Was Jordan thieved in 1990 and 1993 not getting mvp

[migya]

It's been mentioned before that Jordan should have been mvp in 1997 instead of Malone but was he thieved in 1990 and 1993 not getting mvp and finishing third, close behind the top 2?

He had highest bpm, ws and ws/48, as well as PER, in 1990 and 1993.

[AEnigma]

Why even have MVP voting when basketball-reference tells us objectively who was the most valuable. Younguns these days need to spend more time checking box score formulas. That is real basketball.

[migya]

Why even have MVP voting when basketball-reference tells us objectively who was the most valuable. Younguns these days need to spend more time checking box score formulas. That is real basketball.

Well done on giving a constructive response. You should have said you think No.

Don't derail my thread. Maybe those in the position to oversee this can say something. Likely not though.

[AEnigma]

Constructive responses tend to follow constructive threads. There is no derail when that is the standard you set.

But if this is what you want, alright: no, he was not “thieved” in 1990 and 1993.

Glad I could be constructive for you.

[tsherkin]

Constructive responses tend to follow constructive threads. There is no derail when that is the standard you set.

But if this is what you want, alright: no, he was not “thieved” in 1990 and 1993.

Glad I could be constructive for you.

Attempting to extract some valuable conversation here.

Why do you think others deserved the MVP more than Jordan in 90 and 93?

[Dutchball97]

In 1990 I can defintitely see why MJ didn't win MVP. Sure I'm confident he was the best player in the regular season but Magic and Barkley for that matter weren't far behind. Then factor in the Lakers having the best record in the league, up 6 wins from last year when Magic also got the MVP. The success Magic was having these 2 years without Kareem has to have played a role as well.

In 91 and 92 you really couldn't give it to anyone but MJ with his individual dominance alongside the incredible team success. In 93 the Bulls were down 10 wins and about 4 SRS from the year before, meanwhile there was another situation like 1990 with two contenders that I wouldn't straight up take over MJ in the regular season but were close enough that I could see the arguments for Barkley and Hakeem. Then once again you have to factor in the Suns having the best record in the league and it looks pretty clear why the 90 and 93 MVPs didn't go to MJ.

The entire reason this is a problem is because people equate MVP with the best player while that hasn't nearly always been the case. I'd suggest looking at the POY rankings on this board to get a better feel for who was the best player in a given season.

[AEnigma]

Constructive responses tend to follow constructive threads. There is no derail when that is the standard you set.

But if this is what you want, alright: no, he was not “thieved” in 1990 and 1993.

Glad I could be constructive for you.

Attempting to extract some valuable conversation here.

Why do you think others deserved the MVP more than Jordan in 90 and 93?

I am not particularly opposed to Jordan’s case in 1990, although I think Magic being the engine behind the league’s best team and having a regular season right on par with his prior two MVP campaigns makes for a more natural argument than Jordan being the engine for a borderline top five regular season team.

If I were to argue Jordan in 1990 despite that, his argument would be primarily based around that 24-3 stretch in the second half of the regular season (before closing with a 2-4 slide that very well may have cost him the MVP), during which he averaged 35.4/7/6.3 on 63.9% efficiency. For me that is the best stretch of his entire career and a large part of why I see 1990 as his individual peak. However, by that same approach, he has no shot in 1993, where Hakeem also led his team to 55 wins after a slow initial start, via a 28-4 stretch where he also played at his individual peak level.

I think 1993 should have gone to Hakeem anyway despite the analogous circumstances, because 1993 Barkley is a ways off the level of 1990 Magic, but there too the MVP went to the engine of the league’s best team, with KJ’s injury additionally providing a strong adversity component and making Barkley massively “valuable” to the team in a way I would not say was true for 1993 Jordan on the Bulls.

Just seems like an out-of-touch exercise. You tend not to see people calling it “thievery” when Lebron missed out on MVP in 2011 despite leading the league in all those cited box score metrics and captaining the league’s top SRS team. More goes into the award than just checking a few numbers.

