NBA MVP Discussion '20-'21, Part 2 (Poll created 21 March '21)

[Whopper_Sr]

I think Jokic deserves MVP this season and will win it, unless Denver finish really poorly.
But hypothetically if Embiid had played the full season.....would Jokic have any case for MVP over Embiid?
Embiid is one of the best offensive players, and one of the best defensive players.....so how would Jokic be better than Embiid?
Jokic is seemingly incapable of ever reaching Embiid's level.....because the gap is way too big defensively.....and the gap is not big enough offensively.

Embiid has the better cast and coaching (they are doing just fine without Embiid) and he also plays in the East. Jokic is the best offensive player right now and Embiid is not even top 10 on that end. The only advantage he has over Jokic on defense is rim protection as neither can guard perimeter players. So I'd say the offensive gap is bigger than the defensive gap between them.

[Kurtz]

Your not counting team record which is major factor

Team records, as it stands, is 24-16 for Harden compared to 27-18 for Jokic. Harden's win percentage this year is 65% compared to Jokic's 60%. Not enough of a gap to overcome the massive lead in stats Jokic has over him.

The day Harden was traded the Nets record was 7-6. It is now 31-15 giving him a record of 24-9 playing largely without Durant and at times without Irving, i.e with less talent than Jokic. I dont really care who wins the MVP award but including his Rockets record doesnt make sense if you want to evaluate how valuable he is as a player.

The day Harden was traded from Houston, his record was 3-6. You should add that on to Brooklyn's record to get a more accurate tally of his team record.

[Kurtz]

I think Jokic deserves MVP this season and will win it, unless Denver finish really poorly.
But hypothetically if Embiid had played the full season.....would Jokic have any case for MVP over Embiid?
Embiid is one of the best offensive players, and one of the best defensive players.....so how would Jokic be better than Embiid?
Jokic is seemingly incapable of ever reaching Embiid's level.....because the gap is way too big defensively.....and the gap is not big enough offensively.

They are roughly even in scoring/rebounding. Jokic has the big edge in playmaking, however. Embiid the edge on defense. Which of the two is more important? I would probably go with defense for a C, but it's an interesting question.

I would agree that Embiid likely had the mvp edge, but with missing a quarter of the season it's untenable for him to win it.

[NADALalot]

I think Jokic deserves MVP this season and will win it, unless Denver finish really poorly.
But hypothetically if Embiid had played the full season.....would Jokic have any case for MVP over Embiid?
Embiid is one of the best offensive players, and one of the best defensive players.....so how would Jokic be better than Embiid?
Jokic is seemingly incapable of ever reaching Embiid's level.....because the gap is way too big defensively.....and the gap is not big enough offensively.

They are roughly even in scoring/rebounding. Jokic has the big edge in playmaking, however. Embiid the edge on defense. Which of the two is more important? I would probably go with defense for a C, but it's an interesting question.

I would agree that Embiid likely had the mvp edge, but with missing a quarter of the season it's untenable for him to win it.

I agree Embiid has absolutely no chance of winning MVP.

[VDT]

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.

Lol at “partly due to Denver’s system”. Jokic IS the system.

Lol again at “more to work with”. How many games Harden play with Kyrie? What does Jokic have? Inconsistent Murray? Millsaps corpse? Barton the chucker? MPJ has been improving but he was hurt for a chunk of the year and rusty after that.

As far as defense, well, when you have guys like MPJ and Jamal Murray as your first form of defense, it’s shocking that they castle often gets sieged. Jokic isn’t a rim protector, but he’s a very competent defender.

Yes the Nuggets dont have anyone else to run the offense at a competent level so their offense looks bad when Jokic sits. If your offense is run by a player and you dont have anyone else as a decent backup your offense will suffer when this player sits. At the same time the stats will tend to overrate the players impact because of how the team is built.

Harden plays without Durant and with Kyrie missing games on a team with several holes on the roster after the trades/injuries. He has less talent around him on average than Jokic. And yet he has a much better record than Jokic.

So now the problem is Murray and MPJ? Not that they are good defenders but 1. Jokic is the center, last line of defense and 2. The defense is much better without Jokic.

[VDT]

Team records, as it stands, is 24-16 for Harden compared to 27-18 for Jokic. Harden's win percentage this year is 65% compared to Jokic's 60%. Not enough of a gap to overcome the massive lead in stats Jokic has over him.

The day Harden was traded the Nets record was 7-6. It is now 31-15 giving him a record of 24-9 playing largely without Durant and at times without Irving, i.e with less talent than Jokic. I dont really care who wins the MVP award but including his Rockets record doesnt make sense if you want to evaluate how valuable he is as a player.

