NBA MVP Discussion Thread 2023-24 (Part 3: Son of Daughter of MVP thread)

[Exp0sed]

4 left if he's indeed out tonight
put a fork in him, his MVP campaign is done. he will get a chance to silence the naysayers - in the playoffs.

Jokic has played 14 more games than Embiid.

If you look at their game totals, Embiid's is like 60% of Jokic's (eye-balling it).

Is 60% of Embiid better than 100% of Jokic? Even if you think Embiid has been better per game, it would be preposterous to say he's provided more total value. It's not close. At all.

Current status:
Embiid 33 games (Record 26 and 7 with, 3 and 9 without).
Luka 40 games (23 and 17 with, 3 and 4 without)
Giannis, Shae, Jokic are 45/46/47 games. Not going to bother with records as these 3 have only really missed 1 or 2 games each.

Seems pretty clear that with Embiid Philly is rolling and that if he was more available they'd be right up there with Boston for best record. The greatest ability is availability, he's probably the best example of this saying.

in 2024 the NBA is stacked and filled with talent and parity
it's pretty easy to find urself matched up with a good team on any give night
Embiid has managed to only play 3 away games vs. playoff team the entire season so far!
3!

so these numbers for him don't mean jack, most of the games he missed are the tougher games

luckily since Embiid is always injured, we have alot of data with ample sample size to compare the 76er's record with and without him for every season in his career, and u will find that those numbers are very comparable to those of the other superstars and their teams. this season is an anomaly because he mostly missed the tougher part of the schedule.

moreover, this season the 76ers would have been fighting for supermacy if Embiid was always available but that's in so small part thanks to Maxey whose been playing at an All-NBA level, by the eye test, raw stats and many advanced stats as well

there are several games (including the last few games of Embiid's absence) where Maxey also didn't play, obviously an NBA team has very little chance of winning a game with their #1 AND their #2..nothing to see here

[dygaction]

4 left if he's indeed out tonight
put a fork in him, his MVP campaign is done. he will get a chance to silence the naysayers - in the playoffs.

Jokic has played 14 more games than Embiid.

If you look at their game totals, Embiid's is like 60% of Jokic's (eye-balling it).

Is 60% of Embiid better than 100% of Jokic? Even if you think Embiid has been better per game, it would be preposterous to say he's provided more total value. It's not close. At all.

Current status:
Embiid 33 games (Record 26 and 7 with, 3 and 9 without).
Luka 40 games (23 and 17 with, 3 and 4 without)
Giannis, Shae, Jokic are 45/46/47 games. Not going to bother with records as these 3 have only really missed 1 or 2 games each.

Seems pretty clear that with Embiid Philly is rolling and that if he was more available they'd be right up there with Boston for best record. The greatest ability is availability, he's probably the best example of this saying.

Last year when Embiid was missing games, 76ers were 11w-5l, really telling the value of Harden and the depth of that team.

[Bob8]

Did you calculated Kyrie's 20 missed games? Half games that Mavs have won were without Kyrie. It's not only that he's missing games nonstop and he can't help Luka. It's about team chemistry too, difficult to build a good team, if you're playing every game with different starters. I'm pretty sure that Mavs would look a lot different, if all starters except Luka, didn't missed that many games. They had around 30 different staring lineups. They played without 3 starters against Magic for example. Maybe we should look at who was really available and who is theoretically in the roster?

calculate?
no argument there..obviously Kyrie missing 20 games has had an effect and so has missing other starters

Nuggets also have a clear starting 5 whereas Dallas is still deciding (regardless of injuries)
fwiw, Kyrie has missed 20 games and Murray has missed 15. in the stretch he missed they had multiple games where AG was out as well, that's just a normal NBA regular season..happens to everyone

Luka has played 40 games while Jokic played 47 and that's usually the case as Luka usually misses some and Jokic usually misses..less

to be clear, I think Luka is having a tremendous season and I think he's one of a kind, i'm a big fan for sure.

Kyrie has played only 10 games in last 52 days and in that time Exum has missed 12 games, Josh Green 11 and Lively 9 games. They're all starters. (I won't even mention Kleber). I kinda doubt that Denver had problems like that. Difficult to build starting 5, if your starters are never available.

[dygaction]

Upcoming next group due to team record getting better: Brunson/Donovan Mitchell/Kawhi, who do you get?

