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

[iggymcfrack]

I'm not sure why people are declaring the race done, I still think it should go to the guy with the best record between Jokic and SGA.
SGA leads in EPM, Jokic 4th, Jokic leads in BPM, SGA 2nd, PER, SGA 2nd, and VORP, SGA 2nd, virtual tie in WS/48.
It's as close as it can get.

Jokic’s low rank in EPM is genuinely puzzling, but given that he leads in pretty much everything else (including DPM, LEBRON, and raw on/off in addition to what you’ve already mentioned), that he’s widely considered the best player in the world after last year’s playoffs, and the common sentiment that he was screwed out of the MVP last year, it’s gonna take more than a win or two difference in the standings for SGA to usurp him.

I certainly wouldn’t call the race over, but it will take something substantial to flip it. If Jokic sustains an injury and misses a couple weeks or has a serious slump down the stretch or even the Nuggets fell to the 4 seed while the Thunder got the 1, Shai’s very well positioned to claim the award, but just finishing with 56 wins vs. 55 wins isn’t going to cut it.

[Bob8]

So, let's really be clear: In MVP conversations we're not talking about any star player being "the problem" on his team relative to his teammates. It's a question of whether the guy in question is the best of the best. The competition is brutal by definition, and it's why we see folks (such as myself in this case) make anti- arguments for guys. Not because we think any of the players here literally make their teams worse, but because we're implicitly comparing the players to other elite players.

Now, related to the specific usage question:

The point is not that ultra-high star usage is an inherently bad thing - it might actually be the right thing for the set of players in question - but that it runs the risk of making people overate the star and underate his teammates.

Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other star because his teammates are uniquely incapable of gaining more production themselves, and Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other stars because they are trying and failing to do what he's doing. He has these numbers because he's choosing to play in an ultra-extreme primacy way, and while it's fine for him to do this if it's the best move for his team, it doesn't mean his value increases in linear proportion to his volume.

This relates to why I brought Wilt earlier because these conversations with Wilt have been happening for forever.

Even after people acknowledge that Wilt's teams were better with him scoring less than he did at his peak, they still tend to see those peak numbers as a baseline for how good he was. And while it's certainly impressive that he could score so much, you really can't extrapolate from that scoring volume to figure out how valuable he was at his true value peak (which came later).

Luka is a very different player from Wilt in many ways, but in terms of extreme individual primacy in a team sport setting, they are very much cut from the same cloth, and so anyone looking to use the box score as their ground truth to assess their value will tend to overrate value.

And like always, you're totally ignoring, why Mavs aren't top Nba team. The problem is not in ofense, but in D. They have better offensive rtg than Nuggets and only 22nd defensive rtg. Nothing you have written about addresses Mavs D. What is the point of talking about Luka's impact in offensive side not being enough, if Mavs' opponents averaged 126 points in last 8 games? There's no player in the world, who can lead his team to wins, if their D is disastrous.

In last 8 games in which they were 3:5, they had 3rd offensive rtg and 30th defensive rtg. Mavs were 10.2 points worse in D, when Luka was off the court and they were 20 points worse in offense, when he was off the court. + 30.2 net rtg for Luka and Mavs have lost 5 games. So please tell me, what more can do a player to help his team winning? 37/10/11 with 64.5 TS% is evidently not even enough for the winning record. Maybe he should be better cheerleader, like Tatum for example.

The Mavericks have a higher ORtg than Denver only because of the minutes where Luka’s on the bench. Here are the ORtgs of the MVP candidates’ teams when they’re on the floor:

Shai: 124.2
Jokic: 123.8
Giannis: 122.8
Luka: 121.2

So yes, defense may be the Mavericks’ main problem, but Luka also leads the worst offense of any of the true MVP candidates. Like you can come up with reasons for why Luka’s so far behind in certain measures and some of those may be valid, but even so he’s not actually ahead of Jokić, SGA, or Giannis in any meaningful way. So 4th is pretty much his ceiling in the MVP race. If the Mavericks can’t maintain a top 8 spot in the West, he’ll likely fall behind Kawhi and/or Tatum too.

I know it's futile, but I will ask for the last time. Do you think that basketball is individual sport?

