NBA MVP Discussion Thread 2023-24 (Part 4: MVP Thread's Revenge)

[Potential]

The MVP is easily SGA with Jokic behind him. My personal sportsbook has these odds:

SGA +150
Jokic +300

Luka +750
Giannis +800
Tatum +1500

They laughed when I posted my personal sportsbook last month "but where is embiid!?!?!?"

Looks like the real sportsbooks are starting to copy me. Here are my updated odds

SGA +150
Jokic +250
Kawhi +400
Luka +850
Brunson +1500
Giannis +2000
Tatum +3000

[HotRocks34]

Jokic remains in command as Denver hits Sacramento tonight for a back to back.

[HotRocks34]

Jokic on top in New NBA.com poll as well as BBREF calculation.

[Mavrelous]

Mitchell went under the radar, with all the injuries, leading his team to 2nd best record in the league is amazing.

[toooskies]

Mitchell went under the radar, with all the injuries, leading his team to 2nd best record in the league is amazing.

2nd in the conference and making a run at 2nd in the league, but yeah.

The guys who publish LEBRON put Mitchell in their third tier of players (roughly 18th or 19th) despite him being 5th in the LEBRON stat and 8th in LEBRON WAR.

Mitchell's setting career bests after being 6th in MVP voting last year. Hard to make a case for him winning it yet, but the winner usually is decided by post-ASG performance anyway.

[INKtastic]

Mitchell went under the radar, with all the injuries, leading his team to 2nd best record in the league is amazing.

Mitchell surging up the rankings as the Cavs surge up the standings.

NBA ladder has him 8th. BBREF has him 7th. He wasn't on either list a couple of weeks ago.

A week ago the Cavs weren't in 2nd place in the east. Today they have a 2 game lead over 3rd place and 1 game back from 2nd in the league and have been the best team in the league since mid December (21-4, 69 win pace). Mitchell is the primary reason. Maintain that pace and they have a shot at best record in the league, depending on what Boston does.

[Mavrelous]

Mitchell went under the radar, with all the injuries, leading his team to 2nd best record in the league is amazing.

Mitchell surging up the rankings as the Cavs surge up the standings.

NBA ladder has him 8th. BBREF has him 7th. He wasn't on either list a couple of weeks ago.

A week ago the Cavs weren't in 2nd place in the east. Today they have a 2 game lead over 3rd place and 1 game back from 2nd in the league and have been the best team in the league since mid December (21-4, 69 win pace). Mitchell is the primary reason. Maintain that pace and they have a shot at best record in the league, depending on what Boston does.

I'd place him with Kawhi and SGA, there is no argument for them over him.

[DCasey91]

Mitchell went under the radar, with all the injuries, leading his team to 2nd best record in the league is amazing.

Mitchell surging up the rankings as the Cavs surge up the standings.

NBA ladder has him 8th. BBREF has him 7th. He wasn't on either list a couple of weeks ago.

A week ago the Cavs weren't in 2nd place in the east. Today they have a 2 game lead over 3rd place and 1 game back from 2nd in the league and have been the best team in the league since mid December (21-4, 69 win pace). Mitchell is the primary reason. Maintain that pace and they have a shot at best record in the league, depending on what Boston does.

I'd place him with Kawhi and SGA, there is no argument for them over him.

Not Shai. Shai has been a brilliant two way player this year. All the metrics support this and just from viewing dude is a steal merchant and gets a lot of deflections

Even on raw stats that’s quite a large gap imo. SGA is comfortable 2nd

[Wolfgang630]

SGA has been good from the beginning. I don’t penalize guys because others join the second 20 games into the season

[Mavrelous]

SGA has been good from the beginning. I don’t penalize guys because others join the second 20 games into the season

Stats and team record along with roster quality should be the criteria, Mitchell is great on all fronts.

[Jaqua92]

Mitchell went under the radar, with all the injuries, leading his team to 2nd best record in the league is amazing.

Mitchell surging up the rankings as the Cavs surge up the standings.

NBA ladder has him 8th. BBREF has him 7th. He wasn't on either list a couple of weeks ago.

A week ago the Cavs weren't in 2nd place in the east. Today they have a 2 game lead over 3rd place and 1 game back from 2nd in the league and have been the best team in the league since mid December (21-4, 69 win pace). Mitchell is the primary reason. Maintain that pace and they have a shot at best record in the league, depending on what Boston does.

Celtics were 21-5 at one point. Just as the Clipper's 25-5 stretch is built off of Kawhi's unsustainable 50/50/90, it's pretty hard to say the Cavs are on pace to be the best team in the NBA just because they've been hot for a month and a half. They're not catching Boston, and they're likely not finishing the season on a 69 win pace.

