2024-25 NBA MVP Discussion Thread (Pt. 4: Who is the MVP?)

[lethalizer]

i see the discussion went away from the 2024-25 nba mvp

I mean, we all know who will get the award at this point, so I get it.

People like to debate, the thread exists, and it's a discussion thread after all.

[Exp0sed]

i see the discussion went away from the 2024-25 nba mvp

I mean, we all know who will get the award at this point, so I get it.

People like to debate, the thread exists, and it's a discussion thread after all.

exactly

the race was over a month ago, we're just debating in the margins since then

[scrabbarista]

I highly recommend The Ringer's Group Chat discussion on the MVP race. They do a great job of hitting all the angles and showing why this is such a tough choice between the top two.

[JustBuzzin]

Jokic winning MVP the same year his HC got fired would be crazy.

SGA has this award locked up for the past few months imo. He's the best player on the best team in basketball this year. He is the true definition of MVP.

[scrabbarista]

Jokic winning MVP the same year his HC got fired would be crazy.

SGA has this award locked up for the past few months imo. He's the best player on the best team in basketball this year. He is the true definition of MVP.

I go Rob Mahoney's thinking on the pod: the perennial best player in the world is having his best season, and it's hard not to reward that.

But I also agree with Mahoney that SGA has been so good that I have to wait until the season is over before I can declare my winner.

[Castle Black]

Jokic winning MVP the same year his HC got fired would be crazy.

SGA has this award locked up for the past few months imo. He's the best player on the best team in basketball this year. He is the true definition of MVP.

The definition of the MVP is the "most valuable player." Jokic's numbers prove that he is not only the best player in the world, but he's also the most valuable. He won't win it because the NBA has decided to make it a team-oriented award, and he's currently stuck on a worse team, but make no mistake -- Jokic is the most valuable basketball player in the world.

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[Packbuckman]

The difference in Defense between Giannis and Jokic is bigger than people think looking at stats it’s the eye test and Giannis can raise his level of play to make that elite block to save a game which jokic is not capable of doing. Watch these playoffs with a healthy Giannis to understand what I am talking about.

Jokic has more career game-winning blocks than Giannis, fwiw

And if you think Jokic could make that block on Ayton in that championship or on Ant I want what you’re smoking. There is levels to defense and blocks jokic is not close to Giannis as a defender now or ever. When they played this year Giannis was clearly the best player on the floor and this is with Doc Rivers as a coach Malone is so much better and he gets fired I would have traded even up in a heartbeat. I do think they are the two best players on the planet and both still improving too. SGA is still winning mvp this year though

[Cubbies2120]

The difference in Defense between Giannis and Jokic is bigger than people think looking at stats it’s the eye test and Giannis can raise his level of play to make that elite block to save a game which jokic is not capable of doing. Watch these playoffs with a healthy Giannis to understand what I am talking about.

Jokic has more career game-winning blocks than Giannis, fwiw

And if you think Jokic could make that block on Ayton in that championship or on Ant I want what you’re smoking. There is levels to defense and blocks jokic is not close to Giannis as a defender now or ever. When they played this year Giannis was clearly the best player on the floor and this is with Doc Rivers as a coach Malone is so much better and he gets fired I would have traded even up in a heartbeat. I do think they are the two best players on the planet and both still improving too. SGA is still winning mvp this year though

There's also levels to offense, and what Jokic does for the entire team offensively (not just scoring himself, where he has many more weapons than Giannis) is LEVELS above what Giannis can reach...

I've asked this repeatedly on this forum and nobody can answer this simple question for me.

If Jokic is such a BAD defender, and MPJ/Murray are not even average defenders, how were the Nuggets able to have a top clutch defense last two years? #2 last year, #3 year prior to that.

Are we overlooking a potential GOAT level defender in Aaron Gordon?

[hauntedcomputer]

My bottom line is your great season and stats aren't that valuable if they don't lead to winning. Nobody's out here celebrating all the scoring titles won by gunners on bottom feeders.

There's no dissonance in Jokic being the best player in the world and SGA being the most valuable player in the NBA.

[NZB2323]

Jokic winning MVP the same year his HC got fired would be crazy.

SGA has this award locked up for the past few months imo. He's the best player on the best team in basketball this year. He is the true definition of MVP.

