2023-24 NBA Season Discussion

[Doctor MJ]

Soooo, what are your poy rankings looking like right now? Cause we are in a hella weird situation with the best player on the champion team being not all that

Luka being poy seems like a easy alternative but he didnt set the world on fire exactly against either or boston for a poy player imo (was great vs minny ) but he still has the best convo of reg season brilliance + long run

Jokic and shai definetely out with 2nd round exits

Shai’s mine rn, he was lowkey my MVP pick and although he had an R2 exit, Jokic (the other main MVP contender) did as well. Wasn’t as high on Luka’s RS, and it’s not like his PS is historically notable or anything.

It does feel weird and I wonder if I’m underrating the best player on an all-time great team by not putting him in the top 3. But prolly not lol

Well for me no fundamental reason why Tatum couldn't be higher in principle, it's just there are 3 guys I just don't see an argument over.

[OhayoKD]

Soooo, what are your poy rankings looking like right now? Cause we are in a hella weird situation with the best player on the champion team being not all that

Luka being poy seems like a easy alternative but he didnt set the world on fire exactly against either or boston for a poy player imo (was great vs minny ) but he still has the best convo of reg season brilliance + long run

Jokic and shai definetely out with 2nd round exits

It's Shai as of now I think. No one making the conference finals put a similar body of work besides Luka who, largely due to injury, was worse than Shai over the playoffs. Unless we're just using team-success SGA probably deserves POY

[falcolombardi]

Soooo, what are your poy rankings looking like right now? Cause we are in a hella weird situation with the best player on the champion team being not all that

Luka being poy seems like a easy alternative but he didnt set the world on fire exactly against either or boston for a poy player imo (was great vs minny ) but he still has the best convo of reg season brilliance + long run

Jokic and shai definetely out with 2nd round exits

It's Shai as of now I think. No one making the conference finals put a similar body of work besides Luka who, largely due to injury, was worse than Shai over the playoffs. Unless we're just using team-success SGA probably deserves POY

Interestingly enough it seems poy is won by players eliminated early more often than i expected (i expected zero to be fair)

Lebron won in 2010 (understandably so without a stand out title winner/finalist to take it from him as kobe was a fair bit worse than his 09 run)

and more strangely jokic did it in 2022 above curry (first round exit, honestly with a less impressive losing series than giannis and not doing better than curry in the playoffs)

Shai winninh poy doesnt seem so outlandish anymore

[therealbig3]

Why would Shai take it over Jokic though? Jokic was by far the MVP, and I don't think played demonstrably worse against Minnesota than Shai did against Dallas. The gap in the RS just seems too big to overcome, and Jokic didn't play poorly in the playoffs at all.

[OhayoKD]

Why would Shai take it over Jokic though? Jokic was by far the MVP, and I don't think played demonstrably worse against Minnesota than Shai did against Dallas. The gap in the RS just seems too big to overcome, and Jokic didn't play poorly in the playoffs at all.

Shai was the better RS player, won more in the same conference, and was clearly better in the playoffs on a team that also did better. Wierd take. Are you forgetting defense and ball-handling as aspects of basketball?

[Special_Puppy]

Why would Shai take it over Jokic though? Jokic was by far the MVP, and I don't think played demonstrably worse against Minnesota than Shai did against Dallas. The gap in the RS just seems too big to overcome, and Jokic didn't play poorly in the playoffs at all.

Shai was the better RS player, won more in the same conference, and was clearly better in the playoffs on a team that also did better. Wierd take. Are you forgetting defense and ball-handling as aspects of basketball?

I don't think its clear at all that SGA was better than Jokic in the playoffs. Jokic is ahead in SGA in both playoff EPM and playoff BPM

[OhayoKD]

Why would Shai take it over Jokic though? Jokic was by far the MVP, and I don't think played demonstrably worse against Minnesota than Shai did against Dallas. The gap in the RS just seems too big to overcome, and Jokic didn't play poorly in the playoffs at all.