Mavs 32 different starting lineups. OKC 6, Denver 11.

Mavs most used lineup 99 minutes, OKC 693 minutes, Denver 727 minutes.

Mavs 'most used lineup. Doncic-Irving-DJJ-Williams-Lively. (99 minutes)

OKC, most used lineup, SGA-Dort-Giddey-Williams-Chet (693minutes)

Denver, KCP-Murray-Porter-Gordon-Jokic(727).

I would say that Mavs offensive rtg is miraculous, considering all injuries and lineups they have actually played with.

[Bob8]

You're bringing stuff like it contradicts what I say, but it doesn't. We can talk about what you bring up, but it's not really the same thing as the point I was speaking to.

To your points:
1. Defense is of course the Mavs' "problem", in the sense that the Mavs are better on offense than on defense, just like Luka is.

2. While it may seem like I'm focusing on the wrong thing when I'm quibbling about the nuances in Luka's approach to offense, I'm only talking about Luka in this thread because I'm seeing a lot of people who think Luka simply has to be the best player in the world because of his offensive box score. Such people would acknowledge Lukas's defensive limitations but are stuck on the idea that those offensive numbers must overwhelm everything else. Thus it's my assessment that the thing that they need to understand most is their misconception of the area that dominates their holistic assessment.

3. But to be clear, things like Luka's less than stellar off-ball mold in this conversation. It's just that these things don't result in debates because no one really looks to fight this, because those who advocate for Luka are convinced by his offense and thus focus their attention there.

4. While the Mavs may have a better offensive rating than the Nuggets, they don't at this time have a Top 5 offense, and they haven't had a Top 5 offense since '19-20. I've seen some posts from folks here implying they think the Mavs always have an elite offense, but that's really not been the story in the Luka years.

(If this seems like a contradiction given my tendency to support Jokic, we can discuss further, but obviously it has something to do with how jaw-dropping Jokic's on/off & RAPM numbers have looked compared to Luka's over the course of their time in the NBA.)

5. Re: last 8 games. This tendency of Luka supporters to want to focus on this most recent small sample in this debate while dismissing the same stats in broader samples just isn't logically coherent. My response on all of this small sample size stuff is the same: Time will tell, and if things change, then things will have changed.

6. What more could Luka do? Well, since you ask, it would certainly be nice if he could defend like a big given that he's sometimes the heaviest guy in the lineup for the Mavs. There's something similar going on with Jokic so that gives us reason to hope for the Mavs that you can get away with someone that big who isn't a great defender in the modern NBA, but yeah, as you bring up defense, that is the biggest concern with Luka specifically, and it's something people seem to miss because Luka is classified as a guard.

So yeah, it's possible that the issues relating to Luka the defender will make it impossible for Luka the offender to emerge as the star of a champion, and that's just how it goes. It's not enough to keep Luka from leading a good team - we know that already - but reaching the top is hard.

You're talking like basketball is individual sport. Especially in D singular player can't do 0.

Like expected Luka's +/- skyrocketed with better bigs. His on court/ off court net rating in last 15 games is + 23.6.

What do you think would have happened with Shai's defensive numbers if he had to play with Kyrie, THJ and Powell?

So you want to trash everybody on the roster but Luka for the team having bad defense, and then defense Luka because he's just one guy and so can't make a difference? You're tying yourself into a pretzel here.

Re: +/- skyrocketed. Again, small sample size in a stat that you dismiss in large sample size. You don't have credibility when you talk like this...and we've been round and round on this.

I'm trashing Mavs' team D. Not expecting anything spectacular, just averaged would be great. You need a team to play good D. Even GOAT MJ, who was incredible defender, needed a team first to start winning anything. I wonder why he needed to wait till he was 27 year old? Do you really believe he became good enough only then?

I'm talking about last 15 games, because Mavs finally got proper bigs. You easily dismissed first 5 years of SGA's career, making case how better he became after 40 games sample size, completely ignoring that he got incredible help in last 2 years. How is that?

Yes, I'm dismissing stat that is totally correlated with team's success. I'm using it just to show you that's the case with Luka too. Better team after the trade, much better +/-. Like all good players in good teams.

