Denver champions and Murray FMVP?

[sp6r=underrated]

Am I the only one that thought the conference MVP awards were kind of based on the first 3 rounds, and not just the conference finals? lol.

No I did too. Such a stupid award.

[Mickey8]

I could care less, as long as Denver wins the title.

[LesGrossman]

Its Jokic and its not close. That is exactly what makes him so special - he makes Murray look like an MVP. But every time Jokic goes to the bench you get a good view of Murrays abilities, which are very limited. Jokic on the other hand can work with many guys, doesnt have to be supernova Murray.

I know the whole FMVP thing is very important for certain fan groups. They kept bringing it up when comparing Steph to other all time greats. But really it just is another popularity contest for media wh***s.

[DQuinn1575]

He has been the MVP of this series, that's for sure.

Absolutely not.

He has played very well and elevated his game, no doubt. But if you think anyone other than Jokic has been the MVP of this series, you haven't been paying attention.

So here's what I'll say:

1. Murray's been the team's MVP during his Flurries. The rest of the time, Jokic has been the most valuable guy on the court. I think it's pretty debatable how that all adds together.

2. I do think that as things stand Murray is the favorite for the WCF MVP award, even though I think Jokic probably still has a good argument for actually being the most valuable player. I mean, if nothing else, you have Jokic calling Murray the team's best player. There's poetry in Murray getting this honor.

Murray is averaging 35 ppg. Looks like it would be 3rd best ever for someone on a winning team behind Hakeem (barely) & Curry.
Pretty sure he gets MVP if it ends up that way.
Chances of him doing that in Finals, pretty low, but possible.

[tsherkin]

If Murray can stay hot long enough, and Jokic is fine letting him do the cooking, then Murray will be the Finals MVP.

Should he be, though?

1. Murray's been the team's MVP during his Flurries. The rest of the time, Jokic has been the most valuable guy on the court. I think it's pretty debatable how that all adds together.

Again, has he?

He's been incendiary in his scoring, but what makes an MVP? Jokic is the underpinning to everything they do on offense and is a large part of why Murray is able to get the looks he gets... often to the point of being the dude initiating the DHO or the screen or whatever which ultimately clears him. And it's not like Joker is putting up tiny stats himself. Joker's posting 27/15/11 on 61% TS while smashing the offensive glass.

Murray scoring 8 more points per game because Jokic is choosing to leverage his playmaking instead of shooting and scoring for scoring's sake suddenly makes him not the most valuable player to the team?

That makes me question what "most valuable" actually means.

[WestGOAT]

If Murray can stay hot long enough, and Jokic is fine letting him do the cooking, then Murray will be the Finals MVP.

Should he be, though?

1. Murray's been the team's MVP during his Flurries. The rest of the time, Jokic has been the most valuable guy on the court. I think it's pretty debatable how that all adds together.

Again, has he?

He's been incendiary in his scoring, but what makes an MVP? Jokic is the underpinning to everything they do on offense and is a large part of why Murray is able to get the looks he gets... often to the point of being the dude initiating the DHO or the screen or whatever which ultimately clears him. And it's not like Joker is putting up tiny stats himself. Joker's posting 27/15/11 on 61% TS while smashing the offensive glass.

Murray scoring 8 more points per game because Jokic is choosing to leverage his playmaking instead of shooting and scoring for scoring's sake suddenly makes him not the most valuable player to the team?

That makes me question what "most valuable" actually means.

We can actually verify how much Jokic has been underpinning Murray's scoring in this series right? So how much was Murray actually cooking the Lakers while Jokic was on the bench? And even with Jokic on the floor, I remember many of his buckets being unassisted, let alone Jokic creating those opportunities for him. My memory could be fuzzy though after my weekend bender, and stats.nba.com could easily answer this by I'm too lazy

And from what I saw in gamw 3, Jokic played pretty much below his standards, before turning it around in the 4th quarter after starting for 4-14 on shot attempts. Also it's not a good look for Jokic to have 0 FG made in both 4th quarters in game 1 and 2, which were both close games.

