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

[Oscar9992]

Shai doesn't seem to impact the game the way Luka does. He is efficient scorer. That's it. Never led his team to the Playoffs yet & unproven yet.

I would rather face OKC than Clippers, Nuggets or Suns in the Playoffs.

[Bob8]

Maybe team position has something's to do with Mavs injuries? OKC has played with the same starting lineup the most times in Nba, Mavs the least. Kyrie missing 22 games alone.

Like things are looking today, Mavs with pretty easy schedule and if they stay healthy, they can easily finish 5th and OKC 4th. And I doubt very much that OKC would be a favourite in that series. And I doubt even less than those +/- will have any kind of meaning in that series.

Even more important than the absences of Irving were those of Lively since they had zero depth, Powell is a decent 3rd string C at best and Holmes all around terrible. Without Lively Mavs needed Luka in god mode just to survive.
22/14 record with Lively and 8/9 without him.
Now with Kleber finally back and the addition of Gafford things are much more balanced.

IWith Joel out of the picture, and barring more injuries, i think this is a 2 man race, if the Mavs record isn't too far from the Nuggets it's a coin toss between them, otherwise Jokic wins in a landslide.

It’s a 2-man race all right but it’s between Jokic and SGA unless Giannis or Luka gets their team the 1 seed. I don’t see any argument Luka has over SGA except one head to head game. SGA destroys him in every cumulative stat and has way better on/off, and his team’s playing better too. Honestly, LeBron has about as good of a case over Luka as Luka has over SGA.

I don't understand why +/- apologists are talking about 2 man race? Jokic has 18 on/off and SGA only 12? There is no real comparison there. Jokic should win easily. And interesting enough, all of us, who don't believe in +/-, won't have any problems giving MVP to Jokic. There's just no comparison between what Jokic is doing for Denver and what SGA is doing for OKC. First is the whole system, second is efficient scorer. Watching Jokic is poetic experience, watching SGA is watching someone, who's special in midrange shooting and drawing fouls. Just imagine, if the whole league would have been playing like that? There won't be anybody watching. I don't believe that being MVP is just about advanced stats, you should look as MVP too.

[Bob8]

What about SGA in previous year's? How you can totally dismiss his first 5 years, because he had great first half of this year? How is possible that your analytic mind doesn't at least have some doubt, how could he turned +/- overnight dramatically? Can someone have average +/- for 5 years and then suddenly becomes a monster? Why don't you look what has changed with Thunder's roster this season? Some new important players? Having the same starting lineup for 47 games? I'm asking you for the 3rd time, why SGA made this jump in year 6? Please for the answer.

I'm sure that you're not Luka hater, I just believe that your tool is wrong to evaluate single player impact. Your tool is useful for finding best lineups and evalute lineups in one roster. To have proper, realistic comparison between Luka and SGA, they should have played with the same roster. Or they at least have to have similar team construction, similar starting lineups, similar bench and similar problems with injuries. Mavs are total outliner in all all those areas in comparison to others playoffs teams. They have for years far the worst starting lineup and pretty good bench, Luka has for years great replacement, Brunson/Kyrie, on his position and they were hit the most with injuries this year. Please explain to me how +/- is adjusted to all those differences?

But what I accused you of, that you're totally dismissing all other data, eye test including, and blindly believe in just one tool. Yes blindly. Luka can average 70/30/30 with fantastic efficiency from now on and your numbers and you would still have SGA better.

Luka and SGA has played 2 games against each other this year. And it was total domination by Luka, not only by numbers, but with the way he led his team. Anyone could see the difference. Unfortunately for Mavs, roster construction and problems with injuries count in basketball too. Not even MJ could do much without proper help. Your answer would be small sample size, my would be, why would have meaningless blowout games bigger impact thsn head2head? This is basketball, the best players play, when game is on the line, when every possession matters, not when their team leads by 20+. You can have negative +/- and be far the most impactful player on the court. MJ was not special because he dominated scoring from his first year, but because he made the basket every time, when it was the most important and D knew that he's taking last shot, but couldn't do anything about that.

You're implying how in playoffs everything might change. But it shouldn't, if your tool is working right. The most impactful player of the RS, should be in the top in playoffs too. But I have a feeling that especially SGA's impact will fall off dramatically. No more blowups, more minutes, more double teams for him, less FTs...and very likely first round exit.

