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

[Dutchball97]

Jokic is still the clear frontrunner at the moment for me. Giannis has been a steady second place for me ever since Embiid and LeBron went down with injuries. Both of those guys could still play a role but they're facing an uphill battle after missing significant time.

Tier 1
1. Nikola Jokic

Tier 2
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo

Tier 3
3. Damian Lillard
4. Kawhi Leonard
5. James Harden
6. Rudy Gobert

Tier 4
7. Joel Embiid
8. LeBron James

Tier 5
9. Luka Doncic
10. Stephen Curry
11. Jimmy Butler

[reamily]

Travesty if Nikola doesnt get it...

[kazyv]

Jokic is still the clear frontrunner at the moment for me. Giannis has been a steady second place for me ever since Embiid and LeBron went down with injuries. Both of those guys could still play a role but they're facing an uphill battle after missing significant time.

Tier 1
1. Nikola Jokic

Tier 2
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo

Tier 3
3. Damian Lillard
4. Kawhi Leonard
5. James Harden
6. Rudy Gobert

Tier 4
7. Joel Embiid
8. LeBron James

Tier 5
9. Luka Doncic
10. Stephen Curry
11. Jimmy Butler

shouldn't harden be on the same tier as embiid and james? he's missed 17 games for the nets already, that's at the very least 23% of the full 72 games season that he won't have played for the nets

[Dutchball97]

Jokic is still the clear frontrunner at the moment for me. Giannis has been a steady second place for me ever since Embiid and LeBron went down with injuries. Both of those guys could still play a role but they're facing an uphill battle after missing significant time.

Tier 1
1. Nikola Jokic

Tier 2
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo

Tier 3
3. Damian Lillard
4. Kawhi Leonard
5. James Harden
6. Rudy Gobert

Tier 4
7. Joel Embiid
8. LeBron James

Tier 5
9. Luka Doncic
10. Stephen Curry
11. Jimmy Butler

shouldn't harden be on the same tier as embiid and james? he's missed 17 games for the nets already, that's at the very least 23% of the full 72 games season that he won't have played for the nets

I'm not sure how voters usually treat traded players. If only his Nets games count then yeah you could move him down a tier but with his Rockets games included I think he's fine where he is.

[Jurassic_Park]

It would be interesting to see who the media voters currently have as the front runners. Feel free to add to the list, this is who i have heard from as of now.

Brian Windhorst - to me, its between Embiid and Harden. The worse the rockets do, just makes Harden look even better. Embiid is now back, if he continues to play like he did before, it will be between these two. I will see how these 2 do for the rest of the season.
Stephen A - my front runner right now is James Harden
Sam Ammick - Jokic is the leader right now
Chris Broussard - Jokic is leading, Embiid will have missed too many games, Harden's stint in houston will hurt his chances
Zach Lowe - Harden's narrative will sink him this season (houston stint)


any other actual voters that have commented?

[Veselyfan]

Brian Windhorst - to me, its between Embiid and Harden. The worse the rockets do, just makes Harden look even better. Embiid is now back, if he continues to play like he did before, it will be between these two. I will see how these 2 do for the rest of the season.

How can someone still consider Embiid when he has has played 32/50 games, and Jokic is 49/49 ? Harden for example has 41 games played.

It is just incredible to keep reading and listening the disrescpect of the "main" NBA analysts towards Nikola Jokic, as if he is not playing the best basketball in his career, after an incredible playoof run and the WCF.

Reminder: The Nuggets are 0.5 back from the Clippers and the 3rd seed, so the narrative that the Nuggets are not winning is incorrect.

[Ballerhogger]

jokic put nice triple doulbe sunday , No harden he may thinks his chances are none if hes going miss games. So it comes down to Jokic and Giannis right now. Jokic with a nice a lead. Giannis will have to get 1st seed to be considerable threat to the joker

[Colbinii]

The guy is almost averaging a triple double and has carried the load for the nets to be fair.. Kyrie and Kd have missed a bunch of time , 25 ppg 8 boards and 11 ast .

This isn't historic, or perhaps you are just not defining historic in the same sense as Doctor MJ (or myself) would. Doc posted a statistical profile of Harden which puts him outside of the top 3 in every popular advanced statistic. Nothing about his season is historic--it's a fantastic year and an MVP in a weak MVP season, but this season is anything other than a weak year.

