Packbuckman wrote:Duke4life831 wrote:I dont think guys get blackballed from the MVP race, I just think players priorities change later on. Like dont get me wrong, Giannis is still clearly a top 5 player. And his stats are still crazy elite. And Im not the biggest when it comes to BBRef advanced stats, but you look at his "advanced stats" the last couple years and his MVP years there is a difference.
I think we saw this with LeBron after Miami. Its not that LeBron wasnt capable of winning MVPs, I just dont think that was the focus anymore for him. He took his foot off the gas some in the regular season (again still crazy great stats) and was more focused with playoff stuff. I think Giannis is in the same boat right now.
I wont be shocked to see Jokic in that same boat next year. The one thing that could prevent Jokic from doing that is the lack of star power around him. He really cant afford to take his foot off the gas during the regular season because Denver needs Jokic to be Jokic basically every night, until they get a legit #2 or Murray steps up his game in the regular season.
I don’t know about the advance stuff don’t really pay attention to it been watching Giannis since he became a buck and he is a better player then his mvp seasons. He’s putting up over 30 pts a game on over 60% fg 11.5 rebounds and over 6 assists which no one has ever done like ever! His slow start from the free throw line is only thing from him being right there leading the league in scoring. Dame has been very inconsistent since he came here last nite was his best shooting nite so far but still barely 40% fg. Middleton same very inconsistent coming back from an injury then you add in the coaching debacle with Griffen the only consistent play has been from Giannis to be 2nd in East.
well, you can discard advanced stats all u want but you know..FG% is very misleading. Giannis takes very little 3's compared to other stars and other volume scorers. that's why we look at TS%, guys like SGA and Jokic have higher TS%, they've been scoring more efficiently than Giannis. Jokic obvously averages a few less pts a game (and less shots) because he chooses to, but SGA actually averages more points on higher efficiency and he doesn't have a player like Dame to take away alot of defensive attention and to set him up
on the other side of the ball, Bucks have been worse than average on D, with Lopez (who was basically the DPOY last season), Middelton etc. yes, Dame hurts them there but they still shouldn't be this bad defensively
SGA has a case for DPOY and is def on his way to an all-defense team, OKC has a better record so what exactly is Giannis argument over him rn? things could change ofc, but rn I really don't see it
Giannis is in his prime and he's awesome but both guys have been slightly better (and with less) thus far
perhaps Griffin is at fauly for some of that horrible D (and other issues) but be that as it may, that's where wer'e at now imo