Re: what about Shai's previous years? I mean, a young star is supposed to get better.

Re: dismiss first 5 years. Not when I talk about Shai's career. But when talking about the MVP this season, I tend to focus on this season. (May seem different because of the Luka conversation, but we get into earlier seasons there largely because people try to use small sample size as a reason to dismiss this season's +/- data on its own.)

Re: how could he turned +/- overnight dramatically? Well, that's the most valuable question, and also a very complicated answer that I wouldn't claim to have any monopoly on. Thread-worthy, in other words.

Wherever you see a guy with high primacy & big minutes spike like this, there's a meaningful set of causes to look into and understand.

I can speak to it more later, but try to avoid looking to discredit the data by discrediting me. You should try to explain the data yourself without looking to dismiss it as being an improvement of everything except Shai and see what you come up with.

Re: 70/30/30 and you'd still ignore. I don't and wouldn't ignore any of this data. I just recognize that it doesn't capture the entirety of the competition, and that if that data doesn't match other data, there's other stuff going on that is significant.

Re: Luka beat Shai badly! Cool, and the data for those games exist, just as the data for all the other games do. The head-to-head may end up deciding a playoff series, but what happens against the other 28 opponents matters too.

Re: can be most impactful with negative +/-. In a game this is not common but possible. In a season, in the NBA, this is very, very unlikely.

Re: Jordan. Jordan has outstanding +/- by what we see, just like we'd expect.

When you will have time for more detailed explanations, what is behind of incredible +/- SGA's rising, I would like to hear what is behind unbelievable fall of Steph Curry too? Last year + 5.8 +/- on court, + 8 on/off; this year -0.2 on court and -4.9 on/off. Are Warriors really much better without him on the court? Has he become negative player overnight? Thanks.

Btw. I have find a reason for those big differences in +/- between players by looking at what happened to Steph. The same reason is very big factor for Luka never having great +/-.

[Zespetjest]

Lol at SGA over Luka. SGA was just lucky his team basicly had no problems with injuries so far, while Mavs were more or less whole season without at lest 2-3 starters, sometimes even without all 5.

[QPR]

Lol at SGA over Luka. SGA was just lucky his team basicly had no problems with injuries so far, while Mavs were more or less whole season without at lest 2-3 starters, sometimes even without all 5.

You do realise SGA's individual season stacks up with just about anyone? He's been.an.efficient two-way monster.by pretty much any metric. OKC's record just strengthens.his candidacy, it doesn't create it.

[Bob8]

Lol at SGA over Luka. SGA was just lucky his team basicly had no problems with injuries so far, while Mavs were more or less whole season without at lest 2-3 starters, sometimes even without all 5.

You do realise SGA's individual season stacks up with just about anyone? He's been.an.efficient two-way monster.by pretty much any metric. OKC's record just strengthens.his candidacy, it doesn't create it.

He's saying that playing 47x with the same starting lineup is much better than playing almost every game without few starters. And even more importantly, 2 the most important players for Mavs after Luka, have missed 22 and 17 games. Now tell me, would SGA and Thunder have the same success, if Chet and JWill would have missed 40 games together? And all other starters 10 or more? Do you believe that SGA's +/- would be the same, if he had to play with bench players mostly?

You don't need to guess, you can look at 2 years back, when those 2 weren't in the team. His +/- was -6.8 back then. Yes I know, he became in 1.5 calendar year so much better, that his +/- ballooned for 18 points. And that has nothing to do with Thunder getting much better starting lineup?

[Exp0sed]

Lol at SGA over Luka. SGA was just lucky his team basicly had no problems with injuries so far, while Mavs were more or less whole season without at lest 2-3 starters, sometimes even without all 5.

if ur talking about as a player in general, than yes Luka > SGA, but we're discussing MVP's - games played and team record are very important. it's not who did the most with the least award...yes SGA has been lucky to have two very productive players playing alongside him and all of them (including himself) being healthy and available

it's not "lol" to have SGA over Luka atm in MVP talk, tho that could change there's still plenty left to play

[BigGargamel]

Shai doesn't seem to impact the game the way Luka does. He is efficient scorer. That's it. Never led his team to the Playoffs yet & unproven yet.

