2021-22 NBA MVP Discussion (Pt. 1)

[DCasey91]

Not being a stats guy, is there a way to tell whether someone is getting more traditional stats because he's the only option? I'm thinking of the difference between Giannis and Jokic, and wondering whether having better support players means that Giannis actually possesses the ball less than Jokic, where the plays will always run through Jokic, being just about the only viable option.

I don't know the answer (or whether this is something that even means anything), just spit-balling out loud.

Giannis has more usage than Jokic.

Giannis isn’t the best option offensive option there has to be some give, whereas Jokic because he can do everything means that you can run it however you want. You don’t have to helio it with Jokic unlike other superstars. Giannis needs the ball as he isn’t even a good shooter.

This aint it. Giannis attacking over and over again from the top is what happened when he was stuck playing with guards that suck. He's got Jrue these days and is great playing as roll man or a decoy in a range of scenarios when he's not in iso. Jokic is better overall on offense but he can't really overwhelm teams with scoring the way Giannis does. Different guys, different roles and the clear best two players in the world.

Giannis still needs the ball as in he needs it to score. And let’s be honest a worst shooter than Lebron is. Have similar styles barrel rolling into the rim but a Lebron led system is superior. Skill still plays a big part of it.

Jokic though is a wizard he sets up the whole offense 3-4 passes before the ball goes in the hoop. Even does this hand side traffic control signals in the post and he basically guides others on how to score and guess what? By the end of the play he didn’t touch the ball lmao he just showed them hey do this. That’s offense

Giannis isn’t the best offensive player. His engine is crazy obviously

[AussieBuck]

Giannis has more usage than Jokic.

Giannis isn’t the best option offensive option there has to be some give, whereas Jokic because he can do everything means that you can run it however you want. You don’t have to helio it with Jokic unlike other superstars. Giannis needs the ball as he isn’t even a good shooter.

This aint it. Giannis attacking over and over again from the top is what happened when he was stuck playing with guards that suck. He's got Jrue these days and is great playing as roll man or a decoy in a range of scenarios when he's not in iso. Jokic is better overall on offense but he can't really overwhelm teams with scoring the way Giannis does. Different guys, different roles and the clear best two players in the world.

Definitely not sold on them being the clear two best.

Giannis was clearly outplayed by KD en route to the Finals for one (he was very honest about the fact that KD dominated him), and advanced stats wise I’m still leaning on EPM + RAPTOR where Giannis rates top 2 in neither. It’s Curry and Jokic.

Giannis is incredible. “Clear top 2”. Absolutely not.

Durant outscored him slightly, didn't outplay him at all. Even if he did that would be as **** an argument as the one where people used to say Deron Williams was better than Paul because he beat him head to head. Silly comparing a guy who has always played with a superstar lead guard and yet only won when he jumped on a 73 win team to a guy who won the very first time he had a guard better than Eric Bledsoe to play off.

Curry at his peak may have had an argument with Giannis and Joker I guess, he's not that guy this year.

[BoatsNZones]

This aint it. Giannis attacking over and over again from the top is what happened when he was stuck playing with guards that suck. He's got Jrue these days and is great playing as roll man or a decoy in a range of scenarios when he's not in iso. Jokic is better overall on offense but he can't really overwhelm teams with scoring the way Giannis does. Different guys, different roles and the clear best two players in the world.

Definitely not sold on them being the clear two best.

Giannis was clearly outplayed by KD en route to the Finals for one (he was very honest about the fact that KD dominated him), and advanced stats wise I’m still leaning on EPM + RAPTOR where Giannis rates top 2 in neither. It’s Curry and Jokic.

Giannis is incredible. “Clear top 2”. Absolutely not.

Durant outscored him slightly, didn't outplay him at all. Even if he did that would be as **** an argument as the one where people used to say Deron Williams was better than Paul because he beat him head to head. Silly comparing a guy who has always played with a superstar lead guard and yet only won when he jumped on a 73 win team to a guy who won the very first time he had a guard better than Eric Bledsoe to play off.

Curry at his peak may have had an argument with Giannis and Joker I guess, he's not that guy this year.

“This ain’t it”.

KD is an MVP and actually was better than Giannis last year (when healthy) including the playoffs. You guys were a tip toe away from being ousted to a team at 3/5ths strength because of him. That’s a fact.

As for Curry, he does not need to be at his peak to be more impactful than Giannis. Although he’s still clearly in his prime and re EPM/RAPTOR/plus-minus (and… team dominance with 45 million on the bench), proving more impactful as is.

[AussieBuck]

Definitely not sold on them being the clear two best.

Giannis was clearly outplayed by KD en route to the Finals for one (he was very honest about the fact that KD dominated him), and advanced stats wise I’m still leaning on EPM + RAPTOR where Giannis rates top 2 in neither. It’s Curry and Jokic.

Giannis is incredible. “Clear top 2”. Absolutely not.

Durant outscored him slightly, didn't outplay him at all. Even if he did that would be as **** an argument as the one where people used to say Deron Williams was better than Paul because he beat him head to head. Silly comparing a guy who has always played with a superstar lead guard and yet only won when he jumped on a 73 win team to a guy who won the very first time he had a guard better than Eric Bledsoe to play off.