1. Nikola Jokic - Joker is having the best offensive regular season for a center ever (post-merger).

2000 Shaquille O'Neal - 7.3 OBPM, 223.9 TS+ in 3163 minutes, 11.7 OWS
1977 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 6.8 OBPM, 345.3 TS+ in 3016 minutes, 11.9 OWS
2021 Nikola Jokic - 9.1 OBPM, 148.7 TS+ in 1711 minutes (ahead of O'Neal, behind Kareem), 8.4 OWS (ahead of both on a per-minute basis)
Who else is even close? Nobody.

2. Rudy Gobert - By far the best player on the best team. A big positive on offense and an all-time great defender and his impact is Off the Charts. Gobert's +16.7 On-court rating is rivaling Steph Curry on the 2015-2016 Warriors and trumping his numbers on the Golden State Globetrotters (+16.7 in 2015, +18.0 in 2016, +17.1 in 2017, +13.2 in 2018 and 2019).

When were the best two players in the league both Centers? 2003 with Shaq and Duncan? 1994 and 1995 with Robinson and Hakeem? 1981 with Moses and Kareem?

Gap

3. Giannis - Jrue has been phenomenal this year and I can't help but love Giannis off the court.
4. Luka Doncic - Has a injury riddled Mavericks team to a 27-21 record, next 5 best players are Hardaway, Richardson, Finney-Smith, Brunson and Kleber.

HM: Embiid (injury), LeBron (injury), Kawhi, Harden, Lillard

I like you juxtaposing Jokic relative to other centers.

The other dimension is just as impressive though:

This is the year with the most effective offense in the history of the game (for good or for ill),
coming on the heels of literally decades of the best offenses mostly being driven by perimeter players,
and in this year, the top offensive player is a center known as Cookie Monster.

(Apologies to those believe Dame is having the best offensive season. It's debatable.)

I am 100% juxtaposing but I can't help myself, what Jokic is doing from the center position is, and I say this with 100% certainty, a complete afterthought of the center position just 5 years ago.

It is very likely everyone assumed the limit on passing for a center was Walton, Sabonis, Divac, Wilt--tier. Players like Garnett and Draymond were more hybrids and had a slightly higher ceiling but what Jokic is doing is pushing an envelope that hasn't been pushed before.

To be fair to Jokic, he switched from eating those holiday sugar cookies with the Hershey kiss in the middle of them which are often served during the holiday season to some thin oatmeal cookies with raisins.

[KGtabake]

I'm restraining myself from saying that my man Niko is the best passer ever. Ridiculous.

[Jurassic_Park]

Brian Windhorst - to me, its between Embiid and Harden. The worse the rockets do, just makes Harden look even better. Embiid is now back, if he continues to play like he did before, it will be between these two. I will see how these 2 do for the rest of the season.

How can someone still consider Embiid when he has has played 32/50 games, and Jokic is 49/49 ? Harden for example has 41 games played.

It is just incredible to keep reading and listening the disrescpect of the "main" NBA analysts towards Nikola Jokic, as if he is not playing the best basketball in his career, after an incredible playoof run and the WCF.

Reminder: The Nuggets are 0.5 back from the Clippers and the 3rd seed, so the narrative that the Nuggets are not winning is incorrect.

i know... its shocking and upsetting, that these guys have votes... i don't really know what to say, but i hope Jokic wins it, he deserves it. I love Embiid, but i just dont get how he can win missing 25% of the season, it literally makes no sense.

[Doctor MJ]

Jokic is still the clear frontrunner at the moment for me. Giannis has been a steady second place for me ever since Embiid and LeBron went down with injuries. Both of those guys could still play a role but they're facing an uphill battle after missing significant time.

Tier 1
1. Nikola Jokic

Tier 2
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo

Tier 3
3. Damian Lillard
4. Kawhi Leonard
5. James Harden
6. Rudy Gobert

Tier 4
7. Joel Embiid
8. LeBron James

Tier 5
9. Luka Doncic
10. Stephen Curry
11. Jimmy Butler

shouldn't harden be on the same tier as embiid and james? he's missed 17 games for the nets already, that's at the very least 23% of the full 72 games season that he won't have played for the nets

I'm not sure how voters usually treat traded players. If only his Nets games count then yeah you could move him down a tier but with his Rockets games included I think he's fine where he is.

