2024-25 NBA MVP Discussion Thread (Pt. 3: Son of daughter of MVP thread)

[Snake3]

Jokic currently has the highest BPM in NBA history at 13.9.

He has five out of the top 10 highest BPM. That's pretty crazy. The first and second highest BPM atm.

But BPM has some issues when it comes to DBPM. I wouldn't solely use the stat to say this player has a better season than another.

That still doesn't stop to say Jokic maybe having the best offense season of all time.

[LeBronSpaghetti]

SGA and Jokic are both at 31.5 ppg this season. But SGA, despite sitting out 10 full fourth quarters of blowout games, has scored more than 200 total points more than Jokic.

I’ll be honest, Jokic hasn’t played enough games for this to be the greatest offensive season of all time, when there’s a player that has scored 1291 points to Jokic’s 1085, 84% as many total points.

Efficiency wise, SGA is at 64.4% TS to Jokic’s 64.8%, so slight edge to Jokic but extremely close.

Jokic is obviously incredible but just looking at this season I think some of you are off the mark pretty significantly I saying that there’s some kind of tier difference for this year. And again that’s before defense and record.

Speaking of being off the mark, there’s more to offense than scoring.

[MavsDirk41]

Don't care if he does or doesn't win it. Not even a Denver fan. But when you're arguably having the best offensive peak of all time, AND you reach the 2 seed, AND have a career year with 30/13/10 on 65%ts, you deserve to win. I understand we like new things, but I'll lean towards the ATG goat offensive player in his peak over an unproven player

I think most people would agree that Jokic is the best player in the league short of Shai winning fmvp and having a dominant playoffs. You also can't just act like Denver has the 2 seed wrapped up in the west as of now for the purposes of arguing for Jokic getting another MVP since we all know that team record is one of the main factors for voting and its far from a given that Den will get the 2 seed. Okc otoh is on pace for like 68 wins and seems to have the 1 seed almost locked down and did it mostly without Chet who is expected to be back after the asb if not sooner. I say this as someone who has defended and been arguing on behalf of Jokic since like 2020.

#2 is def not "wrapped" up but they're very likely not gonna finish 5th like that poster suggested

they probably have like a 75% chance to finisn 2nd or 3rd. Jokic missing the home game vs. the Rockets last week with an elbow injury was like losing two games

P.s, Nuggets are 16-6 with WB in the starting lineup and Jokic missed two of these games, so the'yre really 16-4 with Jokic and WB. That's pretty good, no?

Its amazing how much impact Jokic can have on his teammates. Absolutely no other team wanted anything to do with Westbrook. And it was Jokic who pushed for him and Westbrook has been pretty damn good this year so far. Nobody in the nba elevates his teammates like Jokic.

[Exp0sed]

Jokic currently has the highest BPM in NBA history at 13.9.

he's having argubaly one of the best individual seasons ever so far and it's better than SGA's (incredible) season but MVP isn't strictly an individual award and that's the way it's always been. you know i'm team Jokic all the way, but a dude leading his team to 70 wins and being as good as he's been - that's ur MVP

I think some posters here would like it be strictly individual and that's how they define "the most valuable" but that's not what this award historicaly was or how it's been awarded

Arguably the best. The best, if you go by his pts, rebs, asts, stls, and 3P%. (3rd, 3rd, 2nd, 4th, 2nd)

He also has both the highest OnCourt (12.7) and the highest OnOff (22.9) of his three-time MVP career.

As to 70 wins, OKC is still about 35 short.

Bbref has:

Jokic: 62.5%
SGA: 27.3%

3rd, 2nd etc. is in relation to other players so that can't be your meauring stick. Imagine a hypotethical season wherein all players but one play poorly and that player is 1st in everything, would that be the best season ever? ofc not..

Jokic is averaging 30 and 10 on great efficiency but scoring,pace and league efficiency need to be accounted for before you can talk about "best"

Moreover, the Nuggets have had a pretty soft schedule so far and have been the beneficiary of playing vs. many good teams missing key players. obviously you can only play whose in front of you but that's relevant before one can dub a season "the best offensive season ever", so idk about "best ever", but he's having an atg season that's for sure

He's also missed 6/42, that's 14% of the season. Per game stats are less important in judging a season than the overall cummulative production, so no..not the best


Edit: p.s, i also would argue that his defense is somewhat worse than it was in the previous seasons so that makes that slight offensive edge (compared to his best seasons)a little less impressive imo

[Exp0sed]

Giannis is comfortably in 3rd place, having one hell of a season himself

31.5\12\6 on 60% from the field in just 35 mins. the Bucks obviously aren't impressive but after their terrible start they're 24-17 and likely will win 50+ games. he would be the MVP in most NBA seasons but obviously not in this one...

