NBAFan93 wrote:BallerTalk wrote:NBAFan93 wrote:A team that makes the playoffs is not a lousy team... I’m getting sick of this obsession w/ team success - “team” success led to Dragic and Draymond Green being all stars...
I found this comment pretty funny... and notably self-serving for Thunder/Westbrook fan.
Team success should be (and almost always has been) a part of any conversation about the league MVP because it speaks to a player's ability to lead and elevate the players around him.
The league is full of players who could likely put up great numbers on mediocre to crappy teams.
Ricky Davis averaged nearly 21/6/5 for a Cavs team that won only 17 games that year.
Mike James put up 20 points and 6 assists a night for a 27 win Raptors squad.
Those are career role players whose numbers didn't even get them in the All-Star conversation because most people understand numbers are hollow if they don't correlate to team success.
NBAFan93 wrote:These are individual awards - what was Houston’s record when Harden was out hurt?
The Rockets were 4-3 when Harden was out with his hamstring injury.
They are 26-2 since his return.
I’m not talking about deep in the lottery teams, but a team that has a winning record is successful enough that their main guy should be MVP-worthy if they are having a great year. The Cavs have had their issues, but LeBron has more than proved his value this season to be a MVP candidate.
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People take team success just too far sometimes.
If players from middling teams should be eligible why not players from bottom feeders?
Doesn't the difference between those two represent the same bias toward team success as the difference between a mediocre team and a contender?
That's one of the problems with diminishing the onus on winning.
If you deprioritize the value of team success then fairness dictates you open it up for all teams. Unfortunately, that ultimately presents the specter of rewarding guys putting up hollow stats on awful teams. Guys who don't have the pressure and expectations of guys leading contending squads.
That's why Westbrook's MVP remains controversial even for some voters.
Once the novelty of the triple double wears off you're left with the reality that the league's preeminent award was given to a guy on a 6th seeded team that, as expected, got eviscerated in the post season.
It's not unreasonable that some fans and voters would have an issue with giving that type of accolade to a player on a team that has virtually no expectation of post-season success.
It undermines the precept that the game is about winning.
Again, I can understand why a Thunder fan would feel the way you do. Lack of team success was one of the biggest knocks on Westbrook's award winning season last year.
But, Russ' MVP was the textbook definition of an anomaly. It was the convergence of several factors (Durant's defection, Triple Double spectacle, Scrub teammates narrative) that culminated in a situation where voters felt comfortable eschewing tradition MVP standards for what was viewed as a unique set of circumstances.
However, it wasn't a shift from the widely held belief that team success is an integral measure for a league MVP.
Notice that, despite putting up similar numbers, Westbrook may not even finish in the top 5 MVP voting this year.