His value to Houston this year was negative.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Woodsanity]

Jokic is still the clear frontrunner at the moment for me. Giannis has been a steady second place for me ever since Embiid and LeBron went down with injuries. Both of those guys could still play a role but they're facing an uphill battle after missing significant time.

Tier 1
1. Nikola Jokic

Tier 2
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo

Tier 3
3. Damian Lillard
4. Kawhi Leonard
5. James Harden
6. Rudy Gobert

Tier 4
7. Joel Embiid
8. LeBron James

Tier 5
9. Luka Doncic
10. Stephen Curry
11. Jimmy Butler

Pretty good list honestly. I would put Chris Paul in Tier 5 somewhere. Yes he is more valuable than Booker though its close.

[Woodsanity]

I truly underrated Lebron’s season up until his injury and especially post All Star break (had him outside top 5) but he should have been top 3
at minimum. He has goat level value to any team he is on. Plays with anyone and his load share is just to good even at age 36. He’s still the MVP of the league metaphorically All 1st team NBA defense/Top 3 offensive engine this year (But he’s the most robust out of all of them (Harden, Durant, Jokic, Giannis, Lillard, Paul etc. by a huge huge margin)
Even at 36 one of his weaker years is MVP level
What’s it at now 16?

Lakers 29th in the league at 3 point % and dead last on turnovers since Lebron has left. He floor raises like no one else can. Pretty sure he had b2b 60 win pace on a Cavs team that had a 20 win pace back pre 2010 lmao.

Still think he generates most ppp from his passes. Played elite defense this year too btw (lock for me 1st team defense, should have been in 2016/2018 & 2020 definitely anti Kobe recognition).

but isn’t the MVP this year

It’s still Jokic for me his offensive impact is up there with any of the greatest offensive seasons ever. (Though I still question his championship equity as a non elite defensive anchor for a big man).

Right now

Jokic
Harden
Giannis

Huge HM to LBJ

Honestly if Lebron wasn't hurt I would have had Lebron second behind Jokic.
If Embiid wasn't hurt I would have given him a slight edge over Jokic just cause of the record difference, problem is Embiid is pretty injury prone so him being hurt is kind of the norm. Lebron being hurt is very rare in comparison.

[Duke4life831]

If Jokic wins he will make some history. Only 2 other MVP winners weren’t first round picks.

Willis Reed (1970): 2nd round pick, 8th pick overall
Moses Malone (79, 82, 83): 3 round pick (ABA), 22nd pick overall

Jokic being the 41st would be the lowest selected player to win MVP. And going by overall selection, the other two players wouldn’t have been 2nd picks in today’s 30 team draft.

[BoatsNZones]

Jokic now growing his lead in MVP betting odds over the entire field as the Nuggets continue their winning streak and pass the Lakers for HCA in the West. Tough to imagine any other player mounting a case against a PG/Center averaging 26/11/9 on a 65% TS for a top team while leading the league in virtually every advanced stat known to man (unfortunately for him one of the few he does not is RPM, which is sponsored by ESPN and is one of the few advanced stats they cite in accordance with that. Bears mentioning that EPM is a far superior stat in a similar vein and he leads the league by a country mile in it). This MVP race is effectively over IMO.

Crazy that Joker is only 25 (actually recently turned 26) and has a game that will age extremely well. The dude is just a b-ball savant. 2nd rounder. Wild. We have a decades worth of dominance coming from him.

[Dupp]

Jokic is still the clear frontrunner at the moment for me. Giannis has been a steady second place for me ever since Embiid and LeBron went down with injuries. Both of those guys could still play a role but they're facing an uphill battle after missing significant time.