Shai was the better RS player, won more in the same conference, and was clearly better in the playoffs on a team that also did better. Wierd take. Are you forgetting defense and ball-handling as aspects of basketball?

I don't think its clear at all that SGA was better than Jokic in the playoffs. Jokic is ahead in SGA in both playoff EPM and playoff BPM

And I care about these made-up formulas that don't have any inputs on Jokic's primary offensive weakness, why?

[Special_Puppy]

Shai was the better RS player, won more in the same conference, and was clearly better in the playoffs on a team that also did better. Wierd take. Are you forgetting defense and ball-handling as aspects of basketball?

I don't think its clear at all that SGA was better than Jokic in the playoffs. Jokic is ahead in SGA in both playoff EPM and playoff BPM

And I care about these made-up formulas that don't have any inputs on Jokic's primary offensive weakness, why?

All In One stats give a decent baseline of a player's performance. Jokic is ahead of SGA in DPM, playoff EPM, LEBRON, BPM variants, and RAPM variants. SGA is ahead of Jokic in regular season EPM. Your baseline should be that Jokic that was probably better than SGA in the 2023-24 NBA season . https://dunksandthrees.com/blog/metric-comparison

[Doctor MJ]

Shai was the better RS player, won more in the same conference, and was clearly better in the playoffs on a team that also did better. Wierd take. Are you forgetting defense and ball-handling as aspects of basketball?

I don't think its clear at all that SGA was better than Jokic in the playoffs. Jokic is ahead in SGA in both playoff EPM and playoff BPM

And I care about these made-up formulas that don't have any inputs on Jokic's primary offensive weakness, why?

Measures like this give us an objective starting point both for our own analysis, and to help others understand where we're coming from. Doesn't mean you have to value them and use them, but if you're looking to convince others of your perspective, grounding them in your approach helps.

[Texas Chuck]

I'm confused how stats are made up, but inventing a totally different player in place of another one isn't. I mean.... One is an attempt to measure something that actually happened. We can argue about how well they achieve that, but it is based in reality. Another is complete guesswork. But being assigned real value for some reason.

[Doctor MJ]

Why would Shai take it over Jokic though? Jokic was by far the MVP, and I don't think played demonstrably worse against Minnesota than Shai did against Dallas. The gap in the RS just seems too big to overcome, and Jokic didn't play poorly in the playoffs at all.

Well, while most of us had Jokic as the MVP after the regular season, some didn't. I'd frankly expect that if someone had Shai as their MVP that they probably still have Shai ahead of Jokic now.

But yeah, as someone who had Jokic in front of Shai after the regular season, it's hard for me to move Shai past him now. Not impossible by any means - I'm trying to seriously consider putting Shai over Jokic - but if we just look at what happened through the first two rounds and how they played, it's not clear cut to me that Shai was better.

With Dallas' beating Minny so soundly I have considered whether that elevate Shai over Jokic, but if it does, that's a pretty abstract way to make a judgment, which makes me nervous. As always: Style makes the fight. We knew for 12 months that Minny seemed like the team who matched up best against Denver. Great for them that they pulled off the upset, but it doesn't mean that Denver would have lost to Dallas & OKC. Maybe they would have, and discussion pertaining to that is valuable, but not clear cut.

[lessthanjake]

Soooo, what are your poy rankings looking like right now? Cause we are in a hella weird situation with the best player on the champion team being not all that

Luka being poy seems like a easy alternative but he didnt set the world on fire exactly against either or boston for a poy player imo (was great vs minny ) but he still has the best convo of reg season brilliance + long run

Jokic and shai definetely out with 2nd round exits

It's Shai as of now I think. No one making the conference finals put a similar body of work besides Luka who, largely due to injury, was worse than Shai over the playoffs. Unless we're just using team-success SGA probably deserves POY

Interestingly enough it seems poy is won by players eliminated early more often than i expected (i expected zero to be fair)