[Packbuckman]

Giannis is comfortably in 3rd place, having one hell of a season himself

31.5\12\6 on 60% from the field in just 35 mins. the Bucks obviously aren't impressive but after their terrible start they're 24-17 and likely will win 50+ games. he would be the MVP in most NBA seasons but obviously not in this one...

Yes bucks have the 3rd best record 22-9 since starting 2-8 Giannis has been amazing for us his mid range shooting has really improved now he needs to do the same with ft’s before playoffs he would be unstoppable

[RB34]

SGA and Jokic are both at 31.5 ppg this season. But SGA, despite sitting out 10 full fourth quarters of blowout games, has scored more than 200 total points more than Jokic.

I’ll be honest, Jokic hasn’t played enough games for this to be the greatest offensive season of all time, when there’s a player that has scored 1291 points to Jokic’s 1085, 84% as many total points.

Efficiency wise, SGA is at 64.4% TS to Jokic’s 64.8%, so slight edge to Jokic but extremely close.

Jokic is obviously incredible but just looking at this season I think some of you are off the mark pretty significantly I saying that there’s some kind of tier difference for this year. And again that’s before defense and record.

Speaking of being off the mark, there’s more to offense than scoring.

SGA may have scored 200 more points than Joker but has had 120+ more FGa. Being a PG he has 100+ less assists than Joker.

Edit: he’s also had 98 more FTs than Joker.

[nomansland]

Moreover, the Nuggets have had a pretty soft schedule so far and have been the beneficiary of playing vs. many good teams missing key players. obviously you can only play whose in front of you but that's relevant before one can dub a season "the best offensive season ever", so idk about "best ever", but he's having an atg season that's for sure

Nuggets SOS so far 11th, Thunder 10th

Everyone plays teams that are missing key players.

I don't care who wins and definitely don't want to recreate the drama that happened during the Jokic/Embiid race. Just saying it's not really an argument for or against either candidate this year.

[zimpy27]

Jokic currently has the highest BPM in NBA history at 13.9.

He has five out of the top 10 highest BPM. That's pretty crazy. The first and second highest BPM atm.

But BPM has some issues when it comes to DBPM. I wouldn't solely use the stat to say this player has a better season than another.

That still doesn't stop to say Jokic maybe having the best offense season of all time.

I think a high BPM really says that "this player dominating the box score is a winning formula for this team".

It was always going to be a stat that would explode if you had a big (traditionally high rebound rate and efficient scoring) that was also primary playmaker or if you had a point guard (assists) that could rebound like a big (see Westbrook MVP year).

[AleksandarN]

OKC is on pace to win 68 games, Denver is on pace to win 50 games. Won’t matter what the seeding is if that gap exists. If Denver can get it within 10 games the rest might start to matter more.

Denver’s pace since December has been greater than 50 win pace and that’s with jokic missing games and AG missing half of them and Murray missing a couple. They are finally getting healthy. Denver in my estimation will get to 56 plays games this year. Let’s see how this will play out but if the record is 10 or less. Jokic will win it in my opinion. Right now SGA has an edge

[AleksandarN]

SGA and Jokic are both at 31.5 ppg this season. But SGA, despite sitting out 10 full fourth quarters of blowout games, has scored more than 200 total points more than Jokic.

I’ll be honest, Jokic hasn’t played enough games for this to be the greatest offensive season of all time, when there’s a player that has scored 1291 points to Jokic’s 1085, 84% as many total points.

Efficiency wise, SGA is at 64.4% TS to Jokic’s 64.8%, so slight edge to Jokic but extremely close.

Jokic is obviously incredible but just looking at this season I think some of you are off the mark pretty significantly I saying that there’s some kind of tier difference for this year. And again that’s before defense and record.

Offense is more than just points scored

[Exp0sed]

Moreover, the Nuggets have had a pretty soft schedule so far and have been the beneficiary of playing vs. many good teams missing key players. obviously you can only play whose in front of you but that's relevant before one can dub a season "the best offensive season ever", so idk about "best ever", but he's having an atg season that's for sure

Nuggets SOS so far 11th, Thunder 10th

Everyone plays teams that are missing key players.

