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

[psimanic1]

James, is that you?

[Ballerhogger]

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.

this

[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.

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.

That is not only wrong but full of hindsight. After the Harden trade, the talk was that the Nets were a top heavy team with no depth and no defense. People were thinking that they would have a hard time playing winning basketball with that roster. And that was assuming that Durant was healthy. Fast forward to now, Durant has missed more than 2/3 of the games, Irving has missed close to 1/3 of the games and yet the Nets are 1 game away from the first seed. But according to you Harden has played with more talent, on average, than Jokic. Even if one assumes that the talent around them was equal, Harden's record is significantly better than Jokic's.

[manchambo]

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.

Yeah, I have a very hard time counting a player intentionally tanking a significant number of games in his favor for MVP.

[DCasey91]

Wait what’s this stuff about about Harden has less to work with than Jokic?

I have Harden 2/3 but the fact is he dogged it in Rockets include that record
Didn’t Durant 4–1 without Harden?
Harden has Durant or Irving take your pick lol
He’s in the East as well

Only team that’s worse than Jokics is the Mavs
GSW/Lakers have great defense

Green, PJ, Hartenstien, Rookie,
Barton/MPJ missed a ton of time
Millsap has been cooked when I watched two years ago
Murray outside of 12 games has been wildly inconsistent nearly 50% of his games he hasn’t scored over 20

Combine the two records and Jokic is probably marginally in front

Let’s not try to compare stats/impact
Jokic is having one of the best offensive seasons all time
And we all know Harden doesn’t have anywhere near the two way impact to cover it. Cmon guys lol

Holistically Jokic has been the clear MVP by some margin for some time. Maybe it’s race or business who knows this is true if he looked like someone else the betters would be paying out already.

He doesn’t win MVP this year the NBA is a disgrace.

Harden been averaging a near triple double for 20 something games he’s carrying (which is a load of bs btw actually look at the year in totality). ummm Jokic has been doing it for the whole year. Clear as day difference.

I wonder what the real record is when you include the Rockets fiasco (cannot discount it all).

[Alatan]

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



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.

That is not only wrong but full of hindsight. After the Harden trade, the talk was that the Nets were a top heavy team with no depth and no defense. People were thinking that they would have a hard time playing winning basketball with that roster. And that was assuming that Durant was healthy. Fast forward to now, Durant has missed more than 2/3 of the games, Irving has missed close to 1/3 of the games and yet the Nets are 1 game away from the first seed. But according to you Harden has played with more talent, on average, than Jokic. Even if one assumes that the talent around them was equal, Harden's record is significantly better than Jokic's.

Again Harden has played with more talent. The Nets also are a top heavy team.
My point is that the Nuggets roster was significantly weakened at the start of the 2021 season.
Harden's record is not significantly better than Jokics because he played with either Irving or Durant sometimes both for the most of the season he was there while Jokic played with Murray. The rest of the rosters are comparable.

Nets dont have good defensive players, but guess what, neither do the Nuggets. Durant missed a lot of the season but Nuggets dont have a Durant in the first place. The games Irving missed Durant played. Harden played without a star teammate in only 6 games. Murray missed 2 games and also laid a couple of eggs where it would have been better if he didnt play but it is how it is.

People dont realize that this seasons Denver roster had a lot players missing, injured, regressed because of age or played bad because of inexperience.

Murray was hurt or purely inconsistent because who knows what at this point. Before January he actually had a below league average offensive production and awful D. He had a great stretch of games in February but has entered another slump recently.
MPJ is young, inexperienced and was often horrible on D. Luckily he is getting the hang of it as the season moves on and is playing pretty good recently.
Millsap has regressed severely. He is 36 and way past his prime. As a starter he was pretty underwhelming but we had to play him since we had no one else. He is much better suited for the bench role now where he can actually be pretty good and the Gordon trade will allow us to use him that way.
Grant left, and while he was never that great in Denver as people think he was, he was still our only true wing stater.
That left us with a hole on the wing where we had to play Barton who is actually a SG. Malone also experimented with other 3 guard lineups that went horribly.
G. Harris was pretty bad this season. He had a lot of trouble with injuries from witch he never recovered. Then he got injured again and never came back. Im sad things turned out the way they did with Harris as he was one of my favorite Nuggets and a really good player before the injuries.
Hertenstein who was supposed to replace Plumlee couldnt keep him self out of foul trouble and on the court. We basically had no other bigs as the rest are rookies who dont know what they are doing half the time.
Campazzo with all his motor and vet savvy is still 5 7 and players shoot over him like he doesnt exist. On offense he is just a spot up shooter as his playmaking hasnt translated to the NBA at all. Maybe its because Malone doesnt know how to use him but he was still a negative on the court.
Green was fine as a backup but couldnt handle starter minutes.
Barton struggled playing out of position and looks much better as the SG now that Gordon in in the lineup.

TLDR Grant leaving left us with a hole on the SF spot witch we unsuccessfully tried to fill in with guards making our D awful. Murray laid a few eggs in the meantime and the rest of the roster was either too old, injured or too young.

[Kurtz]

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



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.

That is not only wrong but full of hindsight. After the Harden trade, the talk was that the Nets were a top heavy team with no depth and no defense. People were thinking that they would have a hard time playing winning basketball with that roster. And that was assuming that Durant was healthy. Fast forward to now, Durant has missed more than 2/3 of the games, Irving has missed close to 1/3 of the games and yet the Nets are 1 game away from the first seed. But according to you Harden has played with more talent, on average, than Jokic. Even if one assumes that the talent around them was equal, Harden's record is significantly better than Jokic's.