Lebron won in 2010 (understandably so without a stand out title winner/finalist to take it from him as kobe was a fair bit worse than his 09 run)

and more strangely jokic did it in 2022 above curry (first round exit, honestly with a less impressive losing series than giannis and not doing better than curry in the playoffs)

Shai winninh poy doesnt seem so outlandish anymore

I think most of the time this happens, the player who wins while going out early in the playoffs is the guy who was regular season MVP. Which makes sense, since a regular season can be good enough to overcome a lack of playoff success for POY purposes. As far as I can tell, there’s like three 1970s Kareem years that are exceptions—where this board gave him POY despite him going out early in the playoffs *and* not being MVP. So I suppose that’s precedent for it. But, while I didn’t participate in those threads, I feel like those Kareem wins are probably kind of just a “Come on, we all know that this transcendent top 3 all-time guy was easily the best player of the decade” sort of thing. It’s not a sentiment that I think anyone would have about SGA, since obviously SGA is not at that kind of clear-best-player-of-the-generation stature. If anything, I think this sort of stuff is precedent for Jokic.

[jalengreen]

Yeah I have Shai over Jokic because Shai was my MVP pick (and he didn't disappoint in the playoffs; was the best player in OKC-DAL). But Jokic was the more popular MVP pick (and obviously... actually won the award...) and I do expect him to be the one to actually win POY.

As for who was the better postseason player, probably fair to give Jokic the title as he had two good series. I mean ultimately Shai was mid R1 but it didn't really matter because it was an unserious series lol. Both of them were let down by teammates offensively in R2 while Jokic's defense was a glaring problem for his team.

[Doctor MJ]

It's Shai as of now I think. No one making the conference finals put a similar body of work besides Luka who, largely due to injury, was worse than Shai over the playoffs. Unless we're just using team-success SGA probably deserves POY

Interestingly enough it seems poy is won by players eliminated early more often than i expected (i expected zero to be fair)

Lebron won in 2010 (understandably so without a stand out title winner/finalist to take it from him as kobe was a fair bit worse than his 09 run)

and more strangely jokic did it in 2022 above curry (first round exit, honestly with a less impressive losing series than giannis and not doing better than curry in the playoffs)

Shai winninh poy doesnt seem so outlandish anymore

I think most of the time this happens, the player who wins while going out early in the playoffs is the guy who was regular season MVP. Which makes sense, since a regular season can be good enough to overcome a lack of playoff success for POY purposes. As far as I can tell, there’s like three 1970s Kareem years that are exceptions—where this board gave him POY despite him going out early in the playoffs *and* not being MVP. So I suppose that’s precedent for it. But, while I didn’t participate in those threads, I feel like those Kareem wins are probably kind of just a “Come on, we all know that this transcendent top 3 all-time guy was easily the best player of the decade” sort of thing. It’s not a sentiment that I think anyone would have about SGA, since obviously SGA is not at that kind of clear-best-player-of-the-generation stature. If anything, I think this sort of stuff is precedent for Jokic.

So yeah, that's the essence of it, and to the extent it surprises people, it probably speaks to the way that I framed it back then:

This was intended to essentially the correction voters could give to the MVP if they had foreknowledge of how the playoffs would go that year, and so an MVP who still looks like himself in the playoffs is going to be tough to top. Going through the list of the POYs, here are the guys who didn't win the title that year and some commentary based on recollection:

'56-57: Bob Pettit, Finals. Russell's rookie year, and while the Celtics won the title, Russell was only there for part of the year, and it was Cousy who won the MVP. Those factors held Russell back relative to Pettit, while Cousy was seen as someone who really guy overrated by contemporaries at that moment.

'63-64: Wilt Chamberlain, Finals. Seen by many as Wilt's defensive peak and his best year on the Warriors. Champion Russell was obviously a strong contender, and also this was Oscar's MVP season.

