MVP Discussion [19/20] [part I] - voting reopened

[Perseus1966]

West sucks

[RB34]

How are people writing off Luka? They’re 4th in the west and only 3 games back from the top seed in the league. He’s putting up 30/10/10 at 20 years of age. Dude is ridiculous.

[Freighttrain]

This is a 5 man horse race at this moment: Luka Giannis LeBron Harden AD

____

Rest.

Am I missing someone else?

[Dupp]

How are people writing off Luka? They’re 4th in the west and only 3 games back from the top seed in the league. He’s putting up 30/10/10 at 20 years of age. Dude is ridiculous.

I personally just don’t see Dallas winning enough games. He’s definitely playing at an mvp level though and probably the current leader.

[mpoo_sin]

How are people writing off Luka? They’re 4th in the west and only 3 games back from the top seed in the league. He’s putting up 30/10/10 at 20 years of age. Dude is ridiculous.

I personally just don’t see Dallas winning enough games. He’s definitely playing at an mvp level though and probably the current leader.

They are obliterating their opponents right now. Could you please explain how you do not see them winning enough games?

[antonac]

2 horse race and they're both Euros.

I'm sorry but I don't see how Lebron getting Davis on his team, who is also playing at an MVP level, doesn't cancel him out in the same way everyone insisted neither Durant nor Curry could win it while playing together.

[Lepramaniac]

2 horse race and they're both Euros.

I'm sorry but I don't see how Lebron getting Davis on his team, who is also playing at an MVP level, doesn't cancel him out in the same way everyone insisted neither Durant nor Curry could win it while playing together.

Exactly, people seem to forget that last year Lebron didn't even made the playoffs, now after adding another MVP caliber player he's an MVP candidate? should be the other way around.

[LukaV]

We need a new thread so we can change our votes. Doncic, Giannis, LeBron, Davis, Harden. Giant gap. The rest.

I can reset the poll results, not sure what others think of it?

In a way it carries lot of the pre-season expectation or at least a strong reflection of the first couple weeks of the season so it's meaningful, but the poll results gets skewed more and more as the season goes on because we got all the old votes stuck in it.

Maybe we can refresh the poll every month?

Like others have said, it'd be best if a new thread was started every once in a while (once a month/every 3 weeks, more frequently towards the end of the season) with links to the old thread in the OP.

[Dupp]

How are people writing off Luka? They’re 4th in the west and only 3 games back from the top seed in the league. He’s putting up 30/10/10 at 20 years of age. Dude is ridiculous.

I personally just don’t see Dallas winning enough games. He’s definitely playing at an mvp level though and probably the current leader.

They are obliterating their opponents right now. Could you please explain how you do not see them winning enough games?

I’m just Skeptical. Mvp usually goes to a top seed and I don’t see the mavs having a record that close to the bucks and I don’t think lukas play is gonna be that much better than giannis’, if at all.

[Oscar9992]

Luka not only averaging 30 - 10 - 10 line, but also leading the league in PER, WS, WSPM, BPM and VORP.

[CalL]

For me there are currently 4 (more or less) reasonable picks: LeBron, Giannis, Harden and Doncic (i think most people agree on that)

Harden: He is my number 4, despite averaging by far the most points. He is averaging (clearly) less rebounds/assists than Doncic and his team has the worst record (out of LA, Dallas, Milwaukee and Houston). I think it would be hard to justify picking him over Doncic at this moment, since Doncic is leading a worse (in my opinion) team to a better record and is averaging more rebounds/assists, of course Harden being the worst of those 4 defensively (even worse than Luka in my opinion) doesn't help.

LeBron: He is averaging 1 more assist per game than Luka and his team has a better record, but on the other hand he is averaging 5 points less per game and 2,5 less rebounds per game + he has a (clearly) better supporting cast (in my opinion) than Luka. I consider him a better defender than Luka, but i am not sure whether you can say that he is on a completely different level than Luka currently (although of course we have seen that he can be an elite defender, unlike Luka).
At this point i wouldn't pick him over Luka, but if the Lakers win 15 or 20 more games than Dallas and/or if his stats get closer to those of Luka, then we have a different conversation.

Giannis: He is averaging clearly more rebounds per game than Luka, while Luka is averaging clearly more assits, point-wise they are both on the same level. Milwaukee has a better record than Dallas. I would say that the east in general is easier than the west, but so far i wouldn't say that Milwaukee has had an easier schedule than Dallas. Giannis might have a (slightly) better supporting cast than Luka. I would say if the stats of both Luka and Giannis remain at this level and Milwaukee has considerably more wins than Dallas in the end (10+ more wins) than it will be hard to pick Luka over Giannis, since Giannis is a clearly better defender.

