.

[Young gun 6]

Race is looking done. With just 17 games left Jokic just keeps stretching his lead by the day.

[zimpy27]

If Mavs get up top 4 then I think Luka wins..

Otherwise it's the Joker

[Infinite Llamas]

Tatum and Jrue usually exit the game in the first quarter about 6 minutes in and Horford and Hauser take their places. White shifts to point guard and the team doesn’t miss a beat, so that most likely explains the minuscule on/off difference. Boston is just a well oiled machine at this point.

That being said, Tatum doesn’t have the workload of some other stars so that puts a cap on his mvp chances. He’s really sacrificed his numbers this year for the good of the team but yeah…he isn’t a top 3-4 MVP.

the usage and workload is one thing but if he can sit and his team doesn't miss a beat means either his team is stacked or he isn't all that or as in this case - it's both, with the C's being stacked being the primary reason ofc

the fact that the C's don't miss a beat without him is something you categorically can't say and isn't true for any of his competitor's teams

p.s, you guys really think the C's aren't a 45 wins team without Tatum? that's odd..
you don't think Jrue\ White\ Jaylen\ Horford \ KP get u 45 wins in the East? it's a +0.500 team in the East for sure

the Magic are 37-28, Indy is 36-29..the Bulls are 31-33 and they are pretty awful

Lol I’m a Celtics fan but I’m no homer. This team could probably sleepwalk to 50’wins even without Tatum.

Guys like Jokic, Luka and Shai just have so much more value to their team because their rosters aren’t as stacked as the C’s. It puts Tatum in a great spot year in and year out to win a chip but it also sort of caps his individual accolades.

[Wolfgang630]

Luka feels like that 2006? Kobe year.

[Mrakar]

[iggymcfrack]

Luka feels like that 2006? Kobe year.

This is actually a pretty good comparison. Leads the league in scoring but no other categories. And just like Kobe didn’t have any valid argument over Dirk or LeBron who had better box composites and played better defense on better teams, Luka doesn’t have a valid argument over Jokic or SGA.

The other comparison that I think compares pretty well to Luka this year is Steph in 2021. His team finished in the play-in just like Luka looks set to be. Like Luka and Kobe, he led the league in scoring but no other categories and didn’t have much of a case to actually win, but finished in 3rd with 5 first place votes.

[Mavrelous]

I'm not sure why people are declaring the race done, I still think it should go to the guy with the best record between Jokic and SGA.
SGA leads in EPM, Jokic 4th, Jokic leads in BPM, SGA 2nd, PER, SGA 2nd, and VORP, SGA 2nd, virtual tie in WS/48.
It's as close as it can get.

[Johnny Firpo]

I'm not sure why people are declaring the race done, I still think it should go to the guy with the best record between Jokic and SGA.
SGA leads in EPM, Jokic 4th, Jokic leads in BPM, SGA 2nd, PER, SGA 2nd, and VORP, SGA 2nd, virtual tie in WS/48.
It's as close as it can get.

It shouldn't be done, but it likely is, and it's not Shai's fault, the voters just don't want to crown him yet. The odds going down for Joker and the poll shows this. Jokic got the benefit of the doubt, which he worked hard for, and that's gonna be enough if there is no injury. He will win even if OKC wins the West by 2-3 games in the end.