MVP discussion thread

[xBulletproof]

I'm not going to quote, because it just takes a ton of real estate.

I agree the Pacers match up well against the Heat, but that advantage doesn't go away against other teams either. The Pacers force you into tough shots, out rebound you and make life tough around the rim for you. It's not just an advantage they have over the Heat, it's one that have over almost everyone. Last year though Granger was ruled out just a couple days before the season started, and they didn't adjust well. They expected him to be the scorer and when he was gone they struggled very badly to start the year. Paul was learning how to be "the man" on the fly with no training wheels. It's a huge part of why he was so inefficient last year. Either way from Decmeber on they went 39-21. They just continued that success in the playoffs. With continued improvement from the young guys, I can't figure out why people don't expect the Pacers to be near 60 wins.

Also, Nash's other MVP he was at 18-4-10, and his team that year only won 54 games, I believe. So maybe I chose the wrong year as an example.

Either way, if Paul stays near 24 PPG it's going to be viewed pretty highly. We are a slow paced, and offensively challenged team. 24 PPG in our slow pace, slug it out style is a bit different than 24 PPG playing for Denver, Minnesota or OKC on teams that play much faster. I believe voters would recognize that as well.

[JulesWinnfield]

BulletProof.... I'm not writing off at all the possibility that Indy can play in the 60 win range, I just want to see it first. And even if they do, they're going to have to finish with a better record than Miami, because its hard to envision him getting an MVP nod over a Lebron with a worse record

On another note.... Not wanting to steer this into an MJ/Lebron conversation and not relevant much to the MVP talk, but i do see some potential similarities between the situation both faced heading into their first 3peat year, if Indy keeps playing on a level near this. The Heat/Pacer dynamic from last year and this year could shape up a lot like the Knick/Bulls situation in 92 and then 93

Last years ECF between Miami and Indy played out a lot like the 92 semifinal series between Chicago and NY, with the Knicks surprising many by taking a defending champion Bulls team to 7 games (with that game 7 being uncompetitive much like last years ECF). Both MJ and Lebron survived the threat and repeated to get their 2nd ring. In MJs 3peat year the next season,The 93 Knicks came back and built off that run much like this Pacer team is, and actually did win top seed over MJ's Bulls. (Although the Bulls knocked them out in the playoffs anyway). The Pacers, much like the Knicks, were a top defensive team with half court offensive flaws as well. (Although there aren't many roster similarities beyond that).

The Bulls are still lurking there though. When D-Rose hits the ground running i don't expect him to look back. I wouldn't be surprised if they won more games than Indy either

[Doctor MJ]

Also, Nash's other MVP he was at 18-4-10, and his team that year only won 54 games, I believe. So maybe I chose the wrong year as an example.

I don't think any George proponent should want this brought up. It only goes to show that voters really won't hesitate to go with a player on a team with less wins if they really see that players as a better contributor than the star of the best team, and I can't imagine anyone sees it likely that George is in the discussion without having the best record of the MVP candidates.

[MisterWestside]

If LeBron utterly transforms himself in Miami and proceeds to rip the doors off the old ORtg standards in the process, it becomes hard to think of really any good argument against him.

If you manage to recall, I (respectfully) took issue with your use of team ORtg to help determine the offensive GOATs. While James is spearheading the impressive Heat offense, I still take issue with that thought process. And I say this as someone who is a more interested observer and aficionado of James's game than SideshowBob ever wishes to be. (No shots at all, Sideshow; just a fact).

But, to each his own. I will say that the MVP contest is close between James, George, Paul, and Durant.

[SideshowBob]

If LeBron utterly transforms himself in Miami and proceeds to rip the doors off the old ORtg standards in the process, it becomes hard to think of really any good argument against him.

If you manage to recall, I (respectfully) took issue with your use of team ORtg to help determine the offensive GOATs. While James is spearheading the impressive Heat offense, I still take issue with that thought process. And I say this as someone who is a more interested observer and aficionado of James's game than SideshowBob ever wishes to be. (No shots at all, Sideshow; just a fact).

But, to each his own. I will say that the MVP contest is close between James, George, Paul, and Durant.

Heh. No worries, it's no competition

[Rasho_libre]

Here is the important part of my post from the GT yesterday since people were comparing Paul and Durant there, and everyone kept repeating that the difference between Durant on offense is much greater than Paul's advantage on defense. So, I decided to look it up and actually put some numbers to it. Here's what I found.

I thought kd was the best defender in the league? Mainly because his synergy numbers are cute. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see Paul George is on a completely different planet as a defender.

How is PG any different in that sense?