'65-66: Wilt Chamberlain, East Finals. Wilt won the regular season MVP it was enough to give him enough votes to keep the pole position despite Russell and the Celtics again emerging as champs.

'67-68: Wilt Chamberlain, East Finals. Roughly the same story as '65-66.

'69-70: Jerry West, Finals. Knicks won the title and Willis Reed won both MVP and Finals MVP, but I'd say the board here has always tended to see this as more about narrative than accurate allocation of credit. Reed's teammate Walt Frazier has always been very respected by the board, and you might say the Knick split allows West to get the nod.

'71-72: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, West Finals. MVP and consensus best player seen as losing to a Laker team with more talent.

'72-73: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 1st Round. Consensus best player seen as still more worthy than anyone else despite losing to a team they really weren't supposed to. Dave Cowens won MVP so you might think the POY would then go to him, but the board was clearly skeptical that Cowens deserved that award. Frazier of the champion Knicks would be another candidate.

'73-74: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Finals. MVP and consensus best player just barely loses in the Finals against the Cowens & Hondo Celtics.

'76-77: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, West Finals. MVP and consensus best player scores lots of points as his team gets swept by Walton's champion Blazers.

'77-78: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 1st Round. Consensus best player takes it a year with profound parity after Walton gets injured. Unseld, Hayes & Dandridge Bullets take the title.

'78-79: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, West Semis. Consensus best player takes it a year with profound parity. DJ, Gus & Sikma Sonics take the title.

'81-82: Moses Malone, 1st Round. MVP and consensus best player takes it. Showtime Lakers with the title at a time where Kareem is in the process of passing the torch to Magic.

'84-85: Larry Bird, Finals. MVP and consensus best player lost a classic finals against Showtime Lakers, but kept this award.

'87-88: Michael Jordan, East Semis. MVP and consensus best player takes it despite Magic leading the Lakers to Back-to-Back titles.

'88-89: Michael Jordan, East Finals. Consensus best player takes it. Isiah, Dumars & Laimbeer Pistons win the title.

'89-90: Michael Jordan, East Finals. Same story as prior year.

'03-04: Kevin Garnett, West Finals. MVP and consensus best player takes it. The death lineup Pistons (Billups/Rip/Prince/Wallace/Wallace) with the title.

'08-09: LeBron James, East Finals. MVP and consensus best player takes it. Kobe, Gasol, Odom Lakers with the title.

'09-10: LeBron James, East Semis. Same story as prior year.

'13-14: LeBron James, Finals. Consensus best player takes it despite neither winning the MVP (Durant) nor the title. Beautiful Game Spurs (Duncan/Parker/Manu with Kawhi & Danny) take the title.

'16-17: LeBron James, Finals. Consensus best player takes it despite neither winning the MVP (Westbrook) nor the title. Hampton 5 Warriors seen murder everybody on their way to the title.

'17-18: LeBron James, Finals. Consensus best player takes it despite neither winning the MVP (Harden) nor the title. Hampton 5 Warriors refrain from murdering each other on their way to the title.

'21-22: Nikola Jokic, 1st Round. Back-to-Back MVP takes on a low seed that didn't get upset despite the early exit. Kerr-ball Warriors take an encore.

Color code by decade to just give a sense of when this was most common. Peaks, as expected, in the '70s - only era where this happened a majority of year. The era is known for parity, and that's surely got a lot to do with why it came out as it did.

Interesting to ask which players won the POY as a non-champ, who did it the most.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 6
LeBron James 5
Wilt Chamberlain 3
Michael Jordan 3
Bob Pettit 1
Jerry West 1
Moses Malone 1
Larry Bird 1
Kevin Garnett 1
NIkola Jokic 1

[Colbinii]

'16-17: LeBron James, Finals. Consensus best player takes it despite neither winning the MVP (Westbrook) nor the title. Hampton 5 Warriors seen murder everybody on their way to the title.

'17-18: LeBron James, Finals. Consensus best player takes it despite neither winning the MVP (Harden) nor the title. Hampton 5 Warriors refrain from murdering each other on their way to the title.[/color]

A+ commentary on the Warriors.