I don't care who wins and definitely don't want to recreate the drama that happened during the Jokic/Embiid race. Just saying it's not really an argument for or against either candidate this year.

I doubt there will be any "drama". the drama in those years was down a few obssesive Embiid fanatics who are now completely absent from this thread when their hero isn't relevant anymore and also, it was down to Embiid being quite hated because of all the things that make him a clown and the anti-thesis of a respected sportsman and athlete

SGA and Jokic are both awesome and are doing the league and the sport a huge service, I think like 99% of folks posting itt appreciate the greatness of both, so I doubt there will be any issues. both are super deserving of an MVP award and you can't really go wrong picking either of them. it's just down to a person's personal criteria for MVP.

with that said, the SOS that ur citing doesn't take injuries into account. fwiw I wasn't trying to argue it's a big issue (it's very much not), just a nitpick really and pretty neglible in the grand scheme of things. my point was that while Denver has generally been very succesfull vs. the mediocre and weak teams, they haven't really put up alot of wins vs. the elite teams

after getting crushed in the season opener by OKC, Jokic had a monster game vs. a healthy Thunder team without Murray in Denver (with a crazy 23\20\16 line), that was probably their best win of the season, he also had a huge game in a win vs. a healthy Mavs team at home but other than those two games, the Nuggets basically lost all their games vs. the top tier competition

OKC on the other hand have beat a healthy Nuggets team in the opener (blew them out),beat the Cavs, beat the Knicks twice, Boston twice, Houston twice - all vs. healthy top tier teams and most of these wins were blow-outs

that's what I meant to say basically,that OKC has considerably more impressive wins vs. the top teams but yeah, still alot of season left to play

[Infinite Llamas]

Moreover, the Nuggets have had a pretty soft schedule so far and have been the beneficiary of playing vs. many good teams missing key players. obviously you can only play whose in front of you but that's relevant before one can dub a season "the best offensive season ever", so idk about "best ever", but he's having an atg season that's for sure

Nuggets SOS so far 11th, Thunder 10th

Everyone plays teams that are missing key players.

I don't care who wins and definitely don't want to recreate the drama that happened during the Jokic/Embiid race. Just saying it's not really an argument for or against either candidate this year.

I doubt there will be any "drama". the drama in those years was down a few obssesive Embiid fanatics who are now completely absent from this thread when their hero isn't relevant anymore and also, it was down to Embiid being quite hated because of all the things that make him a clown and the anti-thesis of a respected sportsman and athlete

SGA and Jokic are both awesome and are doing the league and the sport a huge service, I think like 99% of folks posting itt appreciate the greatness of both, so I doubt there will be any issues. both are super deserving of an MVP award and you can't really go wrong picking either of them. it's just down to a person's personal criteria for MVP.

with that said, the SOS that ur citing doesn't take injuries into account. fwiw I wasn't trying to argue it's a big issue (it's very much not), just a nitpick really and pretty neglible in the grand scheme of things. my point was that while Denver has generally been very succesfull vs. the mediocre and weak teams, they haven't really put up alot of wins vs. the elite teams

after getting crushed in the season opener by OKC, Jokic had a monster game vs. a healthy Thunder team without Murray in Denver (with a crazy 23\20\16 line), that was probably their best win of the season, he also had a huge game in a win vs. a healthy Mavs team at home but other than those two games, the Nuggets basically lost all their games vs. the top tier competition

OKC on the other hand have beat a healthy Nuggets team in the opener (blew them out),beat the Cavs, beat the Knicks twice, Boston twice, Houston twice - all vs. healthy top tier teams and most of these wins were blow-outs

that's what I meant to say basically,that OKC has considerably more impressive wins vs. the top teams but yeah, still alot of season left to play

Okc beat Boston once just for the record.

[Exp0sed]

Okc beat Boston once just for the record.

my bad, I just going thru it very quickly

[hardenASG13]

SGA and Jokic are both at 31.5 ppg this season. But SGA, despite sitting out 10 full fourth quarters of blowout games, has scored more than 200 total points more than Jokic.

I’ll be honest, Jokic hasn’t played enough games for this to be the greatest offensive season of all time, when there’s a player that has scored 1291 points to Jokic’s 1085, 84% as many total points.

Efficiency wise, SGA is at 64.4% TS to Jokic’s 64.8%, so slight edge to Jokic but extremely close.

Jokic is obviously incredible but just looking at this season I think some of you are off the mark pretty significantly I saying that there’s some kind of tier difference for this year. And again that’s before defense and record.