[migya]

In 1990 I can defintitely see why MJ didn't win MVP. Sure I'm confident he was the best player in the regular season but Magic and Barkley for that matter weren't far behind. Then factor in the Lakers having the best record in the league, up 6 wins from last year when Magic also got the MVP. The success Magic was having these 2 years without Kareem has to have played a role as well.

In 91 and 92 you really couldn't give it to anyone but MJ with his individual dominance alongside the incredible team success. In 93 the Bulls were down 10 wins and about 4 SRS from the year before, meanwhile there was another situation like 1990 with two contenders that I wouldn't straight up take over MJ in the regular season but were close enough that I could see the arguments for Barkley and Hakeem. Then once again you have to factor in the Suns having the best record in the league and it looks pretty clear why the 90 and 93 MVPs didn't go to MJ.

The entire reason this is a problem is because people equate MVP with the best player while that hasn't nearly always been the case. I'd suggest looking at the POY rankings on this board to get a better feel for who was the best player in a given season.

I agree with your reasoning and it makes sense. Magic was awesome in 89 and 90, the only superstar on his team, though still a good amount of talent on them, more than Jordan and Barkley had. In 93 though Barkley had a loaded team. Olajuwon was the better choice with a far less talented team, less than Jordan's.

Similar can be said about Kareem in the 70s as well.

[AEnigma]

That “loaded team” went 1-5 without Barkley. Majerle was a good player (although far from a true star) who played 3200 minutes, but the rest of the core was an old and declined Danny Ainge (2163 minutes), an old and declined Tom Chambers (1723 minutes), an injured Kevin Johnson (1643 minutes), a young Cedric Ceballos (1607 minutes — misses the Finals), a “rookie” Richard Dumas in between drug suspensions (1320 minutes), and the uninspiring centre rotation of Mark West (1558 minutes) and injured rookie Oliver Miller (1069 minutes).

That “loaded team” is precisely why Barkley looked like the most valuable player in the league.

[70sFan]

I don't think he'd be unreasonable choice in both years, but I don't think he was robbed either. 1990 is full of strong RS performances and even though I think Jordan was probably the best one overall, you can make a legitimate case for at least 2-3 more players (Magic, Barkley, Hakeem, maybe even Robinson?).

For 1993, I think Hakeem was the clearest and most logical choice for the MVP. I get Barkley choice, but I disagree with it. Jordan had a weak case for that year, but it wouldn't be an all-time horrible decision.

[rk2023]

1990, I would much rather see the case there for Jordan over the field and he would be my MVP selection. 1993, I would for sure take Jordan over Barkley - but Hakeem had the best and most valuable regular season imo.

[migya]

That “loaded team” went 1-5 without Barkley. Majerle was a good player (although far from a true star) who played 3200 minutes, but the rest of the core was an old and declined Danny Ainge (2163 minutes), an old and declined Tom Chambers (1723 minutes), an injured Kevin Johnson (1643 minutes), a young Cedric Ceballos (1607 minutes — misses the Finals), a “rookie” Richard Dumas in between drug suspensions (1320 minutes), and the uninspiring centre rotation of Mark West (1558 minutes) and injured rookie Oliver Miller (1069 minutes).

That “loaded team” is precisely why Barkley looked like the most valuable player in the league.

Old Ainge - 27mins, 11.8pts, 1.9 3P, 40.3% 3P (be good nowadays hey)


Young Cedric Ceballos - 21.7mins, 12.8 pts, 61.2ts%, 5.5 reb
Per 36 - 21.3pts, 9.1reb

Rookie druggie Richard Dumas - 27.5mins, 15.8pts, 56.4ts%, 4.6reb
Per 36 - 20.6pts, 6.1reb

*perhaps the best SF rotation that season.