So far I can see why Jokic was can be considered game 1 MVP, while it would also be pretty reasonable for Murray to be considered game 2 & 3 MVP.

[Doctor MJ]

If Murray can stay hot long enough, and Jokic is fine letting him do the cooking, then Murray will be the Finals MVP.

Should he be, though?

1. Murray's been the team's MVP during his Flurries. The rest of the time, Jokic has been the most valuable guy on the court. I think it's pretty debatable how that all adds together.

Again, has he?

He's been incendiary in his scoring, but what makes an MVP? Jokic is the underpinning to everything they do on offense and is a large part of why Murray is able to get the looks he gets... often to the point of being the dude initiating the DHO or the screen or whatever which ultimately clears him. And it's not like Joker is putting up tiny stats himself. Joker's posting 27/15/11 on 61% TS while smashing the offensive glass.

Murray scoring 8 more points per game because Jokic is choosing to leverage his playmaking instead of shooting and scoring for scoring's sake suddenly makes him not the most valuable player to the team?

That makes me question what "most valuable" actually means.

How I tend to think of it is this way:

In a possession where X's presence allows Y a good shot, X deserves some amount of credit for getting Y a better shot than he'd otherwise get. Now, to make up numbers, let's say this makes a 5-10% TS difference, but the player ends up shooting 20+% better than expected in that run. In such a case, I would argue that Y is adding more value than X.

The first time I mentioned something like this was in one of the Spurs finals. Danny Green was super-hot in his shooting to start the series and I remember saying at the time that even though I don't see Danny as the best player on his team, if he keeps shooting that hot through the end of the series, it'll hard for me not to see him as the Finals MVP. He didn't keep it up of course so the point was moot, but I think I still see it the same way.

Now, none of that necessarily means Jokic is less valuable than Murray during the Flurries, let alone that Jokic is less valuable overall in the series, but despite the fact that I see Jokic as the better player and the foundation of everything Denver built, that doesn't mean I necessarily think he's the MVP of every game for the Nuggets.

[Dr Positivity]

I think Murray will get the conference finals MVP and Jokic the finals.

To slow down Jokic the Heat would likely have to recreate The Hachimura Defense Strategy, having someone else guard him while Bam leaves Gordon open to provide reinforcements on Jokic. I don't know if they have anyone that can recreate Hachimura's weirdly decent proficiency guarding Jokic.

[LukaTheGOAT]

He has been the MVP of this series, that's for sure.

Absolutely not.

He has played very well and elevated his game, no doubt. But if you think anyone other than Jokic has been the MVP of this series, you haven't been paying attention.

Read on Twitter

[Wallace_Wallace]

I think Murray will get the conference finals MVP and Jokic the finals.

To slow down Jokic the Heat would likely have to recreate The Hachimura Defense Strategy, having someone else guard him while Bam leaves Gordon open to provide reinforcements on Jokic. I don't know if they have anyone that can recreate Hachimura's weirdly decent proficiency guarding Jokic.

Besides Kevin Love, who is not known for his post defense, I'm not familiar with who could play the Hachimura role? Code Zeller has barely played and the only player who has similar build is a Jimmy Butler, which I don't suggest due to his offensive responsibilities.

[Clyde Frazier]

Of course it could happen. There's a precedent for it. I can't see a world where he'd deserve it tho.

[tsherkin]

In a possession where X's presence allows Y a good shot, X deserves some amount of credit for getting Y a better shot than he'd otherwise get. Now, to make up numbers, let's say this makes a 5-10% TS difference, but the player ends up shooting 20+% better than expected in that run. In such a case, I would argue that Y is adding more value than X.

And if scoring was the only source of value, then I can see how that would be an influencing factor, for sure. Especially with a large volume gap. But when one dude is scoring +4 ppg and offering little else, and the other dude averaged a triple double from the 5 and was still scoring efficiently (Jokic was still +3% rTS in the playoffs, though obviously Murray's scoring was incandescent and considerably more efficient, ), then it's troublesome for me to look at that guy as the MVP because he isn't providing nearly as much to the team.

