2016-17 MVP Discussion Thread

[Prez]

If you guys want to give LeBron a lifetime achievement award then do that but we're talking about the MVP award and there are more suitable candidates for MVP such as KD at this moment.

This isn't even close to true. The MVP stands for Most Valuable Player and there is just no chance that over the course of a season, KD is more valuable to the Warriors than Lebron is to the Cavs. The Cavs are proven for years to be extremely mediocre to flat out crap without Lebron. His team absolutely depends on him to be even close to good. The Warriors without KD would still be a damn good team assuming the other core guys stay healthy.

[jg77]

If you guys want to give LeBron a lifetime achievement award then do that but we're talking about the MVP award and there are more suitable candidates for MVP such as KD at this moment.

This isn't even close to true. The MVP stands for Most Valuable Player and there is just no chance that over the course of a season, KD is more valuable to the Warriors than Lebron is to the Cavs. The Cavs are proven for years to be extremely mediocre to flat out crap without Lebron. His team absolutely depends on him to be even close to good. The Warriors without KD would still be a damn good team assuming the other core guys stay healthy.

I heard this same thing from LeBron himself when he spoke on Curry winning unanimous MVP. If you're going by that narrative then Westbrook or Harden deserves the award. Irving and Love are two top 30 players. I'm quite sure if they played a whole season together they would be a playoff team. They've had to adjust their game to ball-dominant player so when he's out things of course will be out of sort but I don't believe we've seen large enough sample size to say that this Cleveland team without LeBron is a bottom dweller.

[parapooper]

I think the "top team" precedent is not as important when a guy does something unprecedented, like average a triple double.

Additionally, the "top team" precedent is not as important when a guy does something unprecedented, like join the top RS team in NBA history.

[krikor]

I think the "top team" precedent is not as important when a guy does something unprecedented, like average a triple double. Yes it's true that the MVP most often comes from a top 2-3 team in either conference, but it's a generality not an actual rule. If ever there were a case where it didn't happen, wouldn't it be in the name of something statistically unbelievable?

Kobe had 81 points back in 2005 or was it 2006, yet they gave it to Steve Nash. Kobe did like 35-36 pgg that year, was killing it on all fronts.Team record is everything.

[asdfgh]

It looks like Westbrook and Durant are emerging as the top 2 candidates for the award.

In cases like this I try to imagine how and whether putting one player in the other one's shoes would improve the team they are in.
If Westbrook was playing for Golden State and Durant for OKC, the rosters would have been:

Golden State
Curry
Westbrook
Thompson
Green
Pachulia

OKC
Oladipo
Roberson
Durant
Sabonis
Adams

Do either of the teams improve or are they both worse off?

[taikibansei]

It looks like Westbrook and Durant are emerging as the top 2 candidates for the award.

In cases like this I try to imagine how and whether putting one player in the other one's shoes would improve the team they are in.
If Westbrook was playing for Golden State and Durant for OKC, the rosters would have been:

Golden State
Curry
Westbrook
Thompson
Green
Pachulia

OKC
Oladipo
Roberson
Durant
Sabonis
Adams

Do either of the teams improve or are they both worse off?

Come on. Lacking a good play-maker, that OKC team with Durant would be lucky to make the playoffs. I doubt they would make it in, frankly.

That GSW team with Westbrook would still likely make it to the WCF, and maybe to the NBA Finals. (I think they'd lose to Cleveland, though, without additional big men on the roster.)

More importantly, remove Westbrook (without adding anybody), and OKC is a lottery team. Remove Durant (without adding anybody), and GSW is still competitive through the 2nd round of the playoffs. (As others have noted, with the exception of losing Bogut, their core is basically a team that won 73 games last year....)

I'm surprised that there's not more James Harden love on this thread. He's also putting up a near triple-double, on a team with arguably worse personnel than OKC, yet leading them to a better record. Simply phenomenal performance this year. As the MVP choice comes down a lot of times to narrative, I think Harden (with Westbrook) has to be the favorite this year.

[Slava]

OKC have had an easier schedule than Houston so far and I don't even think they are better. So I cannot see a reason for ranking Westbrook over Harden right now.

[Rastas]

It looks like Westbrook and Durant are emerging as the top 2 candidates for the award.

In cases like this I try to imagine how and whether putting one player in the other one's shoes would improve the team they are in.
If Westbrook was playing for Golden State and Durant for OKC, the rosters would have been:

Golden State
Curry
Westbrook
Thompson
Green
Pachulia

OKC
Oladipo
Roberson
Durant
Sabonis
Adams

Do either of the teams improve or are they both worse off?