The day Harden was traded from Houston, his record was 3-6. You should add that on to Brooklyn's record to get a more accurate tally of his team record.

You are certainly allowed to view it like that but counting the games a players was obviously not trying to win in order to estimate his impact is not useful imo. I see it more as a late off season trade, which is what should have happened, and disregard completely his games with the Rockets. Basically as if Harden was traded in the off season and missed the first 10 or so games.

[psimanic1]

Guy is bashing Jokic defense while also talking about Harden as MVP... I cant, I just cant..

[NADALalot]

Guy is bashing Jokic defense while also talking about Harden as MVP... I cant, I just cant..

But Denver is almost 7 games behind the top seed, while Brooklyn has a great chance of finishing #1.....and winning has always been the biggest factor for MVP, except for when Westbrook won it for a stupid triple double.

[ACMFFL]

Guy is bashing Jokic defense while also talking about Harden as MVP... I cant, I just cant..

But Denver is almost 7 games behind the top seed, while Brooklyn has a great chance of finishing #1.....and winning has always been the biggest factor for MVP, except for when Westbrook won it for a stupid triple double.

Denver is just 3 games behind BRK, and they play in a stronger conference..

[Infinite Llamas]

Guy is bashing Jokic defense while also talking about Harden as MVP... I cant, I just cant..

But Denver is almost 7 games behind the top seed, while Brooklyn has a great chance of finishing #1.....and winning has always been the biggest factor for MVP, except for when Westbrook won it for a stupid triple double.

How many games would BRK be behind the Jazz? Conferences are a real thing.

[Kurtz]

The day Harden was traded the Nets record was 7-6. It is now 31-15 giving him a record of 24-9 playing largely without Durant and at times without Irving, i.e with less talent than Jokic. I dont really care who wins the MVP award but including his Rockets record doesnt make sense if you want to evaluate how valuable he is as a player.

The day Harden was traded from Houston, his record was 3-6. You should add that on to Brooklyn's record to get a more accurate tally of his team record.

You are certainly allowed to view it like that but counting the games a players was obviously not trying to win in order to estimate his impact is not useful imo. I see it more as a late off season trade, which is what should have happened, and disregard completely his games with the Rockets. Basically as if Harden was traded in the off season and missed the first 10 or so games.

Ok, but if we agree that Harden purposefully tanked a quarter of his season to date, how could anyone vote for him for MVP? It's worse than missing a quarter of your games to injury - which we agree is already disqualifying.

[JN61]

Guy is bashing Jokic defense while also talking about Harden as MVP... I cant, I just cant..

But Denver is almost 7 games behind the top seed, while Brooklyn has a great chance of finishing #1.....and winning has always been the biggest factor for MVP, except for when Westbrook won it for a stupid triple double.

Denver is just 3 games behind BRK, and they play in a stronger conference..

But... Nets 3rd best player has missed 15 games and the best player has missed 27 games.... That is way more missed games than what Lakers had on their top players. Why not give Harden credit? He is carrying them with near triple double averages in 20 some games.

[ACMFFL]

But Denver is almost 7 games behind the top seed, while Brooklyn has a great chance of finishing #1.....and winning has always been the biggest factor for MVP, except for when Westbrook won it for a stupid triple double.

Denver is just 3 games behind BRK, and they play in a stronger conference..

But... Nets 3rd best player has missed 15 games and the best player has missed 27 games.... That is way more missed games than what Lakers had on their top players. Why not give Harden credit? He is carrying them with near triple double averages in 20 some games.

My post doesn't imply I don't give him credit. Harden is for sure in the MVP convo, to me he is just behind Jokic.

[BoatsNZones]

Guy is bashing Jokic defense while also talking about Harden as MVP... I cant, I just cant..

But Denver is almost 7 games behind the top seed, while Brooklyn has a great chance of finishing #1.....and winning has always been the biggest factor for MVP, except for when Westbrook won it for a stupid triple double.

Denver is just 3 games behind BRK, and they play in a stronger conference..

To add to that, the Nuggets have a clearly better SRS than Brooklyn. They have been the better team.

Anyway, Joker is a massive favorite over every other player for a reason (-125 for Joker. Harden is +700 with Embiid/Lebron, and Giannis just behind them). He's the MVP.

https://www.sportsbettingdime.com/news/nba/james-harden-now-2nd-updated-2021-mvp-odds/

[Jurassic_Park]

Embiid set to return April 3?

"I think he'll join us when we get back from the road trip. He's still doing some rehab work, we want him to get through that, we're not going to force him back or push him back," Rivers said. "Even when he's cleared to play, conditioning is a factor."

