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

[Wolfgang630]

Probably in 3 years Luka and Wemby will be the 2 best players and battling it out for mvp for many many years.

[NBA4Lyfe]

Hawks have that magnet ball againist the clippers right now lol

[MaliBrah]

How come the Thunder being 3-1 vs Denver with SGA getting a game winner @ Denver not even slightly move the needle in the MVP talks? It's never talked about

[QPR]

How come the Thunder being 3-1 vs Denver with SGA getting a game winner @ Denver not even slightly move the needle in the MVP talks? It's never talked about

How consequential is it really though? We're talking the MVP award of the whole season, not 2-3 games.

[Special_Puppy]

How come the Thunder being 3-1 vs Denver with SGA getting a game winner @ Denver not even slightly move the needle in the MVP talks? It's never talked about

Last Time Jokic actually played SGA was 3 months ago

[djizo]

Probably in 3 years Luka and Wemby will be the 2 best players and battling it out for mvp for many many years.

Wemby will be great for sure, but I don't see why Jokic and SGA would not be part of the pack as well. Jokic's game should age well, and SGA is young enough to still be competing.

[Johnny Firpo]

How come the Thunder being 3-1 vs Denver with SGA getting a game winner @ Denver not even slightly move the needle in the MVP talks? It's never talked about

It's because the voters pretty much decided already that they want to right their wrong from last year, and Jokic winning the championship made him bulletproof. It's really unfair if you think about it, in the context of Shai, but on the other hand, I think Jokic does deserve it.

[MoneyTalks41890]

Probably in 3 years Luka and Wemby will be the 2 best players and battling it out for mvp for many many years.

As all the other superstars have just decided to retire?

[The-Power]

Concerning the Nuggets struggling so much without Jokic, one aspect to note is how much the Nuggets love to milk their starting line-up or the synergy of their starters – ostensibly willing to take any losses from playing bench-heavy units to maximize playing time of their best unit. Denver's starting line-up has played by far the most minutes together (850) despite only playing in 43 games to date, which comes out to 19.8 MPG – 3 MPG more than the next (> 20 GP). This line-up tendency is reflected in the on-off numbers for Jokic.

Here's the share of total minutes that Jokic has played with the rest of the starters:

KCP: 79%
MPJ: 78%
Gordon: 76%
Murray: 54%

Note that Murray in particular missed a bunch of games this season.

Now let's compare it to SGA:

Dort: 72%
Chet: 64%
J-Dub: 54%
Giddey: 53%

That's a stark difference overall. Indeed, while OKC's starting line-up has played the third most minutes in the NBA with 716 (still clearly behind Denver), they are only at 12.8 MPG – 6 MPG less than Denver's starting line-up!

Or let's turn it around look at who are the players on each team with the most minutes without their MVP.

For Jokic:

1. Braun
2. Watson
3. Jackson
4. Nnaji
5. Murray

Only one starter and that's Murray at #5. MPJ ranks 7th, Gordon 10th (!), KCP 11th (!) on the team.

For SGA:

1. J-Dub
2. Wallace
3. Wiggins
4. Holmgren
5. Giddey

Three starters with one of the two co-stars at #1. Dort ranks 8th on the team.

Just something to keep in mind when analyzing and interpreting on/off numbers. Obviously Jokic' on-court net rating is due to his own greatness as he elevates his teammates far more than anyone else on that team and he produces great line-ups in all different kinds of constellations. But SGA producing a higher on-court net rating despite playing a lot more with bench players and still posting an outrageous on-off net rating (OKC has a negative net rating with him on the bench) is very remarkable also.

I continue to see this as a very close race with two very deserving candidates, and I think the numbers do strongly support that opinion.

[Special_Puppy]

Concerning the Nuggets struggling so much without Jokic, one aspect to note is how much the Nuggets love to milk their starting line-up or the synergy of their starters – ostensibly willing to take any losses from playing bench-heavy units to maximize playing time of their best unit. Denver's starting line-up has played by far the most minutes together (850) despite only playing in 43 games to date, which comes out to 19.8 MPG – 3 MPG more than the next (> 20 GP). This line-up tendency is reflected in the on-off numbers for Jokic.

Here's the share of total minutes that Jokic has played with the rest of the starters:

KCP: 79%
MPJ: 78%
Gordon: 76%
Murray: 54%

Note that Murray in particular missed a bunch of games this season.

Now let's compare it to SGA:

Dort: 72%
Chet: 64%
J-Dub: 54%
Giddey: 53%

That's a stark difference overall. Indeed, while OKC's starting line-up has played the third most minutes in the NBA with 716 (still clearly behind Denver), they are only at 12.8 MPG – 6 MPG less than Denver's starting line-up!

Or let's turn it around look at who are the players on each team with the most minutes without their MVP.