He has one of the best defenses to play with including Hibbert guarding the basket. Don't forget what playing for the Bulls with a great team defense did for Nate/Belinelli defensive numbers. I'm glad PG's defensive numbers look good, but it's not simply his own amazing defense, even if you look at the players he guards.

These stats are a total joke in themselves. When I watch him play I do not see any of the makings of an elite defender. A solid defender, sure. But hardly something to put on a MVP application.

It's not I think these stats are a joke as well. Not say say Durant not a good defender. He's close to being really good on that end now but synergy can't prove a players personal defence. It doesn't take into effect who you guard, team defence etc.

[Rasho_libre]

That was perfect example of why melo and Lebron don't get as much calls as kd. He drove to finish strong got sent to the floor no call.

[HotRocks34]

I think someone mentioned that Paul George could be this year's Derrick Rose, meaning -- or at least how I took the comment -- perhaps not the best player in the NBA but the best player on the best team. That's probably a fair take on the situation, I think.

However, one thing that comes to my mind as regards Rose is what happened after he won the MVP. If I remember correctly, following the Bulls playoff loss to the Heat in 2011, there were a lot of people questioning Rose's MVP win. And I think some of that talk, if I remember right, happened because LeBron got put on Rose in that series and may have helped slow Rose down.

That "Rose-LeBron 2011 playoffs" situation reminded me of the 1995 playoffs when Hakeem Olajuwon basically crushed David Robinson, IMO, after Robinson won league MVP over Hakeem (and several others). Hakeem was the 1994 MVP, and he may not have appreciated Robinson getting the nod over him the following season.

The point here is that you would think the MVP voters are aware of these types of things. Meaning, if you are an MVP voter, you might not want to spend an offseason trying to defend your vote if "your guy" gets outshone or beaten by "the guy you didnt vote for" or that other guy's team.

Since we will only be three years removed from the LeBron/Rose situation of 2011 at the end of the current season, my guess is that many of the current MVP voters are the same people who were voting on the award in 2011.

If that is the case, my guess is that they will recall how things played out in 2011 when they make their choice for this season. I'm not saying they won't vote for George if the Pacers end up with the best record, but a little bit of hesitation could creep in due to how things played out in 2011.

[Doctor MJ]

If LeBron utterly transforms himself in Miami and proceeds to rip the doors off the old ORtg standards in the process, it becomes hard to think of really any good argument against him.

If you manage to recall, I (respectfully) took issue with your use of team ORtg to help determine the offensive GOATs. While James is spearheading the impressive Heat offense, I still take issue with that thought process. And I say this as someone who is a more interested observer and aficionado of James's game than SideshowBob ever wishes to be. (No shots at all, Sideshow; just a fact).

But, to each his own. I will say that the MVP contest is close between James, George, Paul, and Durant.

What a formal post.

I believe I do recollect. Were your feelings based on the fact that you felt the Heat team strategy of optimization left some possibly major blind spots which were a big deal even if no team in 2013 could take advantage of them?

[SideshowBob]

If LeBron utterly transforms himself in Miami and proceeds to rip the doors off the old ORtg standards in the process, it becomes hard to think of really any good argument against him.

If you manage to recall, I (respectfully) took issue with your use of team ORtg to help determine the offensive GOATs. While James is spearheading the impressive Heat offense, I still take issue with that thought process. And I say this as someone who is a more interested observer and aficionado of James's game than SideshowBob ever wishes to be. (No shots at all, Sideshow; just a fact).

But, to each his own. I will say that the MVP contest is close between James, George, Paul, and Durant.

What a formal post.

I believe I do recollect. Were your feelings based on the fact that you felt the Heat team strategy of optimization left some possibly major blind spots which were a big deal even if no team in 2013 could take advantage of them?

I think it's more to do with implying causality (in terms of player impact) via ORTG/DRTG in general.

[Doctor MJ]

I think someone mentioned that Paul George could be this year's Derrick Rose, meaning -- or at least how I took the comment -- perhaps not the best player in the NBA but the best player on the best team. That's probably a fair take on the situation, I think.

However, one thing that comes to my mind as regards Rose is what happened after he won the MVP. If I remember correctly, following the Bulls playoff loss to the Heat in 2011, there were a lot of people questioning Rose's MVP win. And I think some of that talk, if I remember right, happened because LeBron got put on Rose in that series and may have helped slow Rose down.

That "Rose-LeBron 2011 playoffs" situation reminded me of the 1995 playoffs when Hakeem Olajuwon basically crushed David Robinson, IMO, after Robinson won league MVP over Hakeem (and several others). Hakeem was the 1994 MVP, and he may not have appreciated Robinson getting the nod over him the following season.

The point here is that you would think the MVP voters are aware of these types of things. Meaning, if you are an MVP voter, you might not want to spend an offseason trying to defend your vote if "your guy" gets outshone or beaten by "the guy you didnt vote for" or that other guy's team.