2017: Warriors murder everyone en route to NBA Finals
2018: Warriors refrain from murdering themselves en route to NBA Finals

[lessthanjake]

Interestingly enough it seems poy is won by players eliminated early more often than i expected (i expected zero to be fair)

Lebron won in 2010 (understandably so without a stand out title winner/finalist to take it from him as kobe was a fair bit worse than his 09 run)

and more strangely jokic did it in 2022 above curry (first round exit, honestly with a less impressive losing series than giannis and not doing better than curry in the playoffs)

Shai winninh poy doesnt seem so outlandish anymore

I think most of the time this happens, the player who wins while going out early in the playoffs is the guy who was regular season MVP. Which makes sense, since a regular season can be good enough to overcome a lack of playoff success for POY purposes. As far as I can tell, there’s like three 1970s Kareem years that are exceptions—where this board gave him POY despite him going out early in the playoffs *and* not being MVP. So I suppose that’s precedent for it. But, while I didn’t participate in those threads, I feel like those Kareem wins are probably kind of just a “Come on, we all know that this transcendent top 3 all-time guy was easily the best player of the decade” sort of thing. It’s not a sentiment that I think anyone would have about SGA, since obviously SGA is not at that kind of clear-best-player-of-the-generation stature. If anything, I think this sort of stuff is precedent for Jokic.

So yeah, that's the essence of it, and to the extent it surprises people, it probably speaks to the way that I framed it back then:

This was intended to essentially the correction voters could give to the MVP if they had foreknowledge of how the playoffs would go that year, and so an MVP who still looks like himself in the playoffs is going to be tough to top. Going through the list of the POYs, here are the guys who didn't win the title that year and some commentary based on recollection:

'56-57: Bob Pettit, Finals. Russell's rookie year, and while the Celtics won the title, Russell was only there for part of the year, and it was Cousy who won the MVP. Those factors held Russell back relative to Pettit, while Cousy was seen as someone who really guy overrated by contemporaries at that moment.

'63-64: Wilt Chamberlain, Finals. Seen by many as Wilt's defensive peak and his best year on the Warriors. Champion Russell was obviously a strong contender, and also this was Oscar's MVP season.

'65-66: Wilt Chamberlain, East Finals. Wilt won the regular season MVP it was enough to give him enough votes to keep the pole position despite Russell and the Celtics again emerging as champs.

'67-68: Wilt Chamberlain, East Finals. Roughly the same story as '65-66.

'69-70: Jerry West, Finals. Knicks won the title and Willis Reed won both MVP and Finals MVP, but I'd say the board here has always tended to see this as more about narrative than accurate allocation of credit. Reed's teammate Walt Frazier has always been very respected by the board, and you might say the Knick split allows West to get the nod.

'71-72: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, West Finals. MVP and consensus best player seen as losing to a Laker team with more talent.

'72-73: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 1st Round. Consensus best player seen as still more worthy than anyone else despite losing to a team they really weren't supposed to. Dave Cowens won MVP so you might think the POY would then go to him, but the board was clearly skeptical that Cowens deserved that award. Frazier of the champion Knicks would be another candidate.

'73-74: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Finals. MVP and consensus best player just barely loses in the Finals against the Cowens & Hondo Celtics.

'76-77: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, West Finals. MVP and consensus best player scores lots of points as his team gets swept by Walton's champion Blazers.

'77-78: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 1st Round. Consensus best player takes it a year with profound parity after Walton gets injured. Unseld, Hayes & Dandridge Bullets take the title.

'78-79: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, West Semis. Consensus best player takes it a year with profound parity. DJ, Gus & Sikma Sonics take the title.

'81-82: Moses Malone, 1st Round. MVP and consensus best player takes it. Showtime Lakers with the title at a time where Kareem is in the process of passing the torch to Magic.