Luka has ridiculous stats after the trade and is playing ridiculously good . You need to watch him though, you can't see that in averaged +/-.

[Dirk]

[CD_41]

Hahahahaha!! Good one, Dirk!!!

[Handlez]

And like always, you're totally ignoring, why Mavs aren't top Nba team. The problem is not in ofense, but in D. They have better offensive rtg than Nuggets and only 22nd defensive rtg. Nothing you have written about addresses Mavs D. What is the point of talking about Luka's impact in offensive side not being enough, if Mavs' opponents averaged 126 points in last 8 games? There's no player in the world, who can lead his team to wins, if their D is disastrous.

In last 8 games in which they were 3:5, they had 3rd offensive rtg and 30th defensive rtg. Mavs were 10.2 points worse in D, when Luka was off the court and they were 20 points worse in offense, when he was off the court. + 30.2 net rtg for Luka and Mavs have lost 5 games. So please tell me, what more can do a player to help his team winning? 37/10/11 with 64.5 TS% is evidently not even enough for the winning record. Maybe he should be better cheerleader, like Tatum for example.

The Mavericks have a higher ORtg than Denver only because of the minutes where Luka’s on the bench. Here are the ORtgs of the MVP candidates’ teams when they’re on the floor:

Shai: 124.2
Jokic: 123.8
Giannis: 122.8
Luka: 121.2

So yes, defense may be the Mavericks’ main problem, but Luka also leads the worst offense of any of the true MVP candidates. Like you can come up with reasons for why Luka’s so far behind in certain measures and some of those may be valid, but even so he’s not actually ahead of Jokić, SGA, or Giannis in any meaningful way. So 4th is pretty much his ceiling in the MVP race. If the Mavericks can’t maintain a top 8 spot in the West, he’ll likely fall behind Kawhi and/or Tatum too.

I know it's futile, but I will ask for the last time. Do you think that basketball is individual sport?

Mavs 32 different starting lineups. OKC 6, Denver 11.

Mavs most used lineup 99 minutes, OKC 693 minutes, Denver 727 minutes.

Mavs 'most used lineup. Doncic-Irving-DJJ-Williams-Lively. (99 minutes)

OKC, most used lineup, SGA-Dort-Giddey-Williams-Chet (693minutes)

Denver, KCP-Murray-Porter-Gordon-Jokic(727).

I would say that Mavs offensive rtg is miraculous, considering all injuries and lineups they have actually played with.

LeDamn.

Luka my MVP.

[Exp0sed]

I'm not sure why people are declaring the race done, I still think it should go to the guy with the best record between Jokic and SGA.
SGA leads in EPM, Jokic 4th, Jokic leads in BPM, SGA 2nd, PER, SGA 2nd, and VORP, SGA 2nd, virtual tie in WS/48.
It's as close as it can get.

I agree

I think that in practice, stuff like the earlier straw polls (and ofc Vegas) give us a pretty good idea of where the actual voters are leaning. since Jokic was very firmly in the lead in the last one, obviously nothing that happened since then made his case weaker maybe even slightly better and as such unless something dramatic happenes over the last 15 games I think the actual race is pretty close to being done and dusted

however, as far as the question: "who should win MVP?", which is a diff question ofc then: "whose going to win MVP?" - I think SGA is still right there with the Joker

[LeBronSpaghetti]

I'm not sure why people are declaring the race done, I still think it should go to the guy with the best record between Jokic and SGA.
SGA leads in EPM, Jokic 4th, Jokic leads in BPM, SGA 2nd, PER, SGA 2nd, and VORP, SGA 2nd, virtual tie in WS/48.
It's as close as it can get.

It’s probably because people don’t want to give MVP to a fraud again. I’m not saying SGA is a fraud, but we know for a fact that Jokic is not a fraud. SGA likely will be just as good in the playoffs as he is in the regular season. But until that happens there’s always some doubt whereas with Joker there’s no doubt.

[agentofatlas]

Luka feels like that 2006? Kobe year.

Feels like it right? Made the same observation. Luka won't win MVP but depending on what he does in the playoffs (if they get there), his season might age well in hindsight.