Since we will only be three years removed from the LeBron/Rose situation of 2011 at the end of the current season, my guess is that many of the current MVP voters are the same people who were voting on the award in 2011.

If that is the case, my guess is that they will recall how things played out in 2011 when they make their choice for this season. I'm not saying they won't vote for George if the Pacers end up with the best record, but a little bit of hesitation could creep in due to how things played out in 2011.

I would agree that I don't think that there's any doubt that some MVP voters are concerned about an MVP will come back to bite them, and I think this has become a bigger issue now that we're in the internet age. This probably makes it a bit harder for LeBron to lose an MVP due to voter fatigue than it was for Jordan.

Regarding the Rose precedent specifically, people keep bringing it as if it's a sign of how to expect the voters to think, and there are major problems with this as it is typically applied:

1) The MVP race in 2011 was incredibly weak. People going forward are going to find that harder and harder to believe because it's smack dab in the middle of LeBron & Durant's primes, but they had serious problems with their candidacies that year, as did other players. All of this opened the door for an exceptionally weak MVP candidate to come in and win the thing.

2) Aside from the playoffs and what LeBron is perceived to have done to Rose their, part of what led Rose to become such a viable candidate that year was a certain perception on the injuries on his team. I'll speak as someone who put Rose in the #2 spot in his voting that year: The Bulls had the best record in the league with by far the best performance once we got to the meat of the year, and it happened with seemingly every major player on the Bulls getting hurt except their anointed star. It became hard to make a real argument against Rose's specific value to that club that year because of this even if you doubted where he as a player in general stood...

But then of course the next year we saw the team actually lose the star and still keep rolling. What it all amounted to was that Coach Thibodeau's new system in Chicago broke with expectations so hard that Rose got credit he shouldn't have.

Is such a thing likely to happen in Indiana now? Certainly not if only because it's unlikely that the Pacers have the same rash of injuries Chicago did. But then add in the newfound respect for certain coach's defensive systems, and a teammate who appears poised to be a pretty big name on his own as long as the team remains dominant (Hibbert) it becomes even less likely.

[HotRocks34]

^ Great post, Doc. I agree with basically everything you said. I'm only not quoting your post to save the space on the size of my post.

Thanks for that info.

[JulesWinnfield]

Great points DR MJ

Another aspect of that 2011 race was the uniqueness of that Miami situation. The expectations were beyond realistic, you had people like Jeff Van Gundy predicting them to win 70 games. Many expected it would be like team USA on an NBA floor. When the bar is set that high, and you "only" win 58 (which is fewer than Lebron won the year before in Cleveland) it leaves you with a taste of under achievement relative to expectations. Meanwhile the Bulls had the exact opposite dynamic in their favor, well exceeding what most expected

There was also some general Lebron backlash from the decision, i think a few guys left him off the ballot or voted him like 5th

[Hero]

1) The MVP race in 2011 was incredibly weak. People going forward are going to find that harder and harder to believe because it's smack dab in the middle of LeBron & Durant's primes, but they had serious problems with their candidacies that year, as did other players. All of this opened the door for an exceptionally weak MVP candidate to come in and win the thing. - See more at: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1281178&start=540#sthash.TRRWuJ4V.dpuf

LeBron and KD primes but what about Anthony Davis. He's in his 2nd year only and absolutely tearing it up. The problem he faces is his team but I can see free agents wanting to go to NO to play with him. I think he's going to be a serious contender in future years.

http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/6583/anthony-davis

He is really killing it right now. It remains to be seen if he can keep up this pace but I envision him as a perennial contender for both DPOY and MVP.

[xBulletproof]

Well fellas, I really don't believe Paul George has a really good shot at MVP this year. I believe his name could show up in the voting, but probably in the 5-7th range with some 4th and 5th place votes. A lot of it for the same reasons you guys stated. Just making what argument I could from that angle because well ..... that's what drives discussion. Great points on the Jordan/Knicks thing and all, even the people I didn't quote or discuss directly with. Good stuff. All done without anyone acting angry, silly or name calling. Kinda rare for the internet. Good form.

Now I'm gonna throw on the 2nd half of this Bulls/Nuggets game until I pass out.

[Doctor MJ]

Great points DR MJ

Another aspect of that 2011 race was the uniqueness of that Miami situation. The expectations were beyond realistic, you had people like Jeff Van Gundy predicting them to win 70 games. Many expected it would be like team USA on an NBA floor. When the bar is set that high, and you "only" win 58 (which is fewer than Lebron won the year before in Cleveland) it leaves you with a taste of under achievement relative to expectations. Meanwhile the Bulls had the exact opposite dynamic in their favor, well exceeding what most expected

There was also some general Lebron backlash from the decision, i think a few guys left him off the ballot or voted him like 5th

Thank you, and what you say is true, but to be clear I still don't think the knocking of LeBron was entirely unjustified.