For Jokic:

1. Braun
2. Watson
3. Jackson
4. Nnaji
5. Murray

Only one starter and that's Murray at #5. MPJ ranks 7th, Gordon 10th (!), KCP 11th (!) on the team.

For SGA:

1. J-Dub
2. Wallace
3. Wiggins
4. Holmgren
5. Giddey

Three starters with one of the two co-stars at #1. Dort ranks 8th on the team.

Just something to keep in mind when analyzing and interpreting on/off numbers. Obviously Jokic' on-court net rating is due to his own greatness as he elevates his teammates far more than anyone else on that team and he produces great line-ups in all different kinds of constellations. But SGA producing a higher on-court net rating despite playing a lot more with bench players and still posting an outrageous on-off net rating (OKC has a negative net rating with him on the bench) is very remarkable also.

I continue to see this as a very close race with two very deserving candidates, and I think the numbers do strongly support that opinion.

Not disagreeing with your overall point of Jokic’s raw on/off numbers being juiced by him playing with the starters so much, but the numbers look slightly worse for SGA if you filter out low leverage minutes

Jokic net rating in non-garbage time minutes: +11.9

Jokic on/off in non-garbage time minutes: +22.1

https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos/nba?TeamId=1610612743&Season=2023-24&SeasonType=Regular%2BSeason&PlayerIds=203999&Leverage=Medium,High,VeryHigh

SGA Net rating in non-garbage time minutes: +9.9
SGA on/off in non-garbage time minutes: +8.9

https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos/nba?TeamId=1610612760&Season=2023-24&SeasonType=Regular%2BSeason&PlayerIds=1628983&Leverage=Medium,High,VeryHigh

[Jamaaliver]

Read on Twitter

[Handlez]

Not much talk of Jokic struggling last night and another MVP candidate beating him in the process.

Luka's coming...

[Special_Puppy]

Updated MVP Odds with Vig removed:
Jokic 65%
SGA 18%
Luka 12%
Giannis 4%
Tatum 2%
Ant 0.6%

[LuckyAC]

Read on Twitter

Jalen Williams for MVP

[Cubbies2120]

Not much talk of Jokic struggling last night and another MVP candidate beating him in the process.

Luka's coming...

Could be because they're 11-2 since the all-star game and that outweighs a 16/11/7/2 pedestrian performance (where the Nuggets were +10 with Jokic on the court).

Doncic 'struggled' as well by those standards, shooting 44%, only 3 assists, and a net -1 with him on the court. He scored a lot of points and hit a key shot after blowing a 13 point lead with 6 mins left though.

I think the body of work for the entire season outweighs 1-2 game sample sizes this late in the season especially when one team is fighting for the #1 seed and one is fighting to stay out of the play-in.

[Bob8]

Not much talk of Jokic struggling last night and another MVP candidate beating him in the process.

Luka's coming...

Could be because they're 11-2 since the all-star game and that outweighs a 16/11/7/2 pedestrian performance (where the Nuggets were +10 with Jokic on the court).

Doncic 'struggled' as well by those standards, shooting 44%, only 3 assists, and a net -1 with him on the court. He scored a lot of points and hit a key shot after blowing a 13 point lead with 6 mins left though.

I think the body of work for the entire season outweighs 1-2 game sample sizes this late in the season especially when one team is fighting for the #1 seed and one is fighting to stay out of the play-in.

Yes those +/- were for sure, like always, representative. Jokic 16 points with 16 shots had a great game, + 10. Luka much worse game with - 1, 37 points with 27 shots and crucial 3. But still much better than Lively, who had disastrous game, 14 points, only 1 missed shot, 8 rebounds and 2 blocks, and - 18 +/-.

I believe future of basketball might be without box score. We will just look at +/- and see, who was the best. In this game Doncic and Irwing with 61/17/12, wining the game in last 30 seconds, had only +5. Jokic and Gordon with 27/19/11 and impressive + 22 dominated them. Luckily for Mavs, Luka and Kyrie had much better teammates, who btw. went 0/13 for 3. The most impressive player from the bench THJ with 1 point and +2.

[RB34]

Why does playoff success get held against some candidates and not others?

[ForeverTFC]

Why does playoff success get held against some candidates and not others?

Can you elaborate?

[RB34]

Why does playoff success get held against some candidates and not others?

Can you elaborate?

Joker, Tatum and Giannis have all had the playoffs taken into account in their MVP candidacy.

I see SGA is now #1 on some MVP trackers and he hasn’t been out of the first round.

[Special_Puppy]

Why does playoff success get held against some candidates and not others?

Can you elaborate?

Joker, Tatum and Giannis have all had the playoffs taken into account in their MVP candidacy.

I see SGA is now #1 on some MVP trackers and he hasn’t been out of the first round.

By some trackers, you mean just the one lol