Hahaha - now go try that scenario with the guy who is actually leading the MVP race at the moment -Lebron!
Lebron has OKC at around 65 win pace , and GSW at about 80 win pace hahaha

[mtron929]

Couple of things.

1a) There should really be a separate discussion on (a) who you think the MVP will be vs (b) who you think the MVP should be. Because different people might be arguing about (a) vs (b) which means that the conversation for the most part can just be a big misunderstanding. For example, when someone says that "Lebron is the MVP", the person might be arguing that Lebron will be the MVP (even if he thinks someone else should be the MVP) or he might be saying Lebron should be the MVP. Apples and oranges.

1b) I think between (a) and (b), (b) is the more interesting discussion. That is, this gets into the heart of what we think MVP should be as opposed to how it is viewed currently by the writers. So with that being said...

2) Although the discussion on who should be the MVP is pretty much subjective, whatever criterion that you have should consistently hold under all different scenarios and not lead to absurd outcomes. Or else, you need to re-examine your criterion. For example, many people here claim that Durant should not get the MVP because he is on a loaded team. Let's take this to an extreme example. Let's say hypothetically, there is a superteam that has all 12 of the NBA's best players (e.g. Lebron, Durant, Curry, Harden, Westbrook, Davis, CP3, ...). And obviously, this team will win 75+ games and easily win the championship. I think some people here will argue that none of the 12 best players deserve the MVP award because they are all on the stacked team. And that whoever is the 13th best player (e.g. Damian Lillard) on a far inferior team deserves the MVP award. But then, one can create another stacked team where we have 13th 24th best players all on the same team. Then, it seems like the 25th best player should be the best team (until we keep on creating superteams). At certain point, we would have a weird scenario where no one on stacked teams deserve the MVP so you might have someone like Rudy Gay winning the MVP if he is the best player that is not on a stacked team. This does not make sense. Which leads me to believe that

proposition #1: a player is on a stacked team should not automatically be disqualified.

3) We need to examine history and think about the regrettability factor in some of the previous MVP awards. In general, the regretable circumstances always tend to come when it seems like a guy who was not the best player in the NBA won the award because he did most for his team. For example, we can think about guys like Derrick Rose, Steve Nash, and Allen Iverson, which are all brought up as cases where they were not the best players in the NBA but seemed like they were instrumental in their own team's overachievement. So this is something that we should look out for. That is, if we want to vote in someone like Westbrook or Harden over someone like Lebron because they seem to be doing more with inferior teammates, we should look back to history and realize that we might be on the wrong side of history when it comes to future evaluations on the 2016-17 MVP award. You don't want to be the guy who adamantly supported for Derrick Rose to get the MVP in 2011 while staying silent 6 years in the future when Rose is brought up as an example of one of the worst MVP selections of all time. Which leads me to my next proposition..

proposition #2: when in doubt, give the best player the award. History will look kindly on this "mistake".

So with that said, the clear MVP (thus far in the season) is Lebron James.

[Bergmaniac]

proposition #1: a player is on a stacked team should not automatically be disqualified.

That never really happens anyway in the real voting.

Personally my proposition is "Don't disqualify anyone solely because of the quality of his teammates". So don't disqualify Durant and Curry because they play on the most stacked team ever but also don't disqualify Anthony Davis because his teammates either suck or constantly injured. The idiotic narrative that a real superstar can lead any roster to a top 2 seed, otherwise he's not worthy of the award no matter what really has to stop. It's a team sport.

In general, the regretable circumstances always tend to come when it seems like a guy who was not the best player in the NBA won the award because he did most for his team. For example, we can think about guys like Derrick Rose, Steve Nash, and Allen Iverson, which are all brought up as cases where they were not the best players in the NBA but seemed like they were instrumental in their own team's overachievement. So this is something that we should look out for.

Rose won because he was the star of the best regular season team and due to voter fatigue after Lebron's 2 wins.

[mademan]

It's not about KD being on a stacked team, it's about him maybe not even being the most valuable/impactful on his own team. Whens the last time a guy won MVP and he wasnt the clear cut most impactful singular guy on his squad?

[Patches Perry]

I think the "top team" precedent is not as important when a guy does something unprecedented, like average a triple double. Yes it's true that the MVP most often comes from a top 2-3 team in either conference, but it's a generality not an actual rule. If ever there were a case where it didn't happen, wouldn't it be in the name of something statistically unbelievable?

Kobe had 81 points back in 2005 or was it 2006, yet they gave it to Steve Nash. Kobe did like 35-36 pgg that year, was killing it on all fronts.Team record is everything.