Speaking of being off the mark, there’s more to offense than scoring.

SGA may have scored 200 more points than Joker but has had 120+ more FGa. Being a PG he has 100+ less assists than Joker.

Edit: he’s also had 98 more FTs than Joker.

Jokic leads the league in passes per game and is second in potential assists per game. He constantly has cutters moving off him or taking handoffs/zoom action from him. It's no surprise he has more assists. He's set up better than really any player in the league to get assists because of how Denver uses him at the top of the key and minimizes their guards/forwards as playmakers.

It's so weird this board criticizes volume scorers all day but seems to love Jokic and say he's having the best season ever just because of his assits on volume passing.

[scrabbarista]

he's having argubaly one of the best individual seasons ever so far and it's better than SGA's (incredible) season but MVP isn't strictly an individual award and that's the way it's always been. you know i'm team Jokic all the way, but a dude leading his team to 70 wins and being as good as he's been - that's ur MVP

I think some posters here would like it be strictly individual and that's how they define "the most valuable" but that's not what this award historicaly was or how it's been awarded

Arguably the best. The best, if you go by his pts, rebs, asts, stls, and 3P%. (3rd, 3rd, 2nd, 4th, 2nd)

He also has both the highest OnCourt (12.7) and the highest OnOff (22.9) of his three-time MVP career.

As to 70 wins, OKC is still about 35 short.

Bbref has:

Jokic: 62.5%
SGA: 27.3%

3rd, 2nd etc. is in relation to other players so that can't be your meauring stick. Imagine a hypotethical season wherein all players but one play poorly and that player is 1st in everything, would that be the best season ever? ofc not..

Jokic is averaging 30 and 10 on great efficiency but scoring,pace and league efficiency need to be accounted for before you can talk about "best."

These two paragraphs contradict each other. Honestly, I stopped reading at that point.

[RB34]

Speaking of being off the mark, there’s more to offense than scoring.

SGA may have scored 200 more points than Joker but has had 120+ more FGa. Being a PG he has 100+ less assists than Joker.

Edit: he’s also had 98 more FTs than Joker.

Jokic leads the league in passes per game and is second in potential assists per game. He constantly has cutters moving off him or taking handoffs/zoom action from him. It's no surprise he has more assists. He's set up better than really any player in the league to get assists because of how Denver uses him at the top of the key and minimizes their guards/forwards as playmakers.

It's so weird this board criticizes volume scorers all day but seems to love Jokic and say he's having the best season ever just because of his assits on volume passing.

The same can be said for SGA’s defensive ability. Inflated steals/blocks because he never actually has to guard and can roam the lanes and help from behind.

[hardenASG13]

SGA may have scored 200 more points than Joker but has had 120+ more FGa. Being a PG he has 100+ less assists than Joker.

Edit: he’s also had 98 more FTs than Joker.

Jokic leads the league in passes per game and is second in potential assists per game. He constantly has cutters moving off him or taking handoffs/zoom action from him. It's no surprise he has more assists. He's set up better than really any player in the league to get assists because of how Denver uses him at the top of the key and minimizes their guards/forwards as playmakers.

It's so weird this board criticizes volume scorers all day but seems to love Jokic and say he's having the best season ever just because of his assits on volume passing.

The same can be said for SGA’s defensive ability. Inflated steals/blocks because he never actually has to guard and can roam the lanes and help from behind.

Exactly. Thats why this boards over insistance on arguing advanced metrics and rating systems is so annoying. They're both great players and putting up the numbers their team need to win. Jokic is the best playmaking hub in the league. SGA is automatic when he gets to his spots and creates more aggressively for himself (though hes not selfish). Hes leading his team to winning at a higher level, which usually is a fairly big factor in MVP voting, especially when stats are so close that they're inconsequential considering they don't examine context well.

[Doctor MJ]

Speaking of being off the mark, there’s more to offense than scoring.

SGA may have scored 200 more points than Joker but has had 120+ more FGa. Being a PG he has 100+ less assists than Joker.

Edit: he’s also had 98 more FTs than Joker.

Jokic leads the league in passes per game and is second in potential assists per game. He constantly has cutters moving off him or taking handoffs/zoom action from him. It's no surprise he has more assists. He's set up better than really any player in the league to get assists because of how Denver uses him at the top of the key and minimizes their guards/forwards as playmakers.

It's so weird this board criticizes volume scorers all day but seems to love Jokic and say he's having the best season ever just because of his assits on volume passing.