'84-85: Larry Bird, Finals. MVP and consensus best player lost a classic finals against Showtime Lakers, but kept this award.

'87-88: Michael Jordan, East Semis. MVP and consensus best player takes it despite Magic leading the Lakers to Back-to-Back titles.

'88-89: Michael Jordan, East Finals. Consensus best player takes it. Isiah, Dumars & Laimbeer Pistons win the title.

'89-90: Michael Jordan, East Finals. Same story as prior year.

'03-04: Kevin Garnett, West Finals. MVP and consensus best player takes it. The death lineup Pistons (Billups/Rip/Prince/Wallace/Wallace) with the title.

'08-09: LeBron James, East Finals. MVP and consensus best player takes it. Kobe, Gasol, Odom Lakers with the title.

'09-10: LeBron James, East Semis. Same story as prior year.

'13-14: LeBron James, Finals. Consensus best player takes it despite neither winning the MVP (Durant) nor the title. Beautiful Game Spurs (Duncan/Parker/Manu with Kawhi & Danny) take the title.

'16-17: LeBron James, Finals. Consensus best player takes it despite neither winning the MVP (Westbrook) nor the title. Hampton 5 Warriors seen murder everybody on their way to the title.

'17-18: LeBron James, Finals. Consensus best player takes it despite neither winning the MVP (Harden) nor the title. Hampton 5 Warriors refrain from murdering each other on their way to the title.

'21-22: Nikola Jokic, 1st Round. Back-to-Back MVP takes on a low seed that didn't get upset despite the early exit. Kerr-ball Warriors take an encore.

Color code by decade to just give a sense of when this was most common. Peaks, as expected, in the '70s - only era where this happened a majority of year. The era is known for parity, and that's surely got a lot to do with why it came out as it did.

Interesting to ask which players won the POY as a non-champ, who did it the most.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 6
LeBron James 5
Wilt Chamberlain 3
Michael Jordan 3
Bob Pettit 1
Jerry West 1
Moses Malone 1
Larry Bird 1
Kevin Garnett 1
NIkola Jokic 1

Great post! So yeah, it looks like I was right in my initial reaction looking at the POY award list that Kareem was the only person to get POY while not winning MVP *and* having an early playoff exit (which I’m defining for these purposes as not making the conference finals). He did that in 1973, 1978, and 1979.

And then there’s 1982 Moses, 1988 Jordan, 2010 LeBron, and 2022 Jokic where the POY had an early playoff exit but was MVP.

So yeah, there’s precedent for winning POY with an early playoff exit. But it’s all been either the guy who won MVP, or been Kareem Abdul-Jabbar during a decade where he is considered to have been the clear best player. I wouldn’t really say any of that gives precedent for SGA winning this year, since he didn’t win MVP and he’s really not dominating the NBA like 1970’s Kareem.

[AEnigma]

I do not think Jokic has remotely near the separation over the league that Kareem had in 1978/79, or even that Lebron had in 2010. I disagreed pretty thoroughly with 1988 Jordan, and I think the Pistons matching up with all three lead MVP candidates gave us a clear picture of the true postseason pecking order at that time, but it is what it is. However, at minimum I can at least say all four of those seasons — and 2022 Jokic, for that matter — involved losses to the conference champion. The 2022 Nuggets were not especially competitive in their series, but you could conceivably defend it by saying they lost to the actual champions and put up more of a fight as a 6-seed than that season’s 4-seed did. I myself have generally placed Steph ahead of Gus Williams, but hey, maybe people disagree!

What bothers me about this year is that the Nuggets do not even have that. They lost to the team that was comfortably handled by the team that [TBD but probably going to lose in five or six games to the champions]. An ultimately irrelevant series. (And for the record that is why I will be unlikely to give a vote to the Lakers over the Timberwolves, even though I think the Lakers have two players better than anyone on the Timberwolves.)