Mark West - 19mins, 5.3pts, 60.4ts%, 5.6reb, 1.3blk
Per 36 - 10.1pts, 10.6reb, 2.4blk

Rookie Oliver Miller - 19.1mins 5.6pts, 4.9reb, 1.8blk
Per 36 - 10.5pts, 9.3reb, 3.4blk

*underwhelming in scoring but they provided the shotblocking the Suns needed.


53 wins I 1992. Maybe KJ was a superstar.

[AEnigma]

That “loaded team” went 1-5 without Barkley. Majerle was a good player (although far from a true star) who played 3200 minutes, but the rest of the core was an old and declined Danny Ainge (2163 minutes), an old and declined Tom Chambers (1723 minutes), an injured Kevin Johnson (1643 minutes), a young Cedric Ceballos (1607 minutes — misses the Finals), a “rookie” Richard Dumas in between drug suspensions (1320 minutes), and the uninspiring centre rotation of Mark West (1558 minutes) and injured rookie Oliver Miller (1069 minutes).

That “loaded team” is precisely why Barkley looked like the most valuable player in the league.

53 wins in 1992. Maybe KJ was a superstar.

… Yes?

Did we finally stumble across a ‘90s guy you will not gas?

Besides the extra 1200 minutes for KJ, they also had 3000 minutes of peak Jeff Hornacek, whom I would probably ballpark as a top ~20-25 player that year.

At full health the 1993 Suns would be one of the three strongest supporting casts in the league, with a strong case for number one. But at full health they likely go for 65+ wins and there is really no question remaining, regardless of whether other players were better or otherwise had better box scores.

That all said…

If Barkley is disqualified because he in essence replaced 1200 minutes of KJ and 3000 minutes of Hornacek and only provided a 9-win swing… then with hindsight, what exactly is Jordan’s case?

[trex_8063]

That “loaded team” went 1-5 without Barkley. Majerle was a good player (although far from a true star) who played 3200 minutes, but the rest of the core was an old and declined Danny Ainge (2163 minutes), an old and declined Tom Chambers (1723 minutes), an injured Kevin Johnson (1643 minutes), a young Cedric Ceballos (1607 minutes — misses the Finals), a “rookie” Richard Dumas in between drug suspensions (1320 minutes), and the uninspiring centre rotation of Mark West (1558 minutes) and injured rookie Oliver Miller (1069 minutes).

That “loaded team” is precisely why Barkley looked like the most valuable player in the league.

While I agree "loaded team" overstates things (at least with the KJ injury circumstance: not only missed 33 games, but was below his '92 standard when he was around), I think implying "1-5 without Barkley" is equally misleading regarding the quality of his supporting cast. EDIT: I see you've clarified that this wasn't necessarily the implication [post #13]; but I'd nonetheless already written the following....

1-5, extrapolated for an 82-game season comes to 13 to 14 wins: would have been the 2nd-worst record in the league that year [comfortably behind the 3rd-worst, too]. They clearly weren't THAT weak without Barkley, and this is reflected in looking more closely at those six games. Four or five of the six games were played against actual decent teams [more details below], and KJ was also absent for two of them as well [Tom Chambers for one, too, fwiw]. And only one of the five losses by double-digits.
That's perhaps not a bad showing, under the circumstances.

Their SRS in the six games Barkley missed, fwiw, was -2.50. Still poor, but far better than "1-5" suggests. The vacuum expectation in six games with -2.50 SRS would be at least a 2-4 record (probably about 2.3 to 2.5 wins being the avg expectation).
They were a -3.97 SRS in the two games without KJ [counting HCA as being worth 3], and -1.77 with him, btw.


That's the broad-strokes summary, but let's look at each sans-Barkley game individually to see what reasonable expectation would/should be:

1) Played on the road against a full-strength Cleveland team that was 54-28 on the year with a +6.30 SRS [2nd in league]. Obviously there's relatively little expectation for the Suns to win without Barkley. They only lost by 4 pts, which if anything probably exceeds expectations.