[DCasey91]

Did you calculated Kyrie's 20 missed games? Half games that Mavs have won were without Kyrie. It's not only that he's missing games nonstop and he can't help Luka. It's about team chemistry too, difficult to build a good team, if you're playing every game with different starters. I'm pretty sure that Mavs would look a lot different, if all starters except Luka, didn't missed that many games. They had around 30 different staring lineups. They played without 3 starters against Magic for example. Maybe we should look at who was really available and who is theoretically in the roster?

calculate?
no argument there..obviously Kyrie missing 20 games has had an effect and so has missing other starters

Nuggets also have a clear starting 5 whereas Dallas is still deciding (regardless of injuries)
fwiw, Kyrie has missed 20 games and Murray has missed 15. in the stretch he missed they had multiple games where AG was out as well, that's just a normal NBA regular season..happens to everyone

Luka has played 40 games while Jokic played 47 and that's usually the case as Luka usually misses some and Jokic usually misses..less

to be clear, I think Luka is having a tremendous season and I think he's one of a kind, i'm a big fan for sure.

Kyrie has played only 10 games in last 52 days and in that time Exum has missed 12 games, Josh Green 11 and Lively 9 games. They're all starters. (I won't even mention Kleber). I kinda doubt that Denver had problems like that. Difficult to build starting 5, if your starters are never available.

Did we all just erase 2021 and 2022 Nuggets seasons from our memory bank? Lot of wrong takes here lol.

[Bob8]

calculate?
no argument there..obviously Kyrie missing 20 games has had an effect and so has missing other starters

Nuggets also have a clear starting 5 whereas Dallas is still deciding (regardless of injuries)
fwiw, Kyrie has missed 20 games and Murray has missed 15. in the stretch he missed they had multiple games where AG was out as well, that's just a normal NBA regular season..happens to everyone

Luka has played 40 games while Jokic played 47 and that's usually the case as Luka usually misses some and Jokic usually misses..less

to be clear, I think Luka is having a tremendous season and I think he's one of a kind, i'm a big fan for sure.

Kyrie has played only 10 games in last 52 days and in that time Exum has missed 12 games, Josh Green 11 and Lively 9 games. They're all starters. (I won't even mention Kleber). I kinda doubt that Denver had problems like that. Difficult to build starting 5, if your starters are never available.

Did we all just erase 2021 and 2022 Nuggets seasons from our memory bank? Lot of wrong takes here lol.

I believed that we're talking about this season. And what did Denver in that season anyway? Denver had 58% of wins then, Mavs have 55% at the moment. Not exactly great difference. Nobody can do miracles with bad roster. MJ couldn't and LeBron couldn't either.

[DCasey91]

Kyrie has played only 10 games in last 52 days and in that time Exum has missed 12 games, Josh Green 11 and Lively 9 games. They're all starters. (I won't even mention Kleber). I kinda doubt that Denver had problems like that. Difficult to build starting 5, if your starters are never available.

Did we all just erase 2021 and 2022 Nuggets seasons from our memory bank? Lot of wrong takes here lol.

And what did Denver in that season?

They couldn’t contend…. Because well injuries. Jokic carried those lists to 47/48 wins respectively

How many wins you reckon u could get with this:

Barton
Morris
Green
Gordon
League average starting C

Over or under 20?

Both have hard carried

You saying kinda doubt Denver had problems like this is wrong. We all can be wrong all the time

[Bob8]

Did we all just erase 2021 and 2022 Nuggets seasons from our memory bank? Lot of wrong takes here lol.

And what did Denver in that season?

They couldn’t contend…. Because well injuries. Jokic carried those lists to 47/48 wins respectively

How many wins you reckon u could get with this:

Barton
Morris
Green
Gordon
League average starting C

Over or under 20?

And how many wins you would get with Hardy, Green, Williams, Lively and league average Pg?

Over or under 10?

[Bob8]

Did we all just erase 2021 and 2022 Nuggets seasons from our memory bank? Lot of wrong takes here lol.

And what did Denver in that season?

They couldn’t contend…. Because well injuries. Jokic carried those lists to 47/48 wins respectively

How many wins you reckon u could get with this:

Barton
Morris
Green
Gordon
League average starting C

Over or under 20?