LeBron was a lock for the MVP the previous two years because he was leading a team of minor talents to absolutely obscene performances. He went to Miami and there was simply no way to look at what he was doing and say he had anything like the impact he'd had in Cleveland, and without that impact he ceased to be a lock.

To some extent it's reasonable to point that LeBron was doing as best he could trying to make a tough fit work with his new teammates...but I personally don't think it makes much sense to try hard to adjust for fit in an MVP race. To me that amounts to trying to ignore actual "value" in favor of what could have happened in an ideal scenario...which would be essentially giving LeBron the award in Miami for what he could have been doing in Cleveland. With that thinking, why wouldn't you just give LeBron the award for the next half decade even misses time with injury?

There was also the matter of the sheer ugliness of the Heatles in their debut. It just felt like brute force dumb basketball on offense, and while it always made sense to say "Be patient, they'll get better", for Year 1 together, this continued to hold true.

[Doctor MJ]

1) The MVP race in 2011 was incredibly weak. People going forward are going to find that harder and harder to believe because it's smack dab in the middle of LeBron & Durant's primes, but they had serious problems with their candidacies that year, as did other players. All of this opened the door for an exceptionally weak MVP candidate to come in and win the thing. - See more at: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1281178&start=540#sthash.TRRWuJ4V.dpuf

LeBron and KD primes but what about Anthony Davis. He's in his 2nd year only and absolutely tearing it up. The problem he faces is his team but I can see free agents wanting to go to NO to play with him. I think he's going to be a serious contender in future years.

http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/6583/anthony-davis

He is really killing it right now. It remains to be seen if he can keep up this pace but I envision him as a perennial contender for both DPOY and MVP.

Huh? I've got a total man crush on the Unibrow too, but this has not a lot to do with the 2011 MVP race.

[NaturalThunder]

A pretty methodical 28-8-6 on 10/19 shooting for KD tonight. The LeBron-esque 28-30 point, 6-8 assists, 6-8 rebound games are become fairly routine for Durant. Ever since his awful game in Minnesota/since Westbrook's return, he's been great.

His averages in those 9 games:

29.9 PPG, 7.3 RPG, 6.4 APG, 1.3 SPG, 3.7 TOV, .479 FG%, .400 3P%, .861 FT%, .634 TS%

[mopper8]

A pretty methodical 28-8-6 on 10/19 shooting for KD tonight. The LeBron-esque 28-30 point, 6-8 assists, 6-8 rebound games are become fairly routine for Durant. Ever since his awful game in Minnesota/since Westbrook's return, he's been great.

His averages in those 9 games:

29.9 PPG, 7.3 RPG, 6.4 APG, 1.3 SPG, 3.7 TOV, .479 FG%, .400 3P%, .861 FT%, .634% TS

Beastly

[HotRocks34]

LeBron was a lock for the MVP the previous two years because he was leading a team of minor talents to absolutely obscene performances. He went to Miami and there was simply no way to look at what he was doing and say he had anything like the impact he'd had in Cleveland, and without that impact he ceased to be a lock.

To some extent it's reasonable to point that LeBron was doing as best he could trying to make a tough fit work with his new teammates...but I personally don't think it makes much sense to try hard to adjust for fit in an MVP race. To me that amounts to trying to ignore actual "value" in favor of what could have happened in an ideal scenario...which would be essentially giving LeBron the award in Miami for what he could have been doing in Cleveland. With that thinking, why wouldn't you just give LeBron the award for the next half decade even misses time with injury?

Excellent synopsis, and I agree. As Bulletproof said, it's nice to have a pleasant and intelligent discussion on the subject.

To my recollection, two things happened with LeBron in Miami in the 2010-11 season:

1. He seemed to not want to step on Wade's toes

Wade was, and maybe still is, "The Guy" in Miami (in terms of being a Heat player for his whole career) in terms of basketball. At that point, he was the only member of the Big 3 who had brought the Heat a championship. I think LeBron was respectful of that.


2. Wade seemed to take LeBron's "spots" on offense often

This was the whole "overlapping skill sets" thing. And to be totally honest, I thought Wade was the superior driver during that season (and probably still is, if for no other reason than their relative sizes).

Since that time, LeBron has clearly become "The Guy" of the present for Miami basketball. And, LeBron has appeared to greatly increase his offensive skill set. But that first year, it wasn't always so effective, IMO. And I think this justly affected LeBron's MVP chances that season.