NBA MVP Discussion Thread 2022-23 (part 5 - The Final-er MVP Countdown!)

[SpreeS]

Westbrook got MVP for TD so sorry Jokic not this time

[Dirk]

Imagine this eyeatoma. Imagine Jokic didn't exist. Imagine Embiid won the last 2 MVPs. Then imagine that this season, Embiid went to a new level where he was literally twice as good as he is right now. He turned the Sixers from a -1 team when he was on the bench to a +20 team when he was on the floor. He raised his (good) supporting cast enough that they were sitting at 65-13. 2/3 of the way through the season, it was near unanimous that double Embiid would win the MVP with arguably the best season of all-time. Then a straw poll came out with him dominating and the media started being like "well, is it REALLY fair that Embiid wins 3 MVPs in a row when he's never even made the conference finals? It's kind of racist against Americans that all these international players keep winning every year and Embiid and GIannis both have 2 MVPs already. Let's give it to Jayson Tatum instead. You know Tatum's a better passer than Embiid, passing's a big part of the game."

And then, due to this stupid, idiotic narrative, even though Tatum hadn't outplayed Embiid meaningfully at all since Embiid was a huge favorite, all of a sudden Tatum was a 6:1 favorite to win MVP. Would you be pissed? Would that upset you at all that instead of people focusing on double Embiid having the greatest season of all-time they just posted lowlights of his passing and made fun of it and said that Tatum was actually better even though double Embiid crushed him by every meaningful metric? If Embiid was so dominant that not only did the top 6 metrics according to NBA GMs have him in first, but one of them had a bigger difference between Embiid in 1st and Tatum in 2nd than they had between Tatum in 2nd and Okogie in 63rd and people were still like "meh, **** it, let's ignore all the evidence and give it to Tatum". Would that piss you off at all?

Very well written!
The problem with people like eyeatoma is that they are trapped in their confirmation bias. It is basically impossible to be empathetic to other thoughts (even the most reasonable ones). Just to hang on their narrative. Does unfortunately not end with basketball discussions. The bias is so strong, that they don´t even care one bit about their likeability. So so so sad.

Cry more

If you don't want people to get "personal", then at the very least don't write stuff like this.

Days back, Embiid lost it all when he "ducked" Jokic. Now he is going to win the MVP and some may perceive you as gloating with your "cry" talk.

Never too high, never too low.

[bebopdeluxe]

Very well written!
The problem with people like eyeatoma is that they are trapped in their confirmation bias. It is basically impossible to be empathetic to other thoughts (even the most reasonable ones). Just to hang on their narrative. Does unfortunately not end with basketball discussions. The bias is so strong, that they don´t even care one bit about their likeability. So so so sad.

Are you serious?

You can honestly read ALL of the MVP threads on the GB You his season - with ALL of the Jokic stans supporting their boy - and you get bent NOW?

Hoo-boy.

To be clear, after Rmbiid did not play in Denver I was fine with Jokic winning the MVP. But the combination of the wheels falling off of Jokic the past few days and a freaking LEGENDARY game last night probably gives it to Embiid in a photo-finish. To the Jokic stans, it might not seem fair, but recency bias is real, and the two games last night by Embiid and Jokic are simply impossible to ignore.

I knew this place would melt down if Embiid won the MVP.

On to the playoffs. Let’s see whose team goes deeper - the Sixers or the Nuggets.


Cry more

Joel wins (deservedly so) the MVP, you lose (deservedly so) in life. This forum used to be a place for well-informed, sharp-thinking people. Now it is filled with one-dimensional, intellectually dishonest and hot-headed kids like you.

[eyeatoma]

Very well written!
The problem with people like eyeatoma is that they are trapped in their confirmation bias. It is basically impossible to be empathetic to other thoughts (even the most reasonable ones). Just to hang on their narrative. Does unfortunately not end with basketball discussions. The bias is so strong, that they don´t even care one bit about their likeability. So so so sad.

Cry more

If you don't want people to get "personal", then at the very least don't write stuff like this.

Days back, Embiid lost it all when he "ducked" Jokic. Now he is going to win the MVP and some may perceive you as gloating with your "cry" talk.

Never too high, never too low.

Fair enough I can see how that comment of mine was unnecessary. However that post where he's saying Jokic was having the greatest season of all time was excessive.

It also doesn't excuse the personal comments by cd41.
Either way point taken.