[HotRocks34]

Massive movement in the betting markets following Jokic's big triple double last night.

When I went to bed Fan Duel was Jokic -180 and SGA +250. And that was after Denver won.

Fan Duel and Draft Kings did a huge tilt towards Jokic sometime after the Denver victory against Toronto.

[Exp0sed]

I'm not sure why people are declaring the race done, I still think it should go to the guy with the best record between Jokic and SGA.
SGA leads in EPM, Jokic 4th, Jokic leads in BPM, SGA 2nd, PER, SGA 2nd, and VORP, SGA 2nd, virtual tie in WS/48.
It's as close as it can get.

It’s probably because people don’t want to give MVP to a fraud again. I’m not saying SGA is a fraud, but we know for a fact that Jokic is not a fraud. SGA likely will be just as good in the playoffs as he is in the regular season. But until that happens there’s always some doubt whereas with Joker there’s no doubt.

that's def part of it, it's not like SGA seperated himself from Jokic either so it could really go either way and all other things being equal, SGA being younger and with less success vs. Jokic whose clearly been the best player in the league for at least 3-4 years and ofc, he was robbed last season and followed that by a chip so it's easy to see why those things would break the tie, in favor of Jokic, for most of the voters

personally like I said - I think they're pretty even atm

[zero rings]

I’m a big Jokic guy and I think he’s the MVP, but some people are way too quick to declare this race over. The Nuggets were only a few possessions away from a terrible home loss, despite Jokic’s monster game. If they struggle on this upcoming road trip, and OKC puts some distance between them, momentum will swing back in SGA’s favor. The race is far from over.

[Ambrose]

In last 9 games in which Mavs struggled even against bad teams, Mavs are 3rd in offense and 30th in D, even though they supposedly have better defensive players after the trade.

I think this is the main point here. We can ravage about Doncic's high usage all day, but it is hard to argue, (i) that it does not deliver results (while improvements can always be made, the Mavs have consistently been one of the best offensive teams), (ii) that it is forced or usurped by Luka and not designed -- Kidd stresses often enough that Luka is the system. Also, Doncic is a willing passer as demonstrated with high numbers for his assists, potential assists as well as passes.

Their problem is defending. One can argue that teammates feel unmotivated to play defense, because they are excluded on the offensive side, or that they simply follow the defensive-casual stance of their leader.

Both arguments make Doncic look bad, but they are both rather week IMO, since they are hard to substantiate with numbers. Moreover, in the 6-game span between the trades and the AS break, their now-pathetic defense was fine. There seems to be something else going on.

With all that said, I think all of this discussion is moot, since right now, MVP is only for Jokic to lose. And absent injury, I do not see that happening.

So, let's really be clear: In MVP conversations we're not talking about any star player being "the problem" on his team relative to his teammates. It's a question of whether the guy in question is the best of the best. The competition is brutal by definition, and it's why we see folks (such as myself in this case) make anti- arguments for guys. Not because we think any of the players here literally make their teams worse, but because we're implicitly comparing the players to other elite players.

Now, related to the specific usage question:

The point is not that ultra-high star usage is an inherently bad thing - it might actually be the right thing for the set of players in question - but that it runs the risk of making people overate the star and underate his teammates.

Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other star because his teammates are uniquely incapable of gaining more production themselves, and Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other stars because they are trying and failing to do what he's doing. He has these numbers because he's choosing to play in an ultra-extreme primacy way, and while it's fine for him to do this if it's the best move for his team, it doesn't mean his value increases in linear proportion to his volume.

This relates to why I brought Wilt earlier because these conversations with Wilt have been happening for forever.

Even after people acknowledge that Wilt's teams were better with him scoring less than he did at his peak, they still tend to see those peak numbers as a baseline for how good he was. And while it's certainly impressive that he could score so much, you really can't extrapolate from that scoring volume to figure out how valuable he was at his true value peak (which came later).

Luka is a very different player from Wilt in many ways, but in terms of extreme individual primacy in a team sport setting, they are very much cut from the same cloth, and so anyone looking to use the box score as their ground truth to assess their value will tend to overrate value.