Curry at his peak may have had an argument with Giannis and Joker I guess, he's not that guy this year.

“This ain’t it”.

KD is an MVP and actually was better than Giannis last year including the playoffs. You were a tip toe away from being ousted to a team at 3/5ths strength because of him. That’s a fact.

As for Curry, he does not need to be at his peak to be more impactful than Giannis. Although he’s still clearly in his prime and re EPM/RAPTOR/plus-minus (and… team dominance with 45 million on the bench), proving more impactful as is.

KD wasn't the best player on his own team until Harden hurt his hamstring. He also went 0-6 in overtime after being dumb enough to have both feet over the line while attempting a three. Your narrative is hilarious. Durant not winning when he doesn't have the best team in the league around him is what happens all the time. Giannis just won a title with a performance on both ends Durant could only dream about. That's a fact champ.

[BoatsNZones]

Durant outscored him slightly, didn't outplay him at all. Even if he did that would be as **** an argument as the one where people used to say Deron Williams was better than Paul because he beat him head to head. Silly comparing a guy who has always played with a superstar lead guard and yet only won when he jumped on a 73 win team to a guy who won the very first time he had a guard better than Eric Bledsoe to play off.

Curry at his peak may have had an argument with Giannis and Joker I guess, he's not that guy this year.

“This ain’t it”.

KD is an MVP and actually was better than Giannis last year including the playoffs. You were a tip toe away from being ousted to a team at 3/5ths strength because of him. That’s a fact.

As for Curry, he does not need to be at his peak to be more impactful than Giannis. Although he’s still clearly in his prime and re EPM/RAPTOR/plus-minus (and… team dominance with 45 million on the bench), proving more impactful as is.

KD wasn't the best player on his own team until Harden hurt his hamstring. He also went 0-6 in overtime after being dumb enough to have both feet over the line while attempting a three. Your narrative is hilarious. Durant not winning when he doesn't have the best team in the league around him is what happens all the time. Giannis just won a title with a performance on both ends Durant could only dream about. That's a fact champ.

I’m fine sitting around clowning KD, I personally think he is somewhat overrated, but he did still absolutely outplay Giannis and was in desperate need of anything to push them over the edge against the Bucks last season. That title was… not impressive historically. I do hope you can come to terms with that. The pressure is on Giannis and the Bucks to prove it was real this season. All the top dogs are out there and Curry doesn’t even have his Splash Bro here yet. I hope you guys make the Finals to meet up with em.

I have an early morning and have spent too long on here. GG

[DutchManDanFan]

Always nice to see posters only talk about offense when they argue about who is the best or most impactfull player in the NBA...

On offense Jokic, Steph, KD and Giannis are very different. All with high impact. You can say Giannis is the least skilled. But his impact is enormous. Defenses must create walls to stop him which gives easy looks for others.

On defense however, there is no discussion. Giannis is far above the others. And everybody knows it.

[AussieBuck]

“This ain’t it”.

KD is an MVP and actually was better than Giannis last year including the playoffs. You were a tip toe away from being ousted to a team at 3/5ths strength because of him. That’s a fact.

As for Curry, he does not need to be at his peak to be more impactful than Giannis. Although he’s still clearly in his prime and re EPM/RAPTOR/plus-minus (and… team dominance with 45 million on the bench), proving more impactful as is.

KD wasn't the best player on his own team until Harden hurt his hamstring. He also went 0-6 in overtime after being dumb enough to have both feet over the line while attempting a three. Your narrative is hilarious. Durant not winning when he doesn't have the best team in the league around him is what happens all the time. Giannis just won a title with a performance on both ends Durant could only dream about. That's a fact champ.

I’m fine sitting around clowning KD, I personally think he is somewhat overrated, but he did still absolutely outplay Giannis and was in desperate need of anything to push them over the edge against the Bucks last season. That title was… not impressive historically. I do hope you can come to terms with that. The pressure is on Giannis and the Bucks to prove it was real this season. All the top dogs are out there and Curry doesn’t even have his Splash Bro here yet. I hope you guys make the Finals to meet up with em.

I have an early morning and have spent too long on here. GG

Gosh I was really enjoying the title until you told me it was unimpressive and then you top it off by pointing out that it won't count if they don't repeat! Thankfully you're done for the day, that's a lot of bad news to take in at once.

[scrabbarista]

It's been fluctuating by the game, but bbref's MVP Tracker top five:

22.9% Curry
22.6% Antetokounmpo
22.5% Jokic

8.7% Paul
8.5% Durant

Pretty close race!

[KGtabake]

Definitely not sold on them being the clear two best.

Giannis was clearly outplayed by KD en route to the Finals for one (he was very honest about the fact that KD dominated him), and advanced stats wise I’m still leaning on EPM + RAPTOR where Giannis rates top 2 in neither. It’s Curry and Jokic.

Giannis is incredible. “Clear top 2”. Absolutely not.