I would rather face OKC than Clippers, Nuggets or Suns in the Playoffs.

Lol at SGA over Luka. SGA was just lucky his team basicly had no problems with injuries so far, while Mavs were more or less whole season without at lest 2-3 starters, sometimes even without all 5.

Mavericks fans the most blatant homers on this board, I see.

Don't have to downplay SGA's season to up Luka's. Both are candidates.

[JHFVF07]

Insane statistical facts about SGA & Luka

Read on Twitter

This one is brutal!

Edit: what I read here is that Doncic is a worst player cause he plays for a bad coach, dumb GM and stupid owner, while being too good, from day one, to allow his team to tank, like OKC did with SGA.

[Oscar9992]

Shai doesn't seem to impact the game the way Luka does. He is efficient scorer. That's it. Never led his team to the Playoffs yet & unproven yet.

I would rather face OKC than Clippers, Nuggets or Suns in the Playoffs.

Lol at SGA over Luka. SGA was just lucky his team basicly had no problems with injuries so far, while Mavs were more or less whole season without at lest 2-3 starters, sometimes even without all 5.

Mavericks fans the most blatant homers on this board, I see.

Don't have to downplay SGA's season to up Luka's. Both are candidates.

What I've said isn't true? Shai never led any team to the Playoffs. We don't know how good is he in the Playoffs yet.

[Archx]

Mavericks fans the most blatant homers on this board, I see.

Don't have to downplay SGA's season to up Luka's. Both are candidates.

I think most of it is media's fault. How they talk about SGA vs Doncic and what one is able to do while other can't do. A lot of context has been left out for both players and narratives shifted a lot of times. Just some time ago Shaq talked how he prefers SGA because he is better at getting his teammates involved, etc... Stuff like that will raise a lot of eyebrows and then entire fanbase will go on the counter offensive.

Think of what Embiid vs Jokic has been. You can find some similarities.

[Oscar9992]

Mavericks fans the most blatant homers on this board, I see.

Don't have to downplay SGA's season to up Luka's. Both are candidates.

I think most of it is media's fault. How they talk about SGA vs Doncic and what one is able to do while other can't do. A lot of context has been left out for both players and narratives shifted a lot of times. Just some time ago Shaq talked how he prefers SGA because he is better at getting his teammates involved, etc... Stuff like that will raise a lot of eyebrows and then entire fanbase will go on the counter offensive.

Think of what Embiid vs Jokic has been. You can find some similarities.

I don't know how I'm a homer for saying obvious things. SGA drafted the same year as Luka but yet to lead his team into the Playoffs. He had a one playoff appearance in his rookie year where he was just a role player.

We don't know how SGA will perform as a 1'st choice in the Playoffs yet. He is unproven commodity rn.

[Archx]

Mavericks fans the most blatant homers on this board, I see.

Don't have to downplay SGA's season to up Luka's. Both are candidates.

I think most of it is media's fault. How they talk about SGA vs Doncic and what one is able to do while other can't do. A lot of context has been left out for both players and narratives shifted a lot of times. Just some time ago Shaq talked how he prefers SGA because he is better at getting his teammates involved, etc... Stuff like that will raise a lot of eyebrows and then entire fanbase will go on the counter offensive.

Think of what Embiid vs Jokic has been. You can find some similarities.

I don't know how I'm a homer for saying obvious things. SGA drafted the same year as Luka but yet to lead his team into the Playoffs. He had a one playoff appearance in his rookie year where he was just a role player.

We don't know how SGA will perform as a 1'st choice in the Playoffs yet.

I know what you mean but we're basically talking about MVP not who's better. I think?

So, to some point, it's a very fair debate but like i said a lot of things get taken out of the context when people only start reading statistics. And we know a lot of media people don't actually watch games and do the same and start pushing false narratives which will anger certain fanbase.

[Dadouv47]

Shai doesn't seem to impact the game the way Luka does. He is efficient scorer. That's it. Never led his team to the Playoffs yet & unproven yet.

I would rather face OKC than Clippers, Nuggets or Suns in the Playoffs.

I agree with this but that's nothing to do with SGA case for MVP. Nuggets are the best team in the NBA, Clippers currently playing the best basketball in the league and the Suns big 3 is still scary as hell.