Okay, so I would fundamentally disagree with how you're thinking about "volume passing", because you're clearly seeing as if a high assist-to-pass ratio should be assumed to be a good thing in the same way a make-to-shot ratio would, and I don't think that's a healthy way to look at what's going on.

The critical thing here is that while shots consume team opportunity (except in the minority of cases where there's an offensive rebound), successfully completed passes don't.

Further, a player who passes the ball like Jokic actually hogs the ball less than your typical point guard, so what he does there is like the opposite of "usage" in a way that's not the case for, say, a Harden-type helio.

To be clear: Jokic passing so much more than those helios doesn't mean he's necessarily a better or more valuable passer - that all depends on things like the quality of the passes within the context of possession - but it does speak to a different offensive scheme that has been around far longer than the helio model, and doesn't have anything fundamentally wrong with it.

It also isn't necessarily an improvement, but the way I've characterized in the context of Jokic is:

If someone's the best passer in the world, don't you expect to get more passing-based value from him if he passes the ball more often?

Of course if the guy is a good enough scorer you can argue he shouldn't pass as much, but just from a passing evaluation, you're going to have more value from passing if he passes more so long as he's making good decisions along the way.

And I would argue that Jokic makes better decisions than anyone else around, while also having better passing touch than anyone else and having better passing vision than everyone else. Others can disagree of course, but no, I don't see any kind of significant problem here in general. The closest I could come is in saying that Jokic is slow to give up on his teammates and so in games/series where his teammates never stop missing the shots they're being paid to make, the team would have probably done better if he'd just shot more...but of course "done better" doesn't mean "win the championship" because you need teammates to hit shots for that to happen.

Last thing I'll note: I don't consider assists to be a great measure of passing impact, which I know sounds ridiculous. The thing is that offensive schemes can inflate assist totals relative to playmaking value.

I'd say the definitive example of this is Rajon Rondo on the Celtics where he was allowed to hog the ball and then pass it to guys in the mid-range where they were expected to shoot. When you run your offense that way it's going to let your point guard get a lot of assists, but that doesn't mean his work is generating high value shots.

(The more controversial statement is to say that this was a significant component to Stockton's mega-assist totals in the era before the Jazz better optimized their approach. Stockton was a great player, but he's not getting assist totals like that if the team plays differently.)

I'll just end by reiterating that I have Shai as my MVP. I'm not arguing for Jokic over Shai on the question that this thread is focused on...but yeah, I definitely see him as a better and more valuable passer than Shai.

[Doctor MJ]

Jokic leads the league in passes per game and is second in potential assists per game. He constantly has cutters moving off him or taking handoffs/zoom action from him. It's no surprise he has more assists. He's set up better than really any player in the league to get assists because of how Denver uses him at the top of the key and minimizes their guards/forwards as playmakers.

It's so weird this board criticizes volume scorers all day but seems to love Jokic and say he's having the best season ever just because of his assits on volume passing.

The same can be said for SGA’s defensive ability. Inflated steals/blocks because he never actually has to guard and can roam the lanes and help from behind.

Exactly. Thats why this boards over insistance on arguing advanced metrics and rating systems is so annoying. They're both great players and putting up the numbers their team need to win. Jokic is the best playmaking hub in the league. SGA is automatic when he gets to his spots and creates more aggressively for himself (though hes not selfish). Hes leading his team to winning at a higher level, which usually is a fairly big factor in MVP voting, especially when stats are so close that they're inconsequential considering they don't examine context well.

Glad to hear this reasoned take.

ftr, I wouldn't consider Shai's stock numbers as "inflated", because that's literally his role on defense. You can't both be the lock down guy and be the stock gambler simultaneously despite what Jordan fans want to claim. A player can do both, but not at the same time.

And of course we should also note that for steals, arguably about half the value they contribute is actually offensive (in terms of where it impacts the team scoreboard) rather than defensive because they kick start high value possessions. This is why it makes sense for offensive stars to gamble for steals on defense and it's not something to knock them for if they do it well, but it ain't the same thing as playing lock down defense or true help defense.

Re: arguing advanced metrics. I'd just note that if we're using steal & block numbers directly this is about the furthest thing from "advanced" in the 21st century. If you're annoyed by people using statistical reasoning badly, well that makes total sense and I'm right there with you, but there's plenty of data to be used that do a much better job at measuring things like player defensive impact than anything eyeball-alone derived.