This is a bit reactionary

[dygaction]

Joker as good as he is lucked out in unsual circumstances w/ the 1st mvp and if he does win this one 3rd mvp due to Embiids injuries. It really should be tied 2-2 embiid and jokic.

If we're assessing the validity of MVPs then it's still 3-1 because Jokic should have won last season.

Embiid was on his way to win the 1st mvp jokic won but they gave it to jokic almost by default bc everyone was hurt. Embiid was on his way to win 2nd mvp this season before the knee injury. He was playing on a different level than everybody else and what's crazy is 2nd 3rd and even 4th place mvo candidates would win mvp in other seasons. Embiid was robbed of mvp in 2022. He was leading the mvp race for majority of that season had the narrative on his side the better team record his level of play didnt drop off at the end yet somehow jokic miraculously caught him and surpassed him? Was jokic deserving last season yes but last year's mvp made up for the previous seasons blunder.

That's why people agree with you, embbid beats jokic, 5:0 if you count next year as well. should have had 4 rings as well if not every post seasons injured by hitmen hired by jokic.

[INKtastic]

Mitchell went under the radar, with all the injuries, leading his team to 2nd best record in the league is amazing.

Mitchell surging up the rankings as the Cavs surge up the standings.

NBA ladder has him 8th. BBREF has him 7th. He wasn't on either list a couple of weeks ago.

A week ago the Cavs weren't in 2nd place in the east. Today they have a 2 game lead over 3rd place and 1 game back from 2nd in the league and have been the best team in the league since mid December (21-4, 69 win pace). Mitchell is the primary reason. Maintain that pace and they have a shot at best record in the league, depending on what Boston does.

Celtics were 21-5 at one point. Just as the Clipper's 25-5 stretch is built off of Kawhi's unsustainable 50/50/90, it's pretty hard to say the Cavs are on pace to be the best team in the NBA just because they've been hot for a month and a half. They're not catching Boston, and they're likely not finishing the season on a 69 win pace.

This is a bit reactionary

I didn’t say they would. I said if they maintain that pace they have a shot. If being the key world. Their current record projects to 56 wins. Maintaining their recent pace projects to 60 wins. Even 60 wins might not be enough to catch Boston. Which is why I added depending on what Boston does.

But in the last few weeks the Cavs have moved ahead of the sixers, bucks, knicks, Nuggets, Pacers, Heat, and probably some other teams, caught the clippers, and are on the heals of thunder and timberwolves. Nobody saw that coming. Mitchell is the primary reason that happened.

If the cavs do keep that up and manage to catch Boston for the overall #1 seed, Mitchell has to get serious consideration for MVP. Again, that’s if.

Among players who have played 30 minutes/game, Mitchell is #1 in the league in defensive rating, #3 in the league in net rating and is at career highs in points, assists, rebounds, blocks and steals. He’s also #2 in the league in steals.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/advanced?CF=MIN*GE*30&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&dir=A&sort=DEF_RATING

Still a lot of basketball left to play. We’ll see what happens.

[kan_t]

I think both Jokic and SGA are deserving choices and I would be happy for either of them winning it. I do think SGA would likely need to go through a harder road because everyone is so invested into the Embiid vs Jokic debate that now Embiid is out of the race due to injury, Jokic is by default the favorite winning it. The team standing may end up being a deciding factor. If OKC could get the best record in the West, SGA would have significant momentum in the MVP race.

[JustBuzzin]

SGA is probably the favorite if the Thunder can get the best record in the West.

[Crunch 99]

Latest MVP Award Tracker from Basketball-Reference:

[juanc]

Shai had a great season, but he is a tier or two bellow Luka. Today Shai -31, Luka +18 and doing whatever he wanted.

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[Andri]

Shai had a great season, but he is a tier or two bellow Luka. Today Shai -31, Luka +18 and doing whatever he wanted.

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Again, Luka is merely judged for his teammates production nowadays. If the last trades work, he suddenly will be in the talk with Joker to be MVP. If not, same as always, historical individual stats but not MVP worthy because they don't translate into wins.

But if you watch him, you realize he is in another tier than SGA. In the Joker one, for that regard

[Archx]

Can we add Gafford to the MVP poll?

[Yuri36]

Shai had a great season, but he is a tier or two bellow Luka. Today Shai -31, Luka +18 and doing whatever he wanted.

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I'd rather say they're not comparable but rather complementary.
Luka is the one you can build an entire offense/team around while SGA is rather the pure elite scorer with deadly midrange game and penetrations.