Durant outscored him slightly, didn't outplay him at all. Even if he did that would be as **** an argument as the one where people used to say Deron Williams was better than Paul because he beat him head to head. Silly comparing a guy who has always played with a superstar lead guard and yet only won when he jumped on a 73 win team to a guy who won the very first time he had a guard better than Eric Bledsoe to play off.

Curry at his peak may have had an argument with Giannis and Joker I guess, he's not that guy this year.

“This ain’t it”.

KD is an MVP and actually was better than Giannis last year (when healthy) including the playoffs. You guys were a tip toe away from being ousted to a team at 3/5ths strength because of him. That’s a fact.

As for Curry, he does not need to be at his peak to be more impactful than Giannis. Although he’s still clearly in his prime and re EPM/RAPTOR/plus-minus (and… team dominance with 45 million on the bench), proving more impactful as is.

Always love this part.
But you don't have anything to say about when KD and the fully healthy Nets played against a Boston team down 3 players in the first round...right? It doesn't suit the narrative.

And no, KD wasn't better than Giannis in the playoffs. Giannis didn't average only 30ppg. He was the best defender on the floor every night.

[Dutchball97]

Not being a stats guy, is there a way to tell whether someone is getting more traditional stats because he's the only option? I'm thinking of the difference between Giannis and Jokic, and wondering whether having better support players means that Giannis actually possesses the ball less than Jokic, where the plays will always run through Jokic, being just about the only viable option.

I don't know the answer (or whether this is something that even means anything), just spit-balling out loud.

Generally players who are the primary focus on a team without much high level help rack up bigger stats. It is no surprise BPM paints 09 LeBron as the best season ever despite 2012, 2013 and 2016 being generally seen as more complete performances by him. I think the 2017 season also paints a good picture as you see Westbrook's number sore without KD, while both KD and Curry's numbers dipped while playing together.

Generally being the lone star on a mediocre team is going to get you more opportunities to make a difference than when you're playing with other stars. It isn't necessarily always like this as this mostly comes down to USG%. With the LeBron example he had about 34 USG% in the 09 regular season and it jumped to over 36% in the post-season, while in 2013 (what I consider his peak season) he had a USG% of 30 in the regular season and 29 in the play-offs.

If we're looking at the current MVP candidates we see Giannis at 34%, Jokic at 32%, KD at 31% and Curry at 30%. It is probably important to note Giannis has had to carry more than usual due to Middleton and Jrue both missing significant time and the other starters of last year, Lopez and Donte, not playing at all so far. I think the main takeaway here is that none of them really stand out from the group in terms of how much they have the ball. To me the convo is mainly between Jokic (best per minute) and Curry (most value added) at the moment but Giannis is right there in both categories as well. KD started the season hot but he's falling off a bit and might honestly be more in danger of losing that 4th spot than he is of challenging the top 3.

[_NoMas]

Based on basically every metric plus the eye test, Jokic has been the best player. But unfortunately team record matters so right now he’s 4th in the race. Currently I have it 1) Giannis, 2)KD, 3)Steph based on Steph having the most sub par games out of the three, but it’s essentially neck and neck with well over half the season to go.

[yoyoboy]

Steph’s on-court +/- really isn’t too far ahead of Giannis and Jokic now. And the since the Warrior no longer have best record going for them, the team success argument is no longer as strong.

I’m going:

1. Jokic
2. Curry
3. Giannis

[Wolfgang630]

Jokic and Giannis are so much better than Curry. The media didn’t want Donovan to win mvp when he wasn’t doing so great and the Jazz had the best record. Steph shouldn’t get played up so much with how bad he’s been.

[JN61]

Can't vote for a guy who has shot 93 misses in 10 of his worst 3 point shooting performance games which they went 5-5. 26.8% and 93 misses. That is dreadful and team keeps on going pretty strong. Imagine any other team having a player bricking in this magnitude, they would be nowhere close having .500 record in such a brick show. He has missed over 8 3 point shots on like half of his games this season, only twice having ok shooting performances in such games. That is unacceptably bad.

[GSP]

Kd, Jokic and Giannis have been playing better than Steph for weeks now

[WRau1]

Giannis is a top MVP candidate and a top 3 DPOTY candidate on a team that usually wins a lot of regular season games. That's normally your MVP.

[GSP]

Giannis is a top MVP candidate and a top 3 DPOTY candidate on a team that usually wins a lot of regular season games. That's normally your MVP.

Hes def not a top 3 Dpoy candidate this season. Rudy, Mobley, Draymond have all been better on defense. Bam and Embiid when theyve played too but theyve missed games

[WRau1]

Giannis is a top MVP candidate and a top 3 DPOTY candidate on a team that usually wins a lot of regular season games. That's normally your MVP.

Hes def not a top 3 Dpoy candidate this season. Rudy, Mobley, Draymond have all been better on defense. Bam and Embiid when theyve played too but theyve missed games

Not according to recent GM polls or Vegas. Top 3, in order as of 7 days ago, are Green, Rudy then Giannis.

[MrBigShot]

Kevin Durant is the most valuable player in the NBA

[jordanwilliams6]

I would be pretty comfortable having KD at number 1.