The definition of the MVP is the "most valuable" player." Jokic's numbers prove that he is not only the best player in the world, but he's also the most valuable. He won't win it because the NBA has decided to make it a team-oriented award, and he's currently stuck on a worse team, but make no mistake -- Jokic is the most valuable basketball player in the world.

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Those are all per game stats, and how bad the Nuggets have been without Jokic means that he’s really hurt his team in the games he hasn’t played in.

I think 76 games of SGA is more valuable than 68 games of Jokic.

If I need a player for 1 game, I’m taking Jokic, but over this 82 game regular season, SGA has been available more and has helped his team win more.

[BigGargamel]

SGA will win the MVP award. There's no doubt about that.

But man....the fact that Denver can still win 50 games this year, despite all of the injuries, turmoil and drama...Jokic is the "definition" of MVP. The rest of the world could crumble around him and he'll be the one skyscraper still standing.

[RRR3]

Let's see what Lebron won without another top 10 player next to him.



Jokić can't even get teammate that would be top 10 player at his own position


Who ever said Williams over Murray? Fact is, Mo was all star, Jamal was literally never anything.

Lebron without Wade had one great playoff run. Lost finals with team where 2 out of 3 other best players on the floor were his own teammates.

But this isn't about Lebron. It's about fact that Jokić never had single actual star player anywhere near prime years, playing along side him. He simply didn't.
And despite all that, guy won a title as one of very, very,very few players in history that didn't have all star "sidekick" .

Or you think Jamal Murray is better than Wade?

LeBron won a ring with his 2nd option averaging 15.9 PPG on awful efficiency 2013. Jokic has never carried a team like that. Yes Jamal Murray in 23 playoffs was quite a bit better than Wade in the 13 playoffs. 15.9 PPG on horrid efficiency is not good help. You guys would be calling Wade the worst player in the league if he did that with Jokic.

Jamal Murray not being an all-star is semantics because he played like an all-star when they won so that's really dubious reasoning.


Also are you seriously claiming LeBron had a top 10 teammate in 2016? WHO? Kyrie? Kevin Love?


Please.

Oh boy.

To reply on your second comment, people say you overreact because you argue things nobody said

But let's go through this crap.

LeBron won a ring with his 2nd option averaging 15.9 PPG on awful efficiency 2013. Jokic has never carried a team like that.

2011-12:
Wade averages 22-5-5 on 56% TS . 26 PER & 7,9 BPM.
Wade averages 23 ppg -5 rpg- 4,3 rpg. 52,35 TS, 22 PER, 5,3 BPM

Context of time
2011-12 Wade is
7th in scoring
4th in plus/minus
7th in net rating - higher than Lebron
17th in defensive rating in nba (18th was Bosh, Lebron 22)



You think his efficiency wasn't that high in playoffs? League's average TS that year was 52,6%, meaning his playoff efficiency was in line with league's average.

But let's not stop there during 2011-12 Wade was:
10th in MVP race
got DPOY vote
all star
All nba 3rd team

And in finals random 22-6-5 stat line.
Guy finished playoffs as 8th best scorer in playoffs.


2012-13
Wade averaged 21-5-5 + 2 steals - 57% TS , 4,4 BPM & 24 PER
Wade averaged 15,6 ppg , 4,6 RPG, 4,8 APG , 1,7 steals, 1 block, 50% TS, 3,0 BPM , 19 PER

Again context of time
9th in scoring in entire league
3rd in plus minus in entire league
6th in steals

In addition he was:
again 10th in MVP race
again selected to all star game
again all nba 3rd team


In actual finals, Wade averaged 20-4-4 & 50,5% TS.

Without any questions Wade was top 10 player in nba. No doubt, hands down.


And you really thought this is winning Murray argument, because you can't understand context of time and how league changed.

League's average in PPG in 2012- 2013 in playoffs :95,3
League's average in PPG in 2022-2023 in playoff : 109,6

Even biggest fool can understand that it is easier to score today.