I think you're partially right but also think you're a little overly pessimistic on Luka. This seems like something someone would say about Jordan before he started winning consistently, and while playstyle was certainly part of that, it was moreso coaching and surrounding talent. Luka is posting the best +/- #'s of his career, ones that aren't that different from prime Harden, and Luka is 25 and a better postseason player than Harden ever was. Now, this is in no way saying Luka should be the MVP, he should not, and he's still plenty flawed, but I do think you narrow in on +/- a bit much at times.

[Special_Puppy]

Was Jokic still the favorite to win MVP at this time last year? When did Embiid overtake him?

[cpower]

Race is looking done. With just 17 games left Jokic just keeps stretching his lead by the day.

Jokic deserves the MVP but if he wins another he would be the first one to win 3 MVPs without being 1st or 2nd seed in RS. I think the media gave him a pass when his team ranked 11th in the league and that‘s breaking the normal best player on best team narrative.

[Bob8]

I think this is the main point here. We can ravage about Doncic's high usage all day, but it is hard to argue, (i) that it does not deliver results (while improvements can always be made, the Mavs have consistently been one of the best offensive teams), (ii) that it is forced or usurped by Luka and not designed -- Kidd stresses often enough that Luka is the system. Also, Doncic is a willing passer as demonstrated with high numbers for his assists, potential assists as well as passes.

Their problem is defending. One can argue that teammates feel unmotivated to play defense, because they are excluded on the offensive side, or that they simply follow the defensive-casual stance of their leader.

Both arguments make Doncic look bad, but they are both rather week IMO, since they are hard to substantiate with numbers. Moreover, in the 6-game span between the trades and the AS break, their now-pathetic defense was fine. There seems to be something else going on.

With all that said, I think all of this discussion is moot, since right now, MVP is only for Jokic to lose. And absent injury, I do not see that happening.

So, let's really be clear: In MVP conversations we're not talking about any star player being "the problem" on his team relative to his teammates. It's a question of whether the guy in question is the best of the best. The competition is brutal by definition, and it's why we see folks (such as myself in this case) make anti- arguments for guys. Not because we think any of the players here literally make their teams worse, but because we're implicitly comparing the players to other elite players.

Now, related to the specific usage question:

The point is not that ultra-high star usage is an inherently bad thing - it might actually be the right thing for the set of players in question - but that it runs the risk of making people overate the star and underate his teammates.

Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other star because his teammates are uniquely incapable of gaining more production themselves, and Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other stars because they are trying and failing to do what he's doing. He has these numbers because he's choosing to play in an ultra-extreme primacy way, and while it's fine for him to do this if it's the best move for his team, it doesn't mean his value increases in linear proportion to his volume.

This relates to why I brought Wilt earlier because these conversations with Wilt have been happening for forever.

Even after people acknowledge that Wilt's teams were better with him scoring less than he did at his peak, they still tend to see those peak numbers as a baseline for how good he was. And while it's certainly impressive that he could score so much, you really can't extrapolate from that scoring volume to figure out how valuable he was at his true value peak (which came later).

Luka is a very different player from Wilt in many ways, but in terms of extreme individual primacy in a team sport setting, they are very much cut from the same cloth, and so anyone looking to use the box score as their ground truth to assess their value will tend to overrate value.

I think you're partially right but also think you're a little overly pessimistic on Luka. This seems like something someone would say about Jordan before he started winning consistently, and while playstyle was certainly part of that, it was moreso coaching and surrounding talent. Luka is posting the best +/- #'s of his career, ones that aren't that different from prime Harden, and Luka is 25 and a better postseason player than Harden ever was. Now, this is in no way saying Luka should be the MVP, he should not, and he's still plenty flawed, but I do think you narrow in on +/- a bit much at times.

Problem is elsewhere, you can somewhat penalise Luka for not having good enough record for MVP. But you can't blame him for not having good enough record and not having good enough +/-. It's basically the same thing.

There's of course a question, who could have much better record with roster Mavs actually played with, because of immense problems with injuries?

I hope that every +/- apologists understand that Wemby can't be rookie MVP.