Sent from my SM-S918B using Tapatalk

[MrBigShot]

Obviously the games matter more once the team is 96% locked into their current seed, right?

Bro you're in shambles right now.

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I’m a little pissed off that a disingenuous racist narrative is about to lead to the biggest MVP robbery since Dave Cowens beat Kareem in 1973, costing me $4000, yes. You can’t argue with people who don’t care about logic.

Biggest robbery since 1973? Da hell? I've been on the jokic train most of the season but some people are acting like Embiid is just sand bagging it out there.

[Sharkboy242]

Bro you're in shambles right now.

Sent from my SM-S918B using Tapatalk

I’m a little pissed off that a disingenuous racist narrative is about to lead to the biggest MVP robbery since Dave Cowens beat Kareem in 1973, costing me $4000, yes. You can’t argue with people who don’t care about logic.

Biggest robbery since 1973? Da hell? I've been on the jokic train most of the season but some people are acting like Embiid is just sand bagging it out there.

Yep, even as a big Jokic homer, sometimes you just have to tip your hat.

[CD_41]

Cry more

If you don't want people to get "personal", then at the very least don't write stuff like this.

Days back, Embiid lost it all when he "ducked" Jokic. Now he is going to win the MVP and some may perceive you as gloating with your "cry" talk.

Never too high, never too low.

Fair enough I can see how that comment of mine was unnecessary. However that post where he's saying Jokic was having the greatest season of all time was excessive.

It also doesn't excuse the personal comments by cd41.
Either way point taken.

Sent from my SM-S918B using Tapatalk

Like I said, there would be no "personal" comments if you would tone it down just a lil bit. Have some self-awareness man.

[Wolfgang630]

Chill out geez. These dudes aren’t your family members

[HardenToSixers]

Why are ya'll crying, Jokic just won the last two MVPs lol.

Imagine this eyeatoma. Imagine Jokic didn't exist. Imagine Embiid won the last 2 MVPs. Then imagine that this season, Embiid went to a new level where he was literally twice as good as he is right now. He turned the Sixers from a -1 team when he was on the bench to a +20 team when he was on the floor. He raised his (good) supporting cast enough that they were sitting at 65-13. 2/3 of the way through the season, it was near unanimous that double Embiid would win the MVP with arguably the best season of all-time. Then a straw poll came out with him dominating and the media started being like "well, is it REALLY fair that Embiid wins 3 MVPs in a row when he's never even made the conference finals? It's kind of racist against Americans that all these international players keep winning every year and Embiid and GIannis both have 2 MVPs already. Let's give it to Jayson Tatum instead. You know Tatum's a better passer than Embiid, passing's a big part of the game."

And then, due to this stupid, idiotic narrative, even though Tatum hadn't outplayed Embiid meaningfully at all since Embiid was a huge favorite, all of a sudden Tatum was a 6:1 favorite to win MVP. Would you be pissed? Would that upset you at all that instead of people focusing on double Embiid having the greatest season of all-time they just posted lowlights of his passing and made fun of it and said that Tatum was actually better even though double Embiid crushed him by every meaningful metric? If Embiid was so dominant that not only did the top 6 metrics according to NBA GMs have him in first, but one of them had a bigger difference between Embiid in 1st and Tatum in 2nd than they had between Tatum in 2nd and Okogie in 63rd and people were still like "meh, **** it, let's ignore all the evidence and give it to Tatum". Would that piss you off at all?

Since the "racist against Americans" narrative you speak of, 1) Embiid's team has done better than Jokic's, tying them in the standings 2) Embiid has taken on even more of an impressive scoring load and had several big games against tough opponents 3) Embiid has locked in defensively and looked impressive, and finally 4) Jokic missed a stretch of games towards the end of the season when voters were looking for a reason down the line to vote for one player or the other (fair or not). So your premise that the shift over the past month was entirely due to the narrative you are mentioning is not an objective fact, and in my opinion completely wrong.

Your premise that Jokic clearly deserved it more due to his performance over the beginning of the season, is also not an objective fact, despite Jokic supporters thinking that advanced stats should be the answer to any MVP decision on a go-forward basis.