Tier 1
1. Nikola Jokic

Tier 2
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo

Tier 3
3. Damian Lillard
4. Kawhi Leonard
5. James Harden
6. Rudy Gobert

Tier 4
7. Joel Embiid
8. LeBron James

Tier 5
9. Luka Doncic
10. Stephen Curry
11. Jimmy Butler

shouldn't harden be on the same tier as embiid and james? he's missed 17 games for the nets already, that's at the very least 23% of the full 72 games season that he won't have played for the nets

I'm not sure how voters usually treat traded players. If only his Nets games count then yeah you could move him down a tier but with his Rockets games included I think he's fine where he is.

Why’s kawhi on another tier to lebron? They’ve basicLkg played the same amount of games. And why is luka so low?

[Dupp]

Jokic now growing his lead in MVP betting odds over the entire field as the Nuggets continue their winning streak and pass the Lakers for HCA in the West. Tough to imagine any other player mounting a case against a PG/Center averaging 26/11/9 on a 65% TS for a top team while leading the league in virtually every advanced stat known to man (unfortunately for him one of the few he does not is RPM, which is sponsored by ESPN and is one of the few advanced stats they cite in accordance with that. Bears mentioning that EPM is a far superior stat in a similar vein and he leads the league by a country mile in it). This MVP race is effectively over IMO.

Crazy that Joker is only 25 (actually recently turned 26) and has a game that will age extremely well. The dude is just a b-ball savant. 2nd rounder. Wild. We have a decades worth of dominance coming from him.

Lol wut

[BoatsNZones]

Jokic now growing his lead in MVP betting odds over the entire field as the Nuggets continue their winning streak and pass the Lakers for HCA in the West. Tough to imagine any other player mounting a case against a PG/Center averaging 26/11/9 on a 65% TS for a top team while leading the league in virtually every advanced stat known to man (unfortunately for him one of the few he does not is RPM, which is sponsored by ESPN and is one of the few advanced stats they cite in accordance with that. Bears mentioning that EPM is a far superior stat in a similar vein and he leads the league by a country mile in it). This MVP race is effectively over IMO.

Crazy that Joker is only 25 (actually recently turned 26) and has a game that will age extremely well. The dude is just a b-ball savant. 2nd rounder. Wild. We have a decades worth of dominance coming from him.

Lol wut

Lol if asking why the parenthesis BBREF had him at his age 25 season but I looked at it after and he's 26 and some change now. Young though. Dude already plays like he's 38 and just schools the entire league.

[mediocrityrules]

Jokic now growing his lead in MVP betting odds over the entire field as the Nuggets continue their winning streak and pass the Lakers for HCA in the West. Tough to imagine any other player mounting a case against a PG/Center averaging 26/11/9 on a 65% TS for a top team while leading the league in virtually every advanced stat known to man (unfortunately for him one of the few he does not is RPM, which is sponsored by ESPN and is one of the few advanced stats they cite in accordance with that. Bears mentioning that EPM is a far superior stat in a similar vein and he leads the league by a country mile in it). This MVP race is effectively over IMO.

Crazy that Joker is only 25 (actually recently turned 26) and has a game that will age extremely well. The dude is just a b-ball savant. 2nd rounder. Wild. We have a decades worth of dominance coming from him.

Lol wut

Lol if asking why the parenthesis BBREF had him at his age 25 season but I looked at it after and he's 26 and some change now. Young though. Dude already plays like he's 38 and just schools the entire league.

It's crazy when you think that most people believe that from 26-30 is usually when people peak in terms of their play, and both Jokic and Giannis were just 25 to start this season, and have turned 26 since (Giannis 3 months older).

We're going to see some crazy good basketball over the next few years.

[BoatsNZones]

Lol wut

Lol if asking why the parenthesis BBREF had him at his age 25 season but I looked at it after and he's 26 and some change now. Young though. Dude already plays like he's 38 and just schools the entire league.

It's crazy when you think that most people believe that from 26-30 is usually when people peak in terms of their play, and both Jokic and Giannis were just 25 to start this season, and have turned 26 since (Giannis 3 months older).

We're going to see some crazy good basketball over the next few years.

Not to mention I think we still have a couple more years of late-prime Lebron, prime Curry for a few more years, and a freshly turned 22 year old Luka among others (KD, Harden, etc). The talent in the league is absurd right now. Probably the best I have ever seen if I'm being honest. We might have 6-7 guys playing right now with a case for top 20 All Time when it's all said and done.