[Doctor MJ]

I think this is the main point here. We can ravage about Doncic's high usage all day, but it is hard to argue, (i) that it does not deliver results (while improvements can always be made, the Mavs have consistently been one of the best offensive teams), (ii) that it is forced or usurped by Luka and not designed -- Kidd stresses often enough that Luka is the system. Also, Doncic is a willing passer as demonstrated with high numbers for his assists, potential assists as well as passes.

Their problem is defending. One can argue that teammates feel unmotivated to play defense, because they are excluded on the offensive side, or that they simply follow the defensive-casual stance of their leader.

Both arguments make Doncic look bad, but they are both rather week IMO, since they are hard to substantiate with numbers. Moreover, in the 6-game span between the trades and the AS break, their now-pathetic defense was fine. There seems to be something else going on.

With all that said, I think all of this discussion is moot, since right now, MVP is only for Jokic to lose. And absent injury, I do not see that happening.

So, let's really be clear: In MVP conversations we're not talking about any star player being "the problem" on his team relative to his teammates. It's a question of whether the guy in question is the best of the best. The competition is brutal by definition, and it's why we see folks (such as myself in this case) make anti- arguments for guys. Not because we think any of the players here literally make their teams worse, but because we're implicitly comparing the players to other elite players.

Now, related to the specific usage question:

The point is not that ultra-high star usage is an inherently bad thing - it might actually be the right thing for the set of players in question - but that it runs the risk of making people overate the star and underate his teammates.

Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other star because his teammates are uniquely incapable of gaining more production themselves, and Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other stars because they are trying and failing to do what he's doing. He has these numbers because he's choosing to play in an ultra-extreme primacy way, and while it's fine for him to do this if it's the best move for his team, it doesn't mean his value increases in linear proportion to his volume.

This relates to why I brought Wilt earlier because these conversations with Wilt have been happening for forever.

Even after people acknowledge that Wilt's teams were better with him scoring less than he did at his peak, they still tend to see those peak numbers as a baseline for how good he was. And while it's certainly impressive that he could score so much, you really can't extrapolate from that scoring volume to figure out how valuable he was at his true value peak (which came later).

Luka is a very different player from Wilt in many ways, but in terms of extreme individual primacy in a team sport setting, they are very much cut from the same cloth, and so anyone looking to use the box score as their ground truth to assess their value will tend to overrate value.

I think you're partially right but also think you're a little overly pessimistic on Luka. This seems like something someone would say about Jordan before he started winning consistently, and while playstyle was certainly part of that, it was moreso coaching and surrounding talent. Luka is posting the best +/- #'s of his career, ones that aren't that different from prime Harden, and Luka is 25 and a better postseason player than Harden ever was. Now, this is in no way saying Luka should be the MVP, he should not, and he's still plenty flawed, but I do think you narrow in on +/- a bit much at times.

Well, I'd say to be pessimistic I'd have to be talking about future predictions, which I am not.

I am less impressed by Luka's impact to this point in his career than most, and I do think past tends to be prologue, but the future is still to be written.

[Doctor MJ]

So, let's really be clear: In MVP conversations we're not talking about any star player being "the problem" on his team relative to his teammates. It's a question of whether the guy in question is the best of the best. The competition is brutal by definition, and it's why we see folks (such as myself in this case) make anti- arguments for guys. Not because we think any of the players here literally make their teams worse, but because we're implicitly comparing the players to other elite players.

Now, related to the specific usage question:

The point is not that ultra-high star usage is an inherently bad thing - it might actually be the right thing for the set of players in question - but that it runs the risk of making people overate the star and underate his teammates.

Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other star because his teammates are uniquely incapable of gaining more production themselves, and Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other stars because they are trying and failing to do what he's doing. He has these numbers because he's choosing to play in an ultra-extreme primacy way, and while it's fine for him to do this if it's the best move for his team, it doesn't mean his value increases in linear proportion to his volume.

This relates to why I brought Wilt earlier because these conversations with Wilt have been happening for forever.

Even after people acknowledge that Wilt's teams were better with him scoring less than he did at his peak, they still tend to see those peak numbers as a baseline for how good he was. And while it's certainly impressive that he could score so much, you really can't extrapolate from that scoring volume to figure out how valuable he was at his true value peak (which came later).