That's kind of what I'm getting at. We're discussing Finals MVP here, and the notion of how he's scoring has been raised. "If he continues in the Finals" and all that. But the engine of this team, the actual most valuable player to their chances of winning, strikes me as not the guy who scored more a couple of games in the WCFs.

I don't know. I just struggle to see what Jokic is doing and then accept the idea that a one-dimensional player doing a lot less is more valuable because he's been enabled to score a bunch while offering nothing else. Meantime, Jokic is boot-strapping the team with his mere presence and doing everything.

[Peregrine01]

In a possession where X's presence allows Y a good shot, X deserves some amount of credit for getting Y a better shot than he'd otherwise get. Now, to make up numbers, let's say this makes a 5-10% TS difference, but the player ends up shooting 20+% better than expected in that run. In such a case, I would argue that Y is adding more value than X.

And if scoring was the only source of value, then I can see how that would be an influencing factor, for sure. Especially with a large volume gap. But when one dude is scoring +4 ppg and offering little else, and the other dude averaged a triple double from the 5 and was still scoring efficiently (Jokic was still +3% rTS in the playoffs, though obviously Murray's scoring was incandescent and considerably more efficient, ), then it's troublesome for me to look at that guy as the MVP because he isn't providing nearly as much to the team.

That's kind of what I'm getting at. We're discussing Finals MVP here, and the notion of how he's scoring has been raised. "If he continues in the Finals" and all that. But the engine of this team, the actual most valuable player to their chances of winning, strikes me as not the guy who scored more a couple of games in the WCFs.

I don't know. I just struggle to see what Jokic is doing and then accept the idea that a one-dimensional player doing a lot less is more valuable because he's been enabled to score a bunch while offering nothing else. Meantime, Jokic is boot-strapping the team with his mere presence and doing everything.

I'm not sure it is if you take away Jokic's tipping. Thinking Basketball calculated that Jokic's tipping alone takes away 4 TS points.

[RCM88x]

Would be pretty hilarious if someone has arguably the GOAT peak, wins the title and the #1 seed in their conference and doesn't win FMVP or RS MVP

And by hilarious I mean sad

[LesGrossman]

Would be pretty hilarious if someone has arguably the GOAT peak, wins the title and the #1 seed in their conference and doesn't win FMVP or RS MVP

And by hilarious I mean sad

100% agree, but it has happened before. FMVP is kinda the hail mary go to argument for certain people to fuel their narratives (even though its another one of those totally meaningless awards). I think it should have been AD in 2020 and i think it should have been Steph at least once.

Is FMVP decided by the same people who vote MVP? Then i can see them trying to derail how stupid they look after giving the MVP to Embiid...

[RCM88x]

Would be pretty hilarious if someone has arguably the GOAT peak, wins the title and the #1 seed in their conference and doesn't win FMVP or RS MVP

And by hilarious I mean sad

100% agree, but it has happened before. FMVP is kinda the hail mary go to argument for certain people to fuel their narratives (even though its another one of those totally meaningless awards). I think it should have been AD in 2020 and i think it should have been Steph at least once.

Is FMVP decided by the same people who vote MVP? Then i can see them trying to derail how stupid they look after giving the MVP to Embiid...

No FMVP is only like 15 national media people.

[LesGrossman]

Would be pretty hilarious if someone has arguably the GOAT peak, wins the title and the #1 seed in their conference and doesn't win FMVP or RS MVP

And by hilarious I mean sad

100% agree, but it has happened before. FMVP is kinda the hail mary go to argument for certain people to fuel their narratives (even though its another one of those totally meaningless awards). I think it should have been AD in 2020 and i think it should have been Steph at least once.

Is FMVP decided by the same people who vote MVP? Then i can see them trying to derail how stupid they look after giving the MVP to Embiid...

No FMVP is only like 15 national media people.

Well that will be 15 ppl who likely made a dumb choice this year before. How certain can we be they dont repeat it just to look not so stupid?