2024-25 NBA MVP Discussion Thread (Pt. 2)

[MaliBrah]

Besides Tatum, does any other star have a better supporting cast than Shai?

So this year's narrative for Jokic is everyone has too much help let's give him another mvp for winning games at a play in rate? (AGAIN)

It worked for Jokic's 1st MVP so Jokic stans think it will work again this season. But SGA's case for MVP is too strong. It will be one of the biggest injustice in NBA, if he does not win MVP this season.

I need Calvin Booth to test the limits of these guys , give us a 10th seed Denver year and I swear to god we will have people saying Jokic should be MVP because this team should be 15th.

EDIT: He's the best player in the world , i'm not taking that from him. But we're changing basketball history here by awaring Joker the MVP no matter what happens in season.

[Snake3]

So this year's narrative for Jokic