I also don't believe in participation trophies, and don't believe in making illogical decisions. It sucks and I wouldn't want somebody to win something important for a stupid reason. However, MVP is inherently a stupid thing anyways. "we should give it to the best player on the best team" "oh wait but Westbrook is averaging a triple double lets give it to him" "one of KD/Steph is clearly the best player in the league, but there are two of them so we have to give it to somebody else" "Lebron is the obvious choice for MVP 10 years in a row but we can't do that" "Steve Nash"

In the world where the MVP is an extremely stupid thing, I don't think it is the most ridiculous thing in the world to have one of the factors be that it has been a tight race for many years, and Embiid getting one would make sense.

[bebopdeluxe]

I am not exactly sure how my post got embedded in Eyetoma's post above - my post is the one that starts with "Are you serious?'", but did not have the "cry more" in it. I think what I did is started my response before Eyetoma's "cry more", and it would up getting embedded there.

There is still one chapter to be written - and it will be whether the Nuggets or Sixers go farther in the playoffs. On paper, the Sixers have a tougher road to the conference finals. We will see what happens.

[HardenToSixers]

Finally, on a somewhat side, and probably more controversial note, the advanced stats supporting Jokic: I no doubt believe they have utility. I believe they could even be a tool to say one player is better than the other in certain cases. But, I think we are in an awkward period over the past X years where people (both RealGM posters and NBA analysts unfortunately) think they can substitute making a difficult comparison by pointing to a single larger number (yes, I understand multiple all-encompassing NBA stats support Jokic in this way, but a lot of them are derived from the same thing and are highly correlated).

If you asked an NBA GM "you can take one player for free ahead of your upcoming playoff run, are you taking Embiid or Jokic" and the GM said it was clear-cut to take either Embiid or Jokic, or used whichever player had the highest RPM as their decision-making process, they are probably one of the worst GMs in the league.

There are tracking metrics. There are metics to describe a player's scoring ability in certain situations. There are specific rebounding metrics. There are a plethora of metrics that NBA front offices likely use that we don't know exist.

A player's assessment should be a situational analysis of a player's impact by watching multiple games, using analytics to support your viewpoint. If this GM was picking Embiid or Jokic, the answer should be an essay filled with various metrics, reaching a final conclusion. Not a single all-encompassing metric that makes your argument easy on a RealGM or Twitter post.

This idea that Jokic is a clear-cut answer, this year or years prior, because posters want to say "look at RPM, BPM, PER, WS/48, etc. etc." and think that this derives an objective answer that does not need to be backed up, when many probably haven't watched many Embiid games with an open mindset on deciding who is better, is a flawed decision-making process that I cannot get behind.

[eyeatoma]

If you don't want people to get "personal", then at the very least don't write stuff like this.

Days back, Embiid lost it all when he "ducked" Jokic. Now he is going to win the MVP and some may perceive you as gloating with your "cry" talk.

Never too high, never too low.

Fair enough I can see how that comment of mine was unnecessary. However that post where he's saying Jokic was having the greatest season of all time was excessive.

It also doesn't excuse the personal comments by cd41.
Either way point taken.

Sent from my SM-S918B using Tapatalk

Like I said, there would be no "personal" comments if you would tone it down just a lil bit. Have some self-awareness man.

Ditto, as the poster below me said. You don't know me on personal level at all. To judge someone about who they are as a person, because they are happy that Embiid might win, especially given how toxic the discource has gotten from both sides. Wow I said cry more. Was it a little gloaty? Sure? Have you seen what's on here recently? Just lol.

Even if what I said touched a nerve for you, you went from a level 3 to a level 10 real quick.

[1993Playoffs]

Looks like Embiid will finally get his MVP

Just like Harden who was really close a few times before finally breaking through

[Zeno]

I am for whatever result generates the least discussion in the media about the MVP. I think that’s probably Embiid. Giannis probably 2nd cause they’ll talk about how Embiid hasn’t won one.

So that’s my ballot

1. Embiid
2. Giannis
3. Jokic

[CD_41]

Fair enough I can see how that comment of mine was unnecessary. However that post where he's saying Jokic was having the greatest season of all time was excessive.

It also doesn't excuse the personal comments by cd41.
Either way point taken.

Sent from my SM-S918B using Tapatalk

Like I said, there would be no "personal" comments if you would tone it down just a lil bit. Have some self-awareness man.

Ditto, as the poster below me said. You don't know me on personal level at all. To judge someone about who they are as a person, because they are happy that Embiid might win, especially given how toxic the discource has gotten from both sides. Wow I said cry more. Was it a little gloaty? Sure? Have you seen what's on here recently? Just lol.

Even if what I said touched a nerve for you, you went from a level 3 to a level 10 real quick.