Fair point, although Kobe's 35.4ppg average is only the 8th highest ever, and several players averaged 33-34 so while very impressive, it's not quite the perceived feat that a triple double is. Hell, Westbrook may only be a couple points off Kobe's 35ppg average while averaging 10+ rebounds and assists.

I think at some point, the voters have to abandon their "best player on the best team" paradigm and reward individual greatness.

[jg77]

I think the "top team" precedent is not as important when a guy does something unprecedented, like average a triple double. Yes it's true that the MVP most often comes from a top 2-3 team in either conference, but it's a generality not an actual rule. If ever there were a case where it didn't happen, wouldn't it be in the name of something statistically unbelievable?

Kobe had 81 points back in 2005 or was it 2006, yet they gave it to Steve Nash. Kobe did like 35-36 pgg that year, was killing it on all fronts.Team record is everything.

Fair point, although Kobe's 35.4ppg average is only the 8th highest ever, and several players averaged 33-34 so while very impressive, it's not quite the perceived feat that a triple double is. Hell, Westbrook may only be a couple points off Kobe's 35ppg average while averaging 10+ rebounds and assists.

I think at some point, the voters have to abandon their "best player on the best team" paradigm and reward individual greatness.

A lot of basketball to be played but Harden and Westbrook definitely have a good chance. If Houston is the 3 seed at the end of season, I could see Harden being locked in as the winner.

[Hero]

I think the "top team" precedent is not as important when a guy does something unprecedented, like average a triple double.

Additionally, the "top team" precedent is not as important when a guy does something unprecedented, like join the top RS team in NBA history.

Top teams not top team. There's very likely going to be a couple teams at least with 64+ win seasons, Cavs and Warriors.

LeBron would easily get the MVP over Westbrook if OKC continues winning at the pace they are. A triple double is great but if your team is winning 48 games, no way are you getting the MVP.

[PizzaSteve]

It looks like Westbrook and Durant are emerging as the top 2 candidates for the award.

In cases like this I try to imagine how and whether putting one player in the other one's shoes would improve the team they are in.
If Westbrook was playing for Golden State and Durant for OKC, the rosters would have been:

Golden State
Curry
Westbrook
Thompson
Green
Pachulia

OKC
Oladipo
Roberson
Durant
Sabonis
Adams

Do either of the teams improve or are they both worse off?

Come on. Lacking a good play-maker, that OKC team with Durant would be lucky to make the playoffs. I doubt they would make it in, frankly.

That GSW team with Westbrook would still likely make it to the WCF, and maybe to the NBA Finals. (I think they'd lose to Cleveland, though, without additional big men on the roster.)

More importantly, remove Westbrook (without adding anybody), and OKC is a lottery team. Remove Durant (without adding anybody), and GSW is still competitive through the 2nd round of the playoffs. (As others have noted, with the exception of losing Bogut, their core is basically a team that won 73 games last year....)

I'm surprised that there's not more James Harden love on this thread. He's also putting up a near triple-double, on a team with arguably worse personnel than OKC, yet leading them to a better record. Simply phenomenal performance this year. As the MVP choice comes down a lot of times to narrative, I think Harden (with Westbrook) has to be the favorite this year.

I dislike his play style, but Harden is right there. He could get my vote, if Houston is a 3/4 seed or better and he keeps thus up.

[Alonzo_Morning]

3rd 40 and 15 game from AD tonight

Rest of the leeg has 0

[HotRocks34]

Not LeBron's or the Cavs' finest hour tonight.

When the Bucks are on their game, they're a handful.

[510TWSS]

I think the "top team" precedent is not as important when a guy does something unprecedented, like average a triple double.

Additionally, the "top team" precedent is not as important when a guy does something unprecedented, like join the top RS team in NBA history.

Nothing really unprecedented about what Russ is doing. Is it amazing, yes. But there is precedent for averaging a triple double and not winning the MVP award if you're not an upper echelon playoff team.

Russ gets mvp if he averages a triple double and gets a top 4 seed for OKC.

[Impuniti]

3rd 40 and 15 game from AD tonight

Rest of the leeg has 0

Is there a reason AD played for 41 minutes in a game when the Pels win by 17 other than stat padding?

[Triples333]

3rd 40 and 15 game from AD tonight

Rest of the leeg has 0

Is there a reason AD played for 41 minutes in a game when the Pels win by 17 other than stat padding?

No, I watched it. He was padding. Ditto Gianni's in the Bucks/Cavs game. Though not the first AllStar or MVP candidates to pad this year, and won't be the last. The Warriors have done it a number of times simply because they're up big in so many 4th quarters and their numbers at the time were paltry before doing a little padding.