Both have hard carried

You saying kinda doubt Denver had problems like this is wrong. We all can be wrong all the time

I was talking about this year. Mavs have worse roster outside superstars and much bigger problems with injuries.

Jokic is the best player in Nba in last few years.

[DCasey91]

And what did Denver in that season?

They couldn’t contend…. Because well injuries. Jokic carried those lists to 47/48 wins respectively

How many wins you reckon u could get with this:

Barton
Morris
Green
Gordon
League average starting C

Over or under 20?

Both have hard carried

You saying kinda doubt Denver had problems like this is wrong. We all can be wrong all the time

I was talking about this year. Mavs have worse roster outside superstars and much bigger problems with injuries.

Jokic is the best player in Nba in last few years.

Okay got ya both have had hard luck on the injury front. Jokic has insane durability (been clocking up 80/80+ games per year including playoffs since 2019)

Mavs FO needs a kick up the arse

[brettski]

Jokic has played 14 more games than Embiid.

If you look at their game totals, Embiid's is like 60% of Jokic's (eye-balling it).

Is 60% of Embiid better than 100% of Jokic? Even if you think Embiid has been better per game, it would be preposterous to say he's provided more total value. It's not close. At all.

Current status:
Embiid 33 games (Record 26 and 7 with, 3 and 9 without).
Luka 40 games (23 and 17 with, 3 and 4 without)
Giannis, Shae, Jokic are 45/46/47 games. Not going to bother with records as these 3 have only really missed 1 or 2 games each.

Seems pretty clear that with Embiid Philly is rolling and that if he was more available they'd be right up there with Boston for best record. The greatest ability is availability, he's probably the best example of this saying.

This is a false equivalence. There's no telling how good they'd be. Their record with him isn't indicative of what they could be because he's avoided good games on the road.

Thats fair and I agree with you. I was wrestling with how to phrase it and really the question I have is how to do you fairly evaluate availability. How do you deal with someone putting up better stats and a better record but playing significantly fewer games and in my view playing only roughly 75% of the games the others do is a significant difference.

Is 65 games a fair cut off? It has me wondering if there shouldn't be a more flexible rule.

For example could we do something like let people vote for everyone then look at the games played for the top 5 and apply a rule. Not quite sure what that rule would be, could get too complex. As a couple of examples if Embiid gets the most votes and Jokic is second and Jokic ends up at 77 games played maybe Embiid would need to be at 72 to still be eligible. But then what if #'s 1 and 2 played 60 and 65 games and third played 82 games?

[Archx]

All time percentages don't make a lot of sense when Jokic was a second round pick and only got limited minutes for his first year or two. Luka was the Mavericks central player basically immediately, but still, rookie seasons were a long time ago and no one was expecting him to lead the team at that point, so he shouldn't be judged either way.

So in the last five years from the 18/19 season to the 22/23 season:

Mavs winning % when Luka plays: 54.8%
Mavs winning % when Luka sits: 42.9%

Nuggets winning % when Jokic plays: 65.2%
Nuggets winning % when Jokic sits: 34.8%

So over 5 years, the Mavs were 11.9 percentage points better when Luka played while the Nuggets were 30.4 percentage poins better when Jokic played. That's what people are pointing to.

No one is arguing that Luka is a better player right now, i simply said that Doncic's On/Off numbers are quite a big anomaly. You have these discussions on Mavs reddit or anyone else all the time. Mavs fans know it's a BS discussion because they see the difference without him.

But i could also point out that Jokic already played 28mpg in his 2nd year, that is quite a significant increase in playing time. Though he obviously did get a lot better later on.

[Bob8]

They couldn’t contend…. Because well injuries. Jokic carried those lists to 47/48 wins respectively

How many wins you reckon u could get with this:

Barton
Morris
Green
Gordon
League average starting C

Over or under 20?

Both have hard carried

You saying kinda doubt Denver had problems like this is wrong. We all can be wrong all the time

I was talking about this year. Mavs have worse roster outside superstars and much bigger problems with injuries.

Jokic is the best player in Nba in last few years.

Okay got ya both have had hard luck on the injury front. Jokic has insane durability (been clocking up 80/80+ games per year including playoffs since 2019)

Mavs FO needs a kick up the arse

What Kidd is doing with Luka is unsustainable, you can't play a player for 45 minutes with 40% usage, but without Kyrie they can't win games otherwise. Luka played 46 minutes against Kings in back2back game, after he scored 73 night before, was + 2 and they lost by 5. So they lost by 7 in 2 minutes he didn't play. No way he can last the whole RS and playoffs with usage and minutes like that. Mavs problem is not their standings but how much energy needs Luka to put in for every single win. They traded for Kyrie to solve that problem, unfortunately he's more or less out last 2 months.