2) Played on the road against a nearly full-strength [missing only Stanley Roberts, for whatever that's worth] Clippers team that was 41-41 with +0.33 SRS, while not only missing Barkley, but also being absent Kevin Johnson and Tom Chambers.
We can quibble about the betting margin, but I would say the smart money is on the Clippers for this game.
Suns lost by a respectable 7-pt margin.

3) Suns play at home against an awful (19-63, -7.62 SRS) Timberwolves team. They should be able to beat this team, even without Barkley; and they do by a comfortable 14-pt margin.

4) Played at home against a full-strength elite Seattle team (55-27, +6.66 SRS [1st in league]). Without Barkley, I don't think it impugns his Suns supporting cast to say they're the underdog in this, even at home and with KJ.
They lose, though make a good fight losing by just 6 pts.

5) Played on the road against a full-strength fairly good Jazz team (47-35, +1.74 SRS), without Kevin Johnson.
Clearly the expectation is to lose, which they did by 9 pts.

6) Played at home against a full-strength very good Rockets team (55-27, +3.57 SRS). Worth noting that they played their starters relatively small minutes in this one. Not sure if it was more because they got down big early (and thus gave up and sat them in the fourth), or if that was the plan all along (because they had already secured HCA throughout the playoffs).
At any rate, they lose by 14 pts.


imo, the final two games of that stretch are the ONLY ones in which they under-acheived. NOT that reasonable expectation should be that they actually win either of those games.......but expectation might be that they could have made them closer, losing by perhaps 4-8 fewer points in each (not that it changes their record, but doing so would have brought their SRS over these six games up to near-neutral).

The other four games, I assess that they more or less met or slightly exceeded reasonable expectation in the other four games.

And if I had to predict a record they would come out with [knowing which games KJ would be absent for], I would have predicted 1-5.

[migya]

That “loaded team” went 1-5 without Barkley. Majerle was a good player (although far from a true star) who played 3200 minutes, but the rest of the core was an old and declined Danny Ainge (2163 minutes), an old and declined Tom Chambers (1723 minutes), an injured Kevin Johnson (1643 minutes), a young Cedric Ceballos (1607 minutes — misses the Finals), a “rookie” Richard Dumas in between drug suspensions (1320 minutes), and the uninspiring centre rotation of Mark West (1558 minutes) and injured rookie Oliver Miller (1069 minutes).

That “loaded team” is precisely why Barkley looked like the most valuable player in the league.

53 wins in 1992. Maybe KJ was a superstar.

… Yes?

Did we finally stumble across a ‘90s guy you will not gas?

Besides the extra 1200 minutes for KJ, they also had 3000 minutes of peak Jeff Hornacek, whom I would probably ballpark as a top ~20-25 player that year.

At full health the 1993 Suns would be one of the three strongest supporting casts in the league, with a strong case for number one. But at full health they likely go for 65+ wins and there is really no question remaining, regardless of whether other players were better or otherwise had better box scores.

That all said…

If Barkley is disqualified because he in essence replaced 1200 minutes of KJ and 3000 minutes of Hornacek and only provided a 9-win swing… then with hindsight, what exactly is Jordan’s case?

Your gas is pretty weak.

900 minutes extra of vastly improved Ceballos, 300 extra of Majerle and as I said, Dumas, the dynamic rookie, but anyway, it's the 90s it's no good, even a high volume, high efficiency shooter like Ainge

[homecourtloss]

That “loaded team” went 1-5 without Barkley. Majerle was a good player (although far from a true star) who played 3200 minutes, but the rest of the core was an old and declined Danny Ainge (2163 minutes), an old and declined Tom Chambers (1723 minutes), an injured Kevin Johnson (1643 minutes), a young Cedric Ceballos (1607 minutes — misses the Finals), a “rookie” Richard Dumas in between drug suspensions (1320 minutes), and the uninspiring centre rotation of Mark West (1558 minutes) and injured rookie Oliver Miller (1069 minutes).

That “loaded team” is precisely why Barkley looked like the most valuable player in the league.