Again - no it is not. You cannot simply excuse Harden for tanking 9 games and arbitrarily remove that from his record this season. Even if his stats were superior to that of Jokic (and they are not), his purposely tanking a quarter of the season is disqualifying.

[DCasey91]

Harden has played only 6 games without MVP/All NBA talent

Jokic?? Haha what all star besides him

What was Hardens record in on the Rockets?

I don’t think people even watch the Nuggets. Jokic has to carry the load more than anyone in the League. Can’t lay duds like Giannis and win, Can’t sit out and smoke a 9th seed

Doesn’t have Durant/Irving to go nuclear.
Hey Durant/Irving was doing fine If I remember correctly before Harden arrived?

[Big J]

I hate to say it, but Donovan has to be entering the race with his recent play.

[Jurassic_Park]

I hate to say it, but Donovan has to be entering the race with his recent play.

No he isnt. He wont and shouldnt even finish in the top 10.

[LordCovington33]

A player cannot enter any discussion based on a small stretch.
I have:
1. Jokic
2. Harden
3. Embiid

In that order

[Big J]

I hate to say it, but Donovan has to be entering the race with his recent play.

No he isnt. He wont and shouldnt even finish in the top 10.

Have you seen his numbers recently? They are really good.

[eminence]

Jokic
Gobert

Not sure who I'd put 3rd. Probably Giannis, though I'm not super comfortable with him 3peating if there's another viable option.

[Basileus777]

No one on Utah is a serious MVP candidate, that is just the reality. It'd take a historic statistical season with a historic team record to even get recognized and that is not where we are at.

[Colbinii]

No one on Utah is a serious MVP candidate, that is just the reality. It'd take a historic statistical season with a historic team record to even get recognized and that is not where we are at.

I would recommend watching Gobert and Utah play. He is the driving force for their offense and defense. His On-court rating is a notch below Steph Curry from 2015-2017 and he is the only one on the team at that level.

It's really sad Gobert isn't on the list because he is my clear-cut number 2 right behind Jokic.

[eminence]

No one on Utah is a serious MVP candidate, that is just the reality. It'd take a historic statistical season with a historic team record to even get recognized and that is not where we are at.

What's the serious argument against Gobert? (In terms of being a candidate)

[Infinite Llamas]

I hate to say it, but Donovan has to be entering the race with his recent play.

No he isnt. He wont and shouldnt even finish in the top 10.

Have you seen his numbers recently? They are really good.

Not even the best player on his own team. That honor would go to Gobert.

[DCasey91]

No one on Utah is a serious MVP candidate, that is just the reality. It'd take a historic statistical season with a historic team record to even get recognized and that is not where we are at.

What's the serious argument against Gobert?

His raw counting stats don’t jump off the page at first glance 14.6/13.3/3/1.2

His advanced metrics do though

Joakim Noah again possibly?

Stif comp though Harden/Giannis numbers just look more impressive from the eye.

And Jokic as my firm MVP for a long time (From beginning of the season until now he’s been the best by a clear margin) numbers/impact on offense is up there with the greatest in NBA history

That’s probably the serious argument/more of a discussion really.

Then there’s Embiid/Lillard/James/Doncic to contend with

Let alone Mitchell on the same team.


It’s usually an offensive laden award Pippen finished second once but he carried more of the scoring load exact same with Duncan.

Gobert in my eyes isn’t a two way player can be as efficient all you want but he isn’t anywhere near a 3 lvl scorer or a hugely dominate scoring big man either. 15ppg isn’t getting it done for MVP

[eminence]

No one on Utah is a serious MVP candidate, that is just the reality. It'd take a historic statistical season with a historic team record to even get recognized and that is not where we are at.

What's the serious argument against Gobert?

His raw counting stats don’t jump off the page at first glance 14.6/13.3/3/1.2

His advanced metrics do though

Joakim Noah again possibly?

Stif comp though Harden/Giannis numbers just look more impressive from the eye.

And Jokic as my firm MVP for a long time (From beginning of the season until now he’s been the best by a clear margin) numbers/impact on offense is up there with the greatest in NBA history

That’s probably the serious argument/more of a discussion really.

Then there’s Embiid/Lillard/James/Doncic to contend with

Let alone Mitchell on the same team.


It’s usually an offensive laden award Pippen finished second once but he carried more of the scoring load exact same with Duncan.

Gobert in my eyes isn’t a two way player can be as efficient all you want but he isn’t anywhere near a 3 lvl scorer or a hugely dominate scoring big man either. 15ppg isn’t getting it done for MVP

Jokic is my choice as well, I'll give you that one.

[DCasey91]

Scoring at an elite level and score creating/playmaking at an elite level is more important and valuable in the end

Highest score between two teams wins thus more value associated to it. There’s advanced stuff but that’s basic bball 101

As said greater offense beats great defence

The anomaly that is the Detroit Pistons the greatest defensive team ever with in my eyes the greatest defender pound for pound lost more than a handful of games because they couldn’t score enough even holding teams under 90, even 85 if memory serves correct.

I get why it’s either an elite two way player or an elite offensive juggernaught both just carry more value in the end.

To bring it home even though Ben Wallace (highest finish 7th) was by far the most important player for the Pistons system/philosophy without Billups and another person that could score in Rip etc it wasn’t going to work.