Can embiid still win if he returns on april 3? That will be 17 missed games (23%) of the season, assuming he plays every other remaining game.

[BoatsNZones]

Embiid set to return April 3?

"I think he'll join us when we get back from the road trip. He's still doing some rehab work, we want him to get through that, we're not going to force him back or push him back," Rivers said. "Even when he's cleared to play, conditioning is a factor."

Can embiid still win if he returns on april 3? That will be 17 missed games (23%) of the season, assuming he plays every other remaining game.

They've maintained 1st place with a 6-2 record without him in this juncture and his stats don't stack up to Jokic as is. It would be an absolute farce if he did missing 1/4th of the season while Joker continues to climb the standings while not missing a single game in a stacked West.

[Alatan]

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.

Lol at “partly due to Denver’s system”. Jokic IS the system.

Lol again at “more to work with”. How many games Harden play with Kyrie? What does Jokic have? Inconsistent Murray? Millsaps corpse? Barton the chucker? MPJ has been improving but he was hurt for a chunk of the year and rusty after that.

As far as defense, well, when you have guys like MPJ and Jamal Murray as your first form of defense, it’s shocking that they castle often gets sieged. Jokic isn’t a rim protector, but he’s a very competent defender.

Yes the Nuggets dont have anyone else to run the offense at a competent level so their offense looks bad when Jokic sits. If your offense is run by a player and you dont have anyone else as a decent backup your offense will suffer when this player sits. At the same time the stats will tend to overrate the players impact because of how the team is built.

Harden plays without Durant and with Kyrie missing games on a team with several holes on the roster after the trades/injuries. He has less talent around him on average than Jokic. And yet he has a much better record than Jokic.

So now the problem is Murray and MPJ? Not that they are good defenders but 1. Jokic is the center, last line of defense and 2. The defense is much better without Jokic.

The bolded part is really odd since Jokic apparently has more help than a guy playing with freaking KD and Irving...

And stop it with the narrative that Harden plays alone. Harden played only 6 games without both Irving and KD. He also wasnt with the Nets for their 1st 13 games.

[Duke4life831]

But Denver is almost 7 games behind the top seed, while Brooklyn has a great chance of finishing #1.....and winning has always been the biggest factor for MVP, except for when Westbrook won it for a stupid triple double.

Denver is just 3 games behind BRK, and they play in a stronger conference..

But... Nets 3rd best player has missed 15 games and the best player has missed 27 games.... That is way more missed games than what Lakers had on their top players. Why not give Harden credit? He is carrying them with near triple double averages in 20 some games.

Harden has played 31 games with the Nets, out of those 31 game he has played 6 games without Kyrie and KD, in those 6 games the Nets are 4-2.

So 25 out of his 31 games, he has played alongside a superstar player (Kyrie has no doubt played like a superstar this year). That isnt that many games of him being by himself carrying that roster.

[VDT]

The bolded part is really odd since Jokic apparently has more help than a guy playing with freaking KD and Irving...

He is not playing with them though. As you said:

And stop it with the narrative that Harden plays alone. Harden played only 5 games without both Irving and KD. He played 7 games with both, 2 with KD, 16 with Irving and 5 without either. He also wasnt with the Nets for their 1st 13 games.

So in his 31 games on a top heavy team with no depth he played 9 games with Durant and 23 games with Irving. How is that more talent than Jokic? And his record since the trade is 23-8.

[Alatan]

The bolded part is really odd since Jokic apparently has more help than a guy playing with freaking KD and Irving...

He is not playing with them though. As you said:

And stop it with the narrative that Harden plays alone. Harden played only 5 games without both Irving and KD. He played 7 games with both, 2 with KD, 16 with Irving and 5 without either. He also wasnt with the Nets for their 1st 13 games.

So in his 31 games on a top heavy team with no depth he played 9 games with Durant and 23 games with Irving. How is that more talent than Jokic? And his record since the trade is 23-8.

Yes its more talent that what Jokic had to work with.
Nuggets/Nets
Take Jokic and Harden aside and we are left with:
Murray vs Irving Nets better.
MPJ vs Harris Similar production but with MPJ playing worse in the beginning and better now.
Old man Millsap vs old man Jordan. Millsap is probably better but not by much at this stage of his career.
J. Green vs J. Green. Similar production.
Campazzo vs Shamet similar production.
Pj. Dozzier vs TLC similar production.
Hartenstein vs Claxton Nets much better.
Morris vs Brown Hard to compare but there is no significant advantage in either case.
And then Denver has Barton instead of KD.

Il trade you Barton for KD if you like him so much.