53 wins in 1992. Maybe KJ was a superstar.

… Yes?

Did we finally stumble across a ‘90s guy you will not gas?

Besides the extra 1200 minutes for KJ, they also had 3000 minutes of peak Jeff Hornacek, whom I would probably ballpark as a top ~20-25 player that year.

At full health the 1993 Suns would be one of the three strongest supporting casts in the league, with a strong case for number one. But at full health they likely go for 65+ wins and there is really no question remaining, regardless of whether other players were better or otherwise had better box scores.

That all said…

If Barkley is disqualified because he in essence replaced 1200 minutes of KJ and 3000 minutes of Hornacek and only provided a 9-win swing… then with hindsight, what exactly is Jordan’s case?

All gassed unless they are compared with a certain player.

Also, Pippen is never gassed either.

[migya]

That “loaded team” went 1-5 without Barkley. Majerle was a good player (although far from a true star) who played 3200 minutes, but the rest of the core was an old and declined Danny Ainge (2163 minutes), an old and declined Tom Chambers (1723 minutes), an injured Kevin Johnson (1643 minutes), a young Cedric Ceballos (1607 minutes — misses the Finals), a “rookie” Richard Dumas in between drug suspensions (1320 minutes), and the uninspiring centre rotation of Mark West (1558 minutes) and injured rookie Oliver Miller (1069 minutes).

That “loaded team” is precisely why Barkley looked like the most valuable player in the league.

While I agree "loaded team" overstates things (at least with the KJ injury circumstance: not only missed 33 games, but was below his '92 standard when he was around), I think implying "1-5 without Barkley" is equally misleading regarding the quality of his supporting cast. EDIT: I see you've clarified that this wasn't necessarily the implication [post #13]; but I'd nonetheless already written the following....

1-5, extrapolated for an 82-game season comes to 13 to 14 wins: would have been the 2nd-worst record in the league that year [comfortably behind the 3rd-worst, too]. They clearly weren't THAT weak without Barkley, and this is reflected in looking more closely at those six games. Four or five of the six games were played against actual decent teams [more details below], and KJ was also absent for two of them as well [Tom Chambers for one, too, fwiw]. And only one of the five losses by double-digits.
That's perhaps not a bad showing, under the circumstances.

Their SRS in the six games Barkley missed, fwiw, was -2.50. Still poor, but far better than "1-5" suggests. The vacuum expectation in six games with -2.50 SRS would be at least a 2-4 record (probably about 2.3 to 2.5 wins being the avg expectation).
They were a -3.97 SRS in the two games without KJ [counting HCA as being worth 3], and -1.77 with him, btw.


That's the broad-strokes summary, but let's look at each sans-Barkley game individually to see what reasonable expectation would/should be:

1) Played on the road against a full-strength Cleveland team that was 54-28 on the year with a +6.30 SRS [2nd in league]. Obviously there's relatively little expectation for the Suns to win without Barkley. They only lost by 4 pts, which if anything probably exceeds expectations.

2) Played on the road against a nearly full-strength [missing only Stanley Roberts, for whatever that's worth] Clippers team that was 41-41 with +0.33 SRS, while not only missing Barkley, but also being absent Kevin Johnson and Tom Chambers.
We can quibble about the betting margin, but I would say the smart money is on the Clippers for this game.
Suns lost by a respectable 7-pt margin.

3) Suns play at home against an awful (19-63, -7.62 SRS) Timberwolves team. They should be able to beat this team, even without Barkley; and they do by a comfortable 14-pt margin.

4) Played at home against a full-strength elite Seattle team (55-27, +6.66 SRS [1st in league]). Without Barkley, I don't think it impugns his Suns supporting cast to say they're the underdog in this, even at home and with KJ.
They lose, though make a good fight losing by just 6 pts.

5) Played on the road against a full-strength fairly good Jazz team (47-35, +1.74 SRS), without Kevin Johnson.
Clearly the expectation is to lose, which they did by 9 pts.