It's not only about durability but also how player is used.

[Exp0sed]

And what did Denver in that season?

They couldn’t contend…. Because well injuries. Jokic carried those lists to 47/48 wins respectively

How many wins you reckon u could get with this:

Barton
Morris
Green
Gordon
League average starting C

Over or under 20?

And how many wins you would get with Hardy, Green, Williams, Lively and league average Pg?

Over or under 10?

ur exaggerating
in terms of total mins played this season the top 5 for the Mavs are (in that order)
Luka, THJ, Grant Williams, Jones JR and Lively

just last season Williams was giving the fake Mvpiid a hard time in the playoffs, Embiid had to stomp on his head to neutralize him
he was seen as an elite 3&D role player, isn't that the type u wanted the Mavs to acquire? he was the 6th man on a deep Celtics deep that went to the ECF. in 2021-22, he was only 23 years old and played the 4th most mins in the finals vs. the Dubs

now he's some worthless scrub?
THJ is a decent NBA player, Lively has been more than serviceable

Barton is a negative player that shouldnt have been playing on a good team, let alone starting on a playoff team
Uncle Jeff was completely washed, he was much worse than Exum or Derrick Jones Jr. that season
Morris is just a replacement level player, what's the difference between Monte Morris and Josh Green?

yes, the Mavs need better starters and better bench to be serious contenders, that's hardly news
we've been comparing the Nuggets roster to the Mavs roster for like 3 straight years...they were pretty comparable

When Nuggets got healthy they had a better squad but before than they were pretty even, both very lacking.

[Exp0sed]

Brunson creeping up on the MVP ladder
what a ridicilous all-star snub, not that I care about the AS game but it's just so asinine..

[greekman]

Giving Murray credit for Jokic's success is silly.

if murray is injured jokic wouldn't even reach the 2nd round.

Man just stop. Jokic made it to the second round without Murray. The beat the Blazers. What was his starting backcourt and where are they now? Actually name the top 8 players on that team.

sorry must've missed that looking at all the years he failed without murray. beating the blazers is a lot different than winning a championship. imo last year and in the bubble murray was just as important in the postseason as jokic.

[greekman]

So you saying you need players on your team to win? Wow what insight. Next thing you will say is that jokic will need 4 more players playing with him at all times.

i said at a high level as in bubble murray. understand ?

lol, with MPJ, AG and KCP? ur right!
name the NBA player past or present that will win a chip this season with MPJ, AG and KCP

yup murray is that good

[Hobo4President]

if murray is injured jokic wouldn't even reach the 2nd round.

Man just stop. Jokic made it to the second round without Murray. The beat the Blazers. What was his starting backcourt and where are they now? Actually name the top 8 players on that team.

sorry must've missed that looking at all the years he failed without murray. beating the blazers is a lot different than winning a championship. imo last year and in the bubble murray was just as important in the postseason as jokic.

It's just a bit of a strange argument. It'd be like someone saying Jayson Terry was just as important as Dirk in the Mavs run. Like sure Terry was great and they might not have won without him but overall Dirk was the far more important player and the numbers bear that out.

[greekman]

irving isn't comparable to murray especially in the playoffs. murray is shooting 50%+ in the postseason and putting up stats irving didn't even in his prime. boston and nj moved on from him for a reason.

[greekman]

Man just stop. Jokic made it to the second round without Murray. The beat the Blazers. What was his starting backcourt and where are they now? Actually name the top 8 players on that team.

sorry must've missed that looking at all the years he failed without murray. beating the blazers is a lot different than winning a championship. imo last year and in the bubble murray was just as important in the postseason as jokic.

It's just a bit of a strange argument. It'd be like someone saying Jayson Terry was just as important as Dirk in the Mavs run. Like sure Terry was great and they might not have won without him but overall Dirk was the far more important player and the numbers bear that out.

33/6/6 on 53% shooting in the series against the lakers is the reason they went to the finals last year. in his 6th season. and you're comparing him to 14/2/2 terry