NBA MVP Discussion Thread 2023-24

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Lol just stop.

Huh? Jokic's current career trajectory (barring injury or something unforeseen) absolutely will put him in the GOAT conversation.

No he won't. The Goat conversation is MJ, LeBron, Kareem, Shaq, Kobe, Magic.

They all won 4 or more championships. Heck Steph has 4, and he's not considered in the goat conversation, even though he's the greatest shooter of all time.

You can say goat conversation when he gets three, but at this point, I don't think so. You're not the goat when you play only 1 side of the ball. He could be in the conversation for the greatest offensive player of all time, but all the other players mentioned in that lest were great to dominant two way players.

The only way Kobe could enter a legit GOAT conversation is if someone is saying "Kobe can't be in this conversation

[Cubbies2120]

from Reddit developer of BPM

Resurrecting a dead thread... but as creator of BPM, I just wanted to say that I agree.

When a player posts box scores that have never been seen before, it really tests how the calculations handle outliers. Westbrook did it, and now Jokic is doing it. Westbrook exposed a significant flaw in the calculations, which was subsequently corrected (BTW--I'm a Thunder fan and Westbrook was one of my favorite players. So no bias). Jokic is now doing it on the calculation of defense for big men.

There are very few box score stats to work with measuring defense. Blocks, Steals, Defensive Rebounds, and overall team defense (and position that the player plays). Assists have shown to be a very strong indicator of a player's awareness on the court, and very significant for measuring big man defense.

However....When setting up the calculations, I did not adequately account for offensive role when incorporating the benefits of assists for big men. There are so few big man offensive passing hubs in the 20+ years of data I'm working with! So the effect of Jokic's passing on the defensive BPM numbers is incorrectly high.

I plan to correct that soon.

As other commenters have noted, there are better overall metrics for current NBA seasons; BPM is more useful for looking at very small sample sizes or at leagues or eras for which the more advanced statistics are not available.

Cool, discredit two advanced stats.

What about the dozen others? Are they all garbage as well?

How about shooting 70% from 2 with ONE dunk? To put that absurdity into context...

Shaq, widely considered the most dominant big man of all time, had ONE year where he shot above 61% from 2 point range (66.7% on 5 shot attempts a game).

Jokic is doing this on 15(!) shot attempts per game.

[Impuniti]

Huh? Jokic's current career trajectory (barring injury or something unforeseen) absolutely will put him in the GOAT conversation.

No he won't. The Goat conversation is MJ, LeBron, Kareem, Shaq, Kobe, Magic.

They all won 4 or more championships. Heck Steph has 4, and he's not considered in the goat conversation, even though he's the greatest shooter of all time.

You can say goat conversation when he gets three, but at this point, I don't think so. You're not the goat when you play only 1 side of the ball. He could be in the conversation for the greatest offensive player of all time, but all the other players mentioned in that lest were great to dominant two way players.

The only way Kobe could enter a legit GOAT conversation is if someone is saying "Kobe can't be in this conversation

Kobe and Shaq being in the GOAT conversation is hilarious

[Floody23]

Jokic is special, and this is coming from an Embiid fan. Why can’t people just enjoy seeing what we are seeing with two elite centers?

No we must spend our time tearing down the two best players in the league

The drop off from the regular season to the playoffs is why Embiid isn’t the second best player in the league.

[Impuniti]

I started to follow NBA in 2016 so I don't know the answer but which one is the better player current Jokic or Miami Lebron?

Miami Bron, but this last 3 year stretch of Joker is close, and is as close as anyone's come to that level since.

This might sound crazy but the first 2 years of re-Cavs LeBron might be his peak

No chance IMO. Lebron on his first year with the Cavs after he was back was basically creating 3 new towns with the bricks he was putting up in 3/4 series. 2016 and 2018 would be more accurate when he got back.

[Special_Puppy]

Miami Bron, but this last 3 year stretch of Joker is close, and is as close as anyone's come to that level since.

This might sound crazy but the first 2 years of re-Cavs LeBron might be his peak

No chance IMO. Lebron on his first year with the Cavs after he was back was basically creating 3 new towns with the bricks he was putting up in 3/4 series. 2016 and 2018 would be more accurate when he got back.

Lebron's 2008-09 Season was the best season any player has ever had IMO

[Exp0sed]

Antman is quickly rising up
with all the criticism of Minny's trade for Gobert and team construction, they were 4th in the West when Injuries happened last season and ended up giving the best resistance to the eventual champions despite being short handed (Naz Reid etc.)

looking sharp this season, have beaten both the Nuggets and the C's in Minny and Edwards is the biggest reason why

thus far on a small sample he has upped his efficiency considerably and is also rebounding more and playing better in general. clutch as well.

def in the top 10 rn, inching closer to the top 5 let's see if he can keep it up all season long

[Special_Puppy]

from Reddit developer of BPM

Resurrecting a dead thread... but as creator of BPM, I just wanted to say that I agree.