6) Played at home against a full-strength very good Rockets team (55-27, +3.57 SRS). Worth noting that they played their starters relatively small minutes in this one. Not sure if it was more because they got down big early (and thus gave up and sat them in the fourth), or if that was the plan all along (because they had already secured HCA throughout the playoffs).
At any rate, they lose by 14 pts.


imo, the final two games of that stretch are the ONLY ones in which they under-acheived. NOT that reasonable expectation should be that they actually win either of those games.......but expectation might be that they could have made them closer, losing by perhaps 4-8 fewer points in each (not that it changes their record, but doing so would have brought their SRS over these six games up to near-neutral).

The other four games, I assess that they more or less met or slightly exceeded reasonable expectation in the other four games.

And if I had to predict a record they would come out with [knowing which games KJ would be absent for], I would have predicted 1-5.

The Cavs were a top 4 team in the east, Clippers very nearly beat that Olajuwon peak Rockets team, barely losing the elimination game. Rockets lost in elimination game in overtime by three against Seattle and Seattle lost to Phoenix in seven.

Losing those five games by relatively low margins shows how strong that roster was.

[Doctor MJ]

It's been mentioned before that Jordan should have been mvp in 1997 instead of Malone but was he thieved in 1990 and 1993 not getting mvp and finishing third, close behind the top 2?

He had highest bpm, ws and ws/48, as well as PER, in 1990 and 1993.

He had a case certainly. I also think the winners have good cases.

By contrast, the 1997 vote always felt hard to justify.

[migya]

It's been mentioned before that Jordan should have been mvp in 1997 instead of Malone but was he thieved in 1990 and 1993 not getting mvp and finishing third, close behind the top 2?

He had highest bpm, ws and ws/48, as well as PER, in 1990 and 1993.

He had a case certainly. I also think the winners have good cases.

By contrast, the 1997 vote always felt hard to justify.

How so?

Jordan wasn't quite at the level he was in 1990 and 1993 and Malone had possibly how best season until that point. The PS hadn't gone deep yet. Don't see Barkley and Magic being better than Malone 97 and Barkley either. Olajuwon carried his team considerably and his defender raises him. Malone carried his team's scoring same played great defense.

[Doctor MJ]

It's been mentioned before that Jordan should have been mvp in 1997 instead of Malone but was he thieved in 1990 and 1993 not getting mvp and finishing third, close behind the top 2?

He had highest bpm, ws and ws/48, as well as PER, in 1990 and 1993.

He had a case certainly. I also think the winners have good cases.

By contrast, the 1997 vote always felt hard to justify.

How so?

Jordan wasn't quite at the level he was in 1990 and 1993 and Malone had possibly how best season until that point. The PS hadn't gone deep yet. Don't see Barkley and Magic being better than Malone 97 and Barkley either. Olajuwon carried his team considerably and his defender raises him. Malone carried his team's scoring same played great defense.

In '96-97 the Bulls were coming off the greatest season in NBA history and followed that up by essentially coasting to 69 wins with Jordan again leading the league in scoring. Had you asked anyone at the time, they'd have said Jordan was the best player, the best scorer, leading the best team, etc, so what's the argument for Malone?

Articles at the time as I recall essentially seemed to tell a sob story of the MVP-worthy Malone never winning an MVP, and sentiment gave him the participation trophy.

By contrast:

In '89-90, Magic's Lakers were the best regular season team and Jordan already had an MVP despite still not demonstrating that he could lead a team to the promised land. I'd have no objection with Jordan winning the MVP really, but the case for Magic was clear.

In '92-93 I think the first thing we need to remember is the context of the Dream Team where Jordan & Barkley played side by side, and Barkley was easily the more valuable player. This along with Barkley going to Phoenix gave him buzz going into the regular season. Then the season happened, Barkley led the Suns to the best record in the regular season as the Bulls took major step back from the previous year. The case for Barkley was clear, even if a vote for Jordan was understandable too.