Murray in 2023-24:
regular season : 21 ppg, 6,5 apg, 4,5 rpg, 57% TS, 4,1 BPM, 20,7 PER
playoffs : 26 ppg, 7,1 apg, 5,7 rpg ,58,6 % TS, 4,8 BPM, 21,6 PER

During regular season Murray was:
- 57th in scoring
- 28th in plus minus
- wasn't all star
- wasn't selected in any of all nba teams
- got less all star votes by players than Josh Giddey or Jose Alvarado ( goes to show you how little other players viewed him )


During playoffs, despite on surface higher numbers he still:
- just 12th in ppg
- 13th in apg
- averaged 21,4 ppg in finals on 55% TS ( in contract of 19,6 to Wade, who's team averaged 97 ppg in contrast of 21,4 ppg on 105 ppg by team). So even that argument is very shaky.


Again, Murray had brilliant playoff run. But that guy was never top 10 player, he never had season where he was top 10 player, he wasn't even that elite in finals as you think.
There is just confirmation bias that you have based on enhanced raw numbers compared to a league from 10-12 years ago and personal bias toward defending Lebron , as we already established in my opening replay, nobody even "attacked".

Wade entered 2012-13 as top 10 player, Wade exited 2012-13 as top 10 player.
Bosh entered 2012-13 as top 25 player. Bosh exited 2012-13 as top 25 player.

Adjusted google search to get real rating of Murray by established nba pages and this was common sense about Murray :
CBS Sports- ranked 39th
ESPN top 100-- ranked 50th
( Gordon 69th, Porter 72th)

So your whole argument is based on not finals, but before finals series where Murray stuffed stat sheet bit better, ignoring regular season, ignoring stat adjustment, ignoring defense, ignoring accolade and ignoring context of time?

Great, you do you. Now go make counter argument about something i didn't say

All this to say simple thing: over span of 4 years that Lebron had with prime- and exiting prime Wade is better than any teammate Jokić ever had.
For crying out loud, Wade won title without Lebron, before Lebron, with best teammate being old man Shaq. What's the argument here ? It would be equivalent of Jokić having "help " of Jaylen Brown/Tatum and i don't know, Siakam. That's what Lebron had in Wade and Bosh. 5 times in a row all star Bosh and guy who was at times top 5 player in the world.

Nice wall of text but your argument essentially boils down to "HIS NAME IS DWYANE WADE SO HES ALWAYS AS GOOD AS HE WAS AT HIS PEAK BECAUSE OF HIS NAME" ignoring the fact that he was awful in the 2013 playoffs due to being injured the whole time. What he did when he was healthy in the regular season is irrelevant and what he did a year prior is even less relevant as he had declined since then Again, apparently it's unimpressive when LeBron's second option averages 15.9 PPG on awful efficiency but Jokic getting 26 PPG on good efficiency "NO HELP!!!" because Murray never made an all-star team. Your arguments are based on what other people think of the players and not what actually happened. Every time Murray has played like 2013 playoffs Wade Jokic has been sent home packing. Like last year. Meanwhile LeBron won with Wade injured and a shell of himself, proving he didn't need as much help as Jokic did to win. 15.9 PPG on awful efficiency is one of the worst ever second options for a title winner in the playoffs. BUT BUT REGULAR SEASON is not a good argument, Wade wasn't healthy in the playoffs. But guess what LeBron still won.

[Castle Black]

[Mrakar]

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mVALUABLEp

[RRR3]

Leaving off impact stats. No agenda here.

[f4p]

My bottom line is your great season and stats aren't that valuable if they don't lead to winning. Nobody's out here celebrating all the scoring titles won by gunners on bottom feeders.

There's no dissonance in Jokic being the best player in the world and SGA being the most valuable player in the NBA.

Exactly. How good your teammates are is how I evaluate a player. We got people out here trying to actually look at the player themselves to see how good they are.

[BigGargamel]

Leaving off impact stats. No agenda here.

The nerve.

The guy posted a graphic with 12 stats, both raw and advanced. But they didn't include the hand picked stats you won't shut up about, so it's irrelevant.

You've had an agenda all year. Stop it.

[MoneyTalks41890]

Some of you all just keep spamming the same stuff. It’s over. The Giannis conversation was more interesting.

[Special_Puppy]

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[RRR3]

Leaving off impact stats. No agenda here.

The nerve.

The guy posted a graphic with 12 stats, both raw and advanced. But they didn't include the hand picked stats you won't shut up about, so it's irrelevant.

You've had an agenda all year. Stop it.

Those "advanced" stats are still box score derived, it's like listing PER. Not listing what SGA is ahead of is disingenuous, whether you like it or not. Especially since I used to hear about how great Jokic was in impact stats in the past.