I don´t have to know you on a personal level to be annoyed by your style of posting and arguing. Especially if I have the same opinion on things! Dude, it is not about you being happy for Joel (cause I am, too!).

If that is what you took from my posts, then I´m sorry for you.

[al bondiga]

Doc probably just screwed embid... jeje... Some people Don't know when to shut up... Doc just being himself... jeje

[Wolfgang630]

I am not exactly sure how my post got embedded in Eyetoma's post above - my post is the one that starts with "Are you serious?'", but did not have the "cry more" in it. I think what I did is started my response before Eyetoma's "cry more", and it would up getting embedded there.

There is still one chapter to be written - and it will be whether the Nuggets or Sixers go farther in the playoffs. On paper, the Sixers have a tougher road to the conference finals. We will see what happens.

Idk how much tougher this Sixers have it. First rounds should be easy for both. Second round Denver will most likely play Phoenix. Sixers will most likely play Boston. Phoenix has been undefeated with KD and Boston has owned Philly.

Conference finals Philly actually is pretty good against Milwaukee. Denver would probably play Memphis? Lakers? Warriors? I’d definitely say Philly has it harder in the conference finals.

[iggymcfrack]

Finally, on a somewhat side, and probably more controversial note, the advanced stats supporting Jokic: I no doubt believe they have utility. I believe they could even be a tool to say one player is better than the other in certain cases. But, I think we are in an awkward period over the past X years where people (both RealGM posters and NBA analysts unfortunately) think they can substitute making a difficult comparison by pointing to a single larger number (yes, I understand multiple all-encompassing NBA stats support Jokic in this way, but a lot of them are derived from the same thing and are highly correlated).

If you asked an NBA GM "you can take one player for free ahead of your upcoming playoff run, are you taking Embiid or Jokic" and the GM said it was clear-cut to take either Embiid or Jokic, or used whichever player had the highest RPM as their decision-making process, they are probably one of the worst GMs in the league.

There are tracking metrics. There are metics to describe a player's scoring ability in certain situations. There are specific rebounding metrics. There are a plethora of metrics that NBA front offices likely use that we don't know exist.

A player's assessment should be a situational analysis of a player's impact by watching multiple games, using analytics to support your viewpoint. If this GM was picking Embiid or Jokic, the answer should be an essay filled with various metrics, reaching a final conclusion. Not a single all-encompassing metric that makes your argument easy on a RealGM or Twitter post.

This idea that Jokic is a clear-cut answer, this year or years prior, because posters want to say "look at RPM, BPM, PER, WS/48, etc. etc." and think that this derives an objective answer that does not need to be backed up, when many probably haven't watched many Embiid games with an open mindset on deciding who is better, is a flawed decision-making process that I cannot get behind.

It’s derived from Denver being 4 points better with Jokić than the Sixers are with Philly and being 11 points worse without Jokić than the Sixers are without Philly. That’s a massive gap in team results that you can’t just handwave away, especially now that we’ve seen the numbers that both players share the court with pretty much an identical amount of starters.

Basically Jokić makes the Nuggets as much better than the Sixers as the Bucks are better than the Bulls even though the Sixers without Embiid are as much better than the Nuggets without Jokić as the Bucks are better than the Pistons. It’s a comically large gap in impact.

[timO]

Jokic is losing it.

he needs 2-3 good games now, and finish averaging triple double.

[iggymcfrack]

I am not exactly sure how my post got embedded in Eyetoma's post above - my post is the one that starts with "Are you serious?'", but did not have the "cry more" in it. I think what I did is started my response before Eyetoma's "cry more", and it would up getting embedded there.

There is still one chapter to be written - and it will be whether the Nuggets or Sixers go farther in the playoffs. On paper, the Sixers have a tougher road to the conference finals. We will see what happens.

Idk how much tougher this Sixers have it. First rounds should be easy for both. Second round Denver will most likely play Phoenix. Sixers will most likely play Boston. Phoenix has been undefeated with KD and Boston has owned Philly.

Conference finals Philly actually is pretty good against Milwaukee. Denver would probably play Memphis? Lakers? Warriors? I’d definitely say Philly has it harder in the conference finals.

You’re wrong when you say both teams will have it easy ii the first round. Nuggets could face Warriors, Lakers, or Pelicans with a freshly healthy Zion. That’s MUCH more difficult than Philly likely facing Brooklyn.