SGA impacts the game on defense so much...the gap between him and Luka in defense is so big that it makes up from Luka being a way better passer than Shai.

[Oscar9992]

Shai doesn't seem to impact the game the way Luka does. He is efficient scorer. That's it. Never led his team to the Playoffs yet & unproven yet.

I would rather face OKC than Clippers, Nuggets or Suns in the Playoffs.

I agree with this but that's nothing to do with SGA case for MVP. Nuggets are the best team in the NBA, Clippers currently playing the best basketball in the league and the Suns big 3 is still scary as hell.

SGA impacts the game on defense so much...the gap between him and Luka in defense is so big that it makes up from Luka being a way better passer than Shai.

Why did he never lead OKC to the Playoffs? We don't know how good he is until he shows up in Playoffs.

Booker, Mitchell, Tatum are all more proven there. SGA is yet to showcase he belongs in the same conversation. He is unproven rn.

[Bob8]

Shai doesn't seem to impact the game the way Luka does. He is efficient scorer. That's it. Never led his team to the Playoffs yet & unproven yet.

I would rather face OKC than Clippers, Nuggets or Suns in the Playoffs.

I agree with this but that's nothing to do with SGA case for MVP. Nuggets are the best team in the NBA, Clippers currently playing the best basketball in the league and the Suns big 3 is still scary as hell.

SGA impacts the game on defense so much...the gap between him and Luka in defense is so big that it makes up from Luka being a way better passer than Shai.

You mean the gap between Mavs' and OKC's team D? OKC has 5th team D and Mavs 22th team D. I agree that SGA's is better defender than Luka, but the difference is not as big as advanced stats are telling. I will explain to you, where is the catch on Curry's case.

Do you agree that Curry was never good defender? And somehow Warriors had always one of the top D. in the league. And do you know what happened this year? Curry's defensive rating plunged, taking his +/- together in the hole. Do you think that's because Curry overnight became 10x worse defender? Or maybe his defensive rating has something to do with bad D of Warriors' starting lineup? Curry has identical offensive rating than last year, but defensive rating plunged by 6 points. Warriors team D is only on 20th place this year, so we can safely say, knowing that he was never important player for Warriors D, that's very unlikely that he's the reason for that.

When you have generational player in offensive side, GM should build the right team around him. Warriors were incredibly successful in doing that and that's why they dominated for many years. They maximised Curry's shooting and his gravity and hid him in team's D. Mavs were extremely unsuccessful in that, you can't have 0 defensive bigs and 0 bigger defensive wings in the lineup with Luka. Powell as the starting C?

Mavs addressed that problem with drafting Lively, who unfortunately missed 1/3 of the games, and with trades few days ago, I believe Luka's defensive data will suddenly be much better. And that better team D will eventually bring more wins too.

And for my +/- apologists, do you know what happens, if someones offensive rating stays the same and his defensive rating skyrocks?

[Mavrelous]

SGA is ahead of Luka in MVP talks, I'm not sure why is this surprising to people.
Steph had an ATG season in 20-21, led the league in scoring at 32 PPG, on 48/42/92 shooting splits, carried a very limited team to 8th seed, but lost in play in, and finished 3rd in MVP voting.
Luka will need to move to 5th seed to get into the conversation, and if SGA takes OKC to top 2 spots, voters will still favour SGA regardless, team success is crucial in MVP, despite it being individual award.
Let the season play out, both players need to stay on their top game to stay in the race, both have a lot to prove after missing the PO last season.

[timO]

still talking about if luka makes the play-in chances?

this is mvp thread folks

[yoyoboy]

I struggle to think of a time when someone on an average team with uninspiring impact stats ever got close to the MVP push that Luka is getting right now.

[Jadoogar]

[quote="Oscar9992"]Shai doesn't seem to impact the game the way Luka does. He is efficient scorer. That's it. Never led his team to the Playoffs yet & unproven yet.

I would rather face OKC than Clippers, Nuggets or Suns in the Playoffs.[/quote]

This is true but it also doesn't have anything to do with SGA"s MVP cases.
Clippers, Nuggets and Suns are all experienced teams with playoff proven superstars, the Thunder's starting lineup includes a rookie and a second year player.