When a player posts box scores that have never been seen before, it really tests how the calculations handle outliers. Westbrook did it, and now Jokic is doing it. Westbrook exposed a significant flaw in the calculations, which was subsequently corrected (BTW--I'm a Thunder fan and Westbrook was one of my favorite players. So no bias). Jokic is now doing it on the calculation of defense for big men.

There are very few box score stats to work with measuring defense. Blocks, Steals, Defensive Rebounds, and overall team defense (and position that the player plays). Assists have shown to be a very strong indicator of a player's awareness on the court, and very significant for measuring big man defense.

However....When setting up the calculations, I did not adequately account for offensive role when incorporating the benefits of assists for big men. There are so few big man offensive passing hubs in the 20+ years of data I'm working with! So the effect of Jokic's passing on the defensive BPM numbers is incorrectly high.

I plan to correct that soon.

As other commenters have noted, there are better overall metrics for current NBA seasons; BPM is more useful for looking at very small sample sizes or at leagues or eras for which the more advanced statistics are not available.

Cool, discredit two advanced stats.

What about the dozen others? Are they all garbage as well?

How about shooting 70% from 2 with ONE dunk? To put that absurdity into context...

Shaq, widely considered the most dominant big man of all time, had ONE year where he shot above 61% from 2 point range (66.7% on 5 shot attempts a game).

Jokic is doing this on 15(!) shot attempts per game.

If Jokic wins 1 more MVP and 2 more Finals MVPs (Very hard thing to do), would he be tied with Shaq in all time rankings?

[Ryoga Hibiki]

No he won't. The Goat conversation is MJ, LeBron, Kareem, Shaq, Kobe, Magic.

They all won 4 or more championships. Heck Steph has 4, and he's not considered in the goat conversation, even though he's the greatest shooter of all time.

You can say goat conversation when he gets three, but at this point, I don't think so. You're not the goat when you play only 1 side of the ball. He could be in the conversation for the greatest offensive player of all time, but all the other players mentioned in that lest were great to dominant two way players.

The only way Kobe could enter a legit GOAT conversation is if someone is saying "Kobe can't be in this conversation

Kobe and Shaq being in the GOAT conversation is hilarious

I think you can make a case for Shaq's peak, but definitely not for Kobe

[Impuniti]

The only way Kobe could enter a legit GOAT conversation is if someone is saying "Kobe can't be in this conversation

Kobe and Shaq being in the GOAT conversation is hilarious

I think you can make a case for Shaq's peak, but definitely not for Kobe

Shaq's peak might arguably be the best/dominant ever, it's just a shame about his mentality. You feel like if he had MJ or Kobe's mentality, he really would have had a shot to be the goat.

[RRFB]

It feels crazy to say Jokic has gotten even better after all he’s accomplished over the last three years. But, somehow, he has. He’s reached a level of dominance that you don’t see from the average MVP. We are without question witnessing one of the all-time great individual peaks.

[Exp0sed]

It feels crazy to say Jokic has gotten even better after all he’s accomplished over the last three years. But, somehow, he has. He’s reached a level of dominance that you don’t see from the average MVP. We are without question witnessing one of the all-time great individual peaks.

this was supposed to be the year he could have taken his foot off the gas a little, so far that hasn't been the case at all

Murray has played pretty poorly to start the season, he's been kind of a non-factor honestly and now he's out with a hamstring injury that could sideline him for a while. that means more work for the Joker and i'm betting he's cut out for it

[Ambrose]

Lol just stop.

So you are still a non believer of Jokic..

NBA/ABA playoff all time PER:
1. Nikola Jokić 29.02
2. Michael Jordan* 28.60
3. George Mikan* 28.51
4. LeBron James 27.94

NBA/ABA regular season all time PER:
1. Michael Jordan* 27.91
2. Nikola Jokić 27.72
3. LeBron James 27.20

NBA & ABA Career Playoff Leaders and Records for Box Plus/Minus
1. Michael Jordan* 11.14
2. Nikola Jokić 10.42
3. LeBron James 10.04

NBA & ABA Career Leaders and Records for Box Plus/Minus
1. Nikola Jokić 9.46
2. Michael Jordan* 9.21
3. LeBron James 8.75

None of those take defense into consideration. The Nuggets did a great job putting a great defensive team around him. He is not in the conversation for GOAT when he only plays one side of the ball. All the others goats or goat contestants are dominant 2 way players in their prime.

You can throw all the stats at me you want, fact of the matter is they do a terrible job measuring defense which is you know half of the game. Y'all should be happy, least I'm not saying Embiid will be goat lol.

But the point is that he is still in the infancy of his career. There are so many player who have won more chips, and more MVPS that are not in the convo, and just because advanced stats love his game, doesn't make him one. The dude will probably retire to his horses in 3-4 years, and if he doesnt' he still has a very, very long way to go.

Jokic is in the goat conversation for greatest offensive player of all time, 100%. But the GOAT, no yet, and it's careless to have this conversation now.

