BoatsNZones wrote:VDT wrote:psimanic1 wrote:So quitting on your team before season even starts, even if you go to worst team in the league, shouldnt affect your chances for most VALUABLE player, but also remove those games that you missed from the team you quit on
The MVP is a narrative based award to a large degree. I dont think anyone will hold it against him that he was not trying in Houston (other than the first couple of games). I see that as a belated off season trade basically. The number of games (assuming we do bot count his Rockets games) is a more valid reason to hurt his MVP chances if he doesnt miss any other games other than the initial 13 it might be enough. I dont think that the narrative is in his favor however. Jokic will win it if the Nuggets improve in the standings as he is a more appealing candidate for various reasons. Strictly in terms of impact however, Harden has a much better record playing with probably less talent around him.
Even with all this missed time from Kyrie and KD, the Nets offense maintains a
117 offensive rating (top 5 level in the NBA) with Harden on the bench. And their defense improves. The Nuggets on the other hand go from a 122 offensive rating with Joker on the floor to a bottom dwelling 107.9 with him on the bench.
And yes, voters are going to rightfully hold that early stint from Harden against him. It’s not an insignificant part of his season. Bill Simmons (whatever you think of him) has a vote and was open about that from day one.
He - like every other player in the league - also has absolutely zero statistical case over Joker.
The Nets are even better with Harden. Moreover, Harden plays almost 39 min per game so the off stats suffer from small sample size and probably playing against back ups.
On the other hand, Jokic improves the Nuggets offense significantly (partly due to the system of the Nuggets) but he craters their defense.
Most of the statistical evidence provided in favor of Jokic is box score or box score derived stats that also generally fail to capture the defensive impact of a player. Even worse some of them dont even normalize to the minutes played making the comparison meaningless. If you see stats that actually try to measure the impact of the player, you will see that for example Jokic is 8th in rpm behind Lebron, Curry, Embiid, Giannis.
In terms of the actual impart on court the Nuggets record is not very impressive and Jokic has more to work with than someone like Harden who has a much better record.
In the end Jokic may win the award, he hasnt won before so there is no voter fatigue (like for Harden and Giannis) and other players (Durant, Lebron, Embiid) have been injured but it will not be a particularly impressive mvp campaign imo.