As Doc highlighted, we have precedent for that too — 1973 Kareem and 1982 Moses — but there at least we could retroactively assess those as one-off blemishes in the middle of otherwise very successful runs, with 1982 Moses sandwiched between Finals appearances in a period after Kareem’s true prime and before Bird’s and Magic’s true primes, and Kareem being in the third year of his five MVPs in seven years run and yet again captaining a top two SRS team (which the Bucks were for the first five years of his career). Personally I disagree with both selections, but I have a much easier time arguing for Moses separating himself from runner-up Erving (who one year later became a relatively distant second option presence to Moses) and Kareem separating himself from runner-up Frazier (not exactly a Luka/Shai-level talent, even though I would have given him my vote that year). Nor do I think pointing to two exceptions forty years prior makes for a serious “precedent” in itself.

It just kind-of feels like a lot of people have basically abdicated all assessment to what they see in the box score, and that barring a championship from either Shai or Luka, the playoffs may as well have never mattered; we could have all just submitted our ballots at the all-star break for all the difference it has done. Two absolute blow-outs, plus two second-half dissections (where Jokic had the worst plus/minus on the team)? Meh, who cares, skip ahead to next year and what evidently will be a fourth consecutive PotY so long as he plays the bulk of the season.

[Texas Chuck]

itt I learned the only way to think Jokic is great at basketball is to exclusively look at regular season box scores. Wild.

[Doctor MJ]

Great post! So yeah, it looks like I was right in my initial reaction looking at the POY award list that Kareem was the only person to get POY while not winning MVP *and* having an early playoff exit (which I’m defining for these purposes as not making the conference finals). He did that in 1973, 1978, and 1979.

And then there’s 1982 Moses, 1988 Jordan, 2010 LeBron, and 2022 Jokic where the POY had an early playoff exit but was MVP.

So yeah, there’s precedent for winning POY with an early playoff exit. But it’s all been either the guy who won MVP, or been Kareem Abdul-Jabbar during a decade where he is considered to have been the clear best player. I wouldn’t really say any of that gives precedent for SGA winning this year, since he didn’t win MVP and he’s really not dominating the NBA like 1970’s Kareem.

Well, for anyone who had Shai as their personal MVP vote, it makes total sense that they'd vote for him for POY to me.

It would seem like the odds are unlikely that a guy who didn't have majority MVP preferences among official voters WOULD have a majority among another group (like ours), but unlikely is not impossible.

[Doctor MJ]

itt I learned the only way to think Jokic is great at basketball is to exclusively look at regular season box scores. Wild.

Yeah I have to say that when people connect a high opinion of Jokic to being box score watchers it tends to move into "I guess we'll have to agree to disagree" mode. For me, Jokic is very much the embodiment of a "You have to watch him to understand him" guy.

I'll put it like this:

No basketball player makes me giggle - literally laugh out loud in joyful appreciation - as much as Jokic does.

Does that mean I think he has to be better as an overall player than anyone else? No. But it does mean that when I see data backing up the impact I believe I perceive, I'm not particularly skeptical. And so I do tend to be cautious about my potential bias there...but not because I'm analytically inclined, it's because of the role I know my eyes play.

So when people put it out there that they are conflating Jokic-love with analytics, it honestly makes me wonder what they see when they watch Jokic (and others )play. I don't say that with condescension either. I don't think I have the world's best basketball eyes - not even close - so it's more like I'm interested in how we differ.

What I will say though is that I think it's a shame when we can't appreciate joyous things because we're too in the weeds of intellect. This is a thing that I have experienced with a guy like Kyrie Irving, whose has a particular strain of aesthetic beauty that tends to make him be overrated by those who actually lace'em up at high levels of competition. There was absolutely a time when I couldn't enjoy Kyrie's beautiful game due to the combination of a) people over-indexing on that beauty in their strident analysis, and b) Kyrie saying and doing stupid things. I've been glad that I've been able to enjoy watching Kyrie this year as a Mav. Sometimes some distance lets the rhetorical charge fade away.