To sum it up: For me it is hard to see Harden finishing the MVP race ahead of Doncic, unless the Rockets go on a miracle run. If the Lakers don't end up with a clearly better record than Dallas, then it also would be difficult in my opinion to pick LeBron over Luka. On the other hand it would be difficult to pick Luka over Giannis if Milwaukee ends up with a clearly better record and if their personal stats stay on the same level. In theory Kawhi also could be in contention, but i think it wouldn't be fair to chose someone as MVP who plays clearly less games than the other contenders (+ Kawhi clearly has the best supporting cast, so the Clippers would need a crazy record to justify picking Kawhi over those other guys). I think that the Clippers will be very hard to beat this season, so i wouldn't be surprised if Kawhi would pick up his third Finals MVP Award (equaling the number of Finals MVP Awards of LeBron, Duncan and Shaq).

My current MVP ranking therefore would be:
1) Giannis
2) Luka
3) LeBron

4) Harden

[Baddy Chuck]

Luka not only averaging 30 - 10 - 10 line, but also leading the league in PER, WS, WSPM, BPM and VORP.

Well I mean yeah, if you're killing the league in box score stats you're killing the league in the stats that aggregate them.

[AdagioPace]

Even though +/- and family related should not be used for rankings, just for the sake of entertainment, 2019-2020 PIPM has it in this order.

Giannis
Doncic/Harden 2a/2b
Lebron

My gut feeling surprisingly agrees. Giannis is simply doing "too much" for his team. If voters' fatigue is a thing then I would probably give it to the "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named"

[MisterHibachi]

I can reset the poll results, not sure what others think of it?

In a way it carries lot of the pre-season expectation or at least a strong reflection of the first couple weeks of the season so it's meaningful, but the poll results gets skewed more and more as the season goes on because we got all the old votes stuck in it.

Maybe we can refresh the poll every month?

Yeah, maybe a reset is needed? Not sure what the rest thinks of that, I just kinda saw Kawhi having the same amount of votes as Harden and thought that those who voted probably did so at the very beginning. But the thread would work fine without a reset, too.

Here is a thought.

We reset the poll results at the beginning of each month, based on Seikou's latest MVP ladder (or if there is more recognized one elsewhere). I'll take the top 10 from his ranking. Practically we all know only the top 5 matters at this point and normally it turns into a 3 man race or less after the ASB, while the rest are just kept in the list for honorary mentions.

Or reset the poll and allow people to change their votes on a rolling basis. Pretty sure that's an option, I've see that in previous polls. Would be less work and less clutter.

[Homer38]

Yes LeBron has AD,but we need to look at the rest of the roster….I don't know who is the 3rd best player of the Lakers….If the Lakers win over 60 games,LBJ will be a big candidat.

[whatever_]

Why do people keep mentioning AD as an MVP candidate when he's not even the best player of his team?

And he deosn't have monster stats either...

[MisterHibachi]

People knew AD was on LeBron's team during the summer but still downplayed the Lakers because of the rest of the roster. Why are we now pretending the rest of the roster doesn't matter and a superstar duo disqualifies you from MVP votes.

[igorbianch]

Mavs has the #1 offense and the 2nd best NETrtg in the league.

They’re starting to gel and they’re looking legit.

[scrabbarista]

LeBron's definitely the winner on my ballot if the season ends today.

The Lakers are on a 72-win pace with Danny Green as their third best player.
LeBron's on-off is +17.5 and Anthony Davis' is -5.2.
LeBron's averaging 25/8/11 while being 4th in WS and 4th in VORP.

As I say in every post, it's silly to talk about the MVP this early in the season, but as of now, I'd say LeBron is the most deserving.

[INKtastic]

How are people writing off Luka? They’re 4th in the west and only 3 games back from the top seed in the league. He’s putting up 30/10/10 at 20 years of age. Dude is ridiculous.

I personally just don’t see Dallas winning enough games. He’s definitely playing at an mvp level though and probably the current leader.

They are obliterating their opponents right now. Could you please explain how you do not see them winning enough games?

People want to see both Luka and the team do it for a longer stretch. Dallas has had the 2nd easiest schedule in the league thus far and just 10 days ago they were only 6-5.The 5 game winning streak changes it from a 45 win pace to a 56 win pace. Give it another 16 games. If they are 22-10 or better and Luka is still playing like this, more people will be convinced.It also depends on what happens with other teams (Lakers are on a 72 win pace right now, but 3rd easiest schedule).