Luka is a very different player from Wilt in many ways, but in terms of extreme individual primacy in a team sport setting, they are very much cut from the same cloth, and so anyone looking to use the box score as their ground truth to assess their value will tend to overrate value.

I think you're partially right but also think you're a little overly pessimistic on Luka. This seems like something someone would say about Jordan before he started winning consistently, and while playstyle was certainly part of that, it was moreso coaching and surrounding talent. Luka is posting the best +/- #'s of his career, ones that aren't that different from prime Harden, and Luka is 25 and a better postseason player than Harden ever was. Now, this is in no way saying Luka should be the MVP, he should not, and he's still plenty flawed, but I do think you narrow in on +/- a bit much at times.

Problem is elsewhere, you can somewhat penalise Luka for not having good enough record for MVP. But you can't blame him for not having good enough record and not having good enough +/-. It's basically the same thing.

There's of course a question, who could have much better record with roster Mavs actually played with, because of immense problems with injuries?

I hope that every +/- apologists understand that Wemby can't be rookie MVP.

We have all sorts of things that adjust for team quality when evaluating a player's impact.

Not sure what you mean by the last line.

[zero rings]

Race is looking done. With just 17 games left Jokic just keeps stretching his lead by the day.

Jokic deserves the MVP but if he wins another he would be the first one to win 3 MVPs without being 1st or 2nd seed in RS. I think the media gave him a pass when his team ranked 11th in the league and that‘s breaking the normal best player on best team narrative.

If team record was that important, Booker would have two MVPs and Tatum would be going for his second in a row.

[zero rings]

So, let's really be clear: In MVP conversations we're not talking about any star player being "the problem" on his team relative to his teammates. It's a question of whether the guy in question is the best of the best. The competition is brutal by definition, and it's why we see folks (such as myself in this case) make anti- arguments for guys. Not because we think any of the players here literally make their teams worse, but because we're implicitly comparing the players to other elite players.

Now, related to the specific usage question:

The point is not that ultra-high star usage is an inherently bad thing - it might actually be the right thing for the set of players in question - but that it runs the risk of making people overate the star and underate his teammates.

Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other star because his teammates are uniquely incapable of gaining more production themselves, and Luka doesn't have these huge numbers like no other stars because they are trying and failing to do what he's doing. He has these numbers because he's choosing to play in an ultra-extreme primacy way, and while it's fine for him to do this if it's the best move for his team, it doesn't mean his value increases in linear proportion to his volume.

This relates to why I brought Wilt earlier because these conversations with Wilt have been happening for forever.

Even after people acknowledge that Wilt's teams were better with him scoring less than he did at his peak, they still tend to see those peak numbers as a baseline for how good he was. And while it's certainly impressive that he could score so much, you really can't extrapolate from that scoring volume to figure out how valuable he was at his true value peak (which came later).

Luka is a very different player from Wilt in many ways, but in terms of extreme individual primacy in a team sport setting, they are very much cut from the same cloth, and so anyone looking to use the box score as their ground truth to assess their value will tend to overrate value.

I think you're partially right but also think you're a little overly pessimistic on Luka. This seems like something someone would say about Jordan before he started winning consistently, and while playstyle was certainly part of that, it was moreso coaching and surrounding talent. Luka is posting the best +/- #'s of his career, ones that aren't that different from prime Harden, and Luka is 25 and a better postseason player than Harden ever was. Now, this is in no way saying Luka should be the MVP, he should not, and he's still plenty flawed, but I do think you narrow in on +/- a bit much at times.

Problem is elsewhere, you can somewhat penalise Luka for not having good enough record for MVP. But you can't blame him for not having good enough record and not having good enough +/-. It's basically the same thing.

There's of course a question, who could have much better record with roster Mavs actually played with, because of immense problems with injuries?

I hope that every +/- apologists understand that Wemby can't be rookie MVP.

+/- accounts for the quality of teammates. If Luka’s teammates were as terrible as you claim they are, his +/- would be much better than it is.

I still think Luka can become an impact giant, but he needs to start playing defense and trusting his teammates more on offense.