Do you ever tire of being wrong?

[jokeboy86]

Jokic is special, and this is coming from an Embiid fan. Why can’t people just enjoy seeing what we are seeing with two elite centers?

Welcome to modern society. Hot take/sports radio/debate culture has infected everything now.

[ty 4191]

Jokic is just on his own tier

And, has been for the past 4 seasons!

Nobody close.

Including the playoffs, last 4 seasons:

1. Jokic: 258 games, 26.6/12.3/8.5 on 59.4/37.3/82.7 splits. 61.9 eFG%, 66.1 TS%, while putting up BPM and PER numbers just like Michael Jordan and LeBron James in their primes, both playoffs, and regular season.

2. Embiid: 221 games, 30.2/10.8/3.7 on 51.6/34.9/84.2 splits, .547% eFG%, .631 TS%.

3. Doncic: 226 games, 29.9/8.7/8.4 on .477/.353/.737 splits. .547% eFG%, .590 TS%.

4. Giannis: 233 games, 29.7/11.7/5.7 on .554/.277/.672 splits. .578 eFG%, .615 TS%.

Here's something else, too. Jokic basically NEVER has a bad game. Game Score of 10 is league average, 30 is exceptional, 40 is ATG.

https://www.omnicalculator.com/sports/game-score

Last 4 seasons, including playoffs:

1. Jokic: 82 games Game Score 30+, 3 games with a Game Score 10 or less!! 27:1 ratio of outstanding games to bad games.

2. Embiid: 62 games Game Score 30+, 13 games 10 or less. 4.8:1 ratio of outstanding games to bad games.

3. Doncic: 55 games Game Score 30+, 16 games 10 or less. 3.4:1 ratio of outstanding games to bad games.

4. Giannis: 59 games Game Score 30+, 11 games 10 or less. 5.4 ratio of outstanding games to bad games.

Not exactly a small sample size, 4 seasons including playoffs.

Jokic is one of the greatest few players of the past 45 years, and, one of the top few most skilled and valuable, also.

[eyeatoma]

from Reddit developer of BPM

Resurrecting a dead thread... but as creator of BPM, I just wanted to say that I agree.

When a player posts box scores that have never been seen before, it really tests how the calculations handle outliers. Westbrook did it, and now Jokic is doing it. Westbrook exposed a significant flaw in the calculations, which was subsequently corrected (BTW--I'm a Thunder fan and Westbrook was one of my favorite players. So no bias). Jokic is now doing it on the calculation of defense for big men.

There are very few box score stats to work with measuring defense. Blocks, Steals, Defensive Rebounds, and overall team defense (and position that the player plays). Assists have shown to be a very strong indicator of a player's awareness on the court, and very significant for measuring big man defense.

However....When setting up the calculations, I did not adequately account for offensive role when incorporating the benefits of assists for big men. There are so few big man offensive passing hubs in the 20+ years of data I'm working with! So the effect of Jokic's passing on the defensive BPM numbers is incorrectly high.

I plan to correct that soon.

As other commenters have noted, there are better overall metrics for current NBA seasons; BPM is more useful for looking at very small sample sizes or at leagues or eras for which the more advanced statistics are not available.

This is great thanks for sharing. Around these parts those, people will choose to ignore what you just wrote though. I've mentioned similar things in the past.

[ty 4191]

......

5/14/23:

Yeah it's over. Until Embiid proves it in the playoffs. He can **** right on off. Happy he got an MVP but that had to be the smallest I've ever seen an "MVP" perform. Indefensible.

Jokic the best in the world.

Only objective (and accurate) thing you've posted in four years here trying to pimp Embiid as the greatest player in basketball.

Do not quote other posters just to bait and insult them. The mods and (I think) most posters would really like this thread to not become a toxic dumpster fire, and stuff like this doesn't help at all. -b

[eyeatoma]

......

5/14/23:

Yeah it's over. Until Embiid proves it in the playoffs. He can **** right on off. Happy he got an MVP but that had to be the smallest I've ever seen an "MVP" perform. Indefensible.

Jokic the best in the world.

Only objective (and accurate) thing you've posted in four years here trying to pimp Embiid as the greatest player in basketball.

Your obsession with me is ridiculous...

[ty 4191]

Your obsession with me is ridiculous...

Your Embiid obsession and stanning is ridiculous.

Pick ANY metric besides raw PPG (not Jokic's role), and he BURIES Embiid this year, and, has, over the past 4 years, while you've been titlting at windmills, in total futility....as if you're climbing a mountain to try to punch out an echo....

Do you not see that the past 4 seasons, Jokic has buried Embiid in every single iteration of every single poll we've ever run? Are you seriously that solipcistic and deluded to think he's a more valuable/greater player than Jokic, the past 4 years?

Dude you quoted someone just to bait him and now you're calling him solipsistic and deluded. Personal attacks are not allowed. Next violation is a Strike and suspension. -b

[srhcan]

Embiid is a legit MVP contender especially now he is playing for Nurse