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Grizzlies currently are 50W-23L
with Morant played: 35W-21L
without Morant: 15W-2L

Grizzlies have the second best record in the league. Morant is the best player on the second best team. With team winning, does it more strengthen his second best team part, or hurt his "valuable" argument?
Do you still have him top 5 in MVP voting?

Jokic
Giannis/Embiid
Steph

would be my top 4 right now, with Steph likely to fall due to games he will miss. I might actually have Tatum or Luka #5 now if I had to choose. They have missed less games than Morant, which helps to make up for their slow starts.

Winning is obviously helping his MVP ranking.

15-2 is still a relatively small sample size compared to the 56 game he's played in, and if they lost all 17 of those games instead and had a record of 33-40, he wouldn't be in the conversation at all.

You love rhetorical questions don't you?!

I understand the irony of me asking lol

Jokic
Giannis


Embid
Luka
Ja

Ja is one of my fave players and its amazing what's he done this year but the Grizz record without him at 15-2 is too hard to ignore for the MVP discussion. I understand that there's a lot of other factors, in particular the quality of opponents in those games but if the question is, does it lower his MVP ranking that his team is successful without him? The answer is yes it does. I still think he makes the top 5 though.

dygaction wrote:Grizzlies currently are 50W-23L
with Morant played: 35W-21L
without Morant: 15W-2L

Grizzlies have the second best record in the league. Morant is the best player on the second best team. With team winning, does it more strengthen his second best team part, or hurt his "valuable" argument?
Do you still have him top 5 in MVP voting?

The 35-21 is much more convincing than 15-2. 56 games of evidence versus 17 games. Their record without Morant could be due to things that have nothing to do with Ja Morant, there arent enough games there to say. How would the Grizz fare over 56 games without Morant? They certainly would not maintain an .882 winning percentage. It would probably end up worse than the .625 winning percentage they have with Morant.

Grizzlies' record is basically the only case favoring Morant for MVP as he's not close to the top 5 in the league, so absolutely yes.

Jaivl wrote:Grizzlies' record is basically the only case favoring Morant for MVP as he's not close to the top 5 in the league, so absolutely yes.

But their record with Morant is still impressive. Even if you remove their 15-2 record without Morant, he would still be an MVP candidate with a .625 winning percentage.

A .625 win percentage (which is the Grizzlies 35-21 record with Morant) would have the Grizzlies as the #2 seed in the East and a top 5 record in the NBA overall.

I'll go with #5-6 for Ja Morant.

1) Jokic
2) Embiid
3) Giannis
4) Luka
5) Morant or Steph
6) Steph or Morant
7) Lebron

Pennebaker wrote:

dygaction wrote:Grizzlies currently are 50W-23L
with Morant played: 35W-21L
without Morant: 15W-2L

Grizzlies have the second best record in the league. Morant is the best player on the second best team. With team winning, does it more strengthen his second best team part, or hurt his "valuable" argument?
Do you still have him top 5 in MVP voting?

The 35-21 is much more convincing than 15-2. 56 games of evidence versus 17 games. Their record without Morant could be due to things that have nothing to do with Ja Morant, there arent enough games there to say. How would the Grizz fare over 56 games without Morant? They certainly would not maintain an .882 winning percentage. It would probably end up worse than the .625 winning percentage they have with Morant.

This is catch 22. If the team had gone 0W17L, certainly no one could argue that Ja would be the heart and soul and everything of the team, but the overall record 35W-38L would make him not the top contender. If the team had gone 8W-9L (reasonable for a strong team without their best player?), the record would be 43W-30L, the same as Denver right now and slightly below Mavs and Celtics. The current 15-2 is no longer a small sample size and it is overwhelmingly good compared to other teams without their MVPs. Ja is slightly getting some unfair share of benefit when people look at individual player's stats and team records.

The Grizzlies are a group team much like the Suns. It's not like Morant carried them to the playoffs/play-in the last few seasons. He's just getting the media hype because his game is flashy/exciting.

Statlanta wrote:The Grizzlies are a group team much like the Suns. It's not like Morant carried them to the playoffs/play-in the last few seasons. He's just getting the media hype because his game is flashy/exciting.

That and he averages 27/6/6! Meanwhile CP3 gets a lot of credit for elevating the Suns......yet they arent missing a beat without him, their players are all playing as good of not better without him, and his backup is putting up almost identical numbers as he did.....and nobody wants to discuss it.

Not for this year but if they do the same thing or better next year with Ja leading them he’ll probably win the MVP. Media is desperately looking for another young face of the league who’s American. Trae’s team may never reach the team success required and Zion’s career is still a TBD cause of injury. That leaves Tatum and Ja who can have the combination of team success and stats.

fairer question is, 'is ja morant helping grizzlies win?' and the answer is yes.

Probably doing a little of both helping and hurting. 17 games out of 73 is a pretty solid sample size and they look absolutely incredible in those 17 games. I don't think he's a realistic MVP candidate for a few reasons though. For one he's only played in 56 games, also his On-Off of -2.1 is near the bottom of his team and just not remotely near MVP worthy level (Jokic is +13.8, Embiid is +10.3, Curry is +10.9, etc). I do think Ja will be a MVP level player in his prime, just not there yet. But it's clear the Grizz have a great team around him so they should be contending for a while with him leading the way.

This is very simple.

MVP is a regular season award.
When your team is 15-2 without you in the regular season, you're not the MVP. You're actually the LVP among the players having a great season.

flow wrote:This is very simple.

MVP is a regular season award.
When your team is 15-2 without you in the regular season, you're not the MVP. You're actually the LVP among the players having a great season.

This kind of thinking makes no sense.

MVP is typically given to a guy on a Top 3, championship contending team.

Therefore, in order for a team to be a championship contending team, the team shouldn't fall apart if a guy has to sit out for a few weeks.

If the MVP was simply about the best player in the league, it would easily go to Jokic or Giannis, but it's not about the best player, it's really not even about the most valuable player to a team in regards to win and loss.

Ja Morant should be in the top 3 at best for MVP.

Morants current season reminds me a lot of Derrick Rose' 2011 season. Maybe thats their playstyle, maybe its them being PGs leading their team but he should definitely get votes.

threethehardway wrote:

flow wrote:This is very simple.

MVP is a regular season award.
When your team is 15-2 without you in the regular season, you're not the MVP. You're actually the LVP among the players having a great season.

This kind of thinking makes no sense.

MVP is typically given to a guy on a Top 3, championship contending team.

Therefore, in order for a team to be a championship contending team, the team shouldn't fall apart if a guy has to sit out for a few weeks.

If the MVP was simply about the best player in the league, it would easily go to Jokic or Giannis, but it's not about the best player, it's really not even about the most valuable player to a team in regards to win and loss.

Ja Morant should be in the top 3 at best for MVP.

MVP generally is the best player though, or the player with the best stats that year. The last 10 MVPs: Lebron x2, KD, Curry x2, Westbrook, Harden, Giannis x2, Jokic. Other than maybe Westbrook (who had a historic year and the triple double narrative) all of these guys essentially had the best or second best statistical seasons that year. Ja's not in that ballpark this year. The fact that the team is a championship contender usually is due to the player's greatness, which doesn't seem to be the case with the Grizzlies this year. As you said, Jokic and Giannis (and I'll add Embiid) will likely get the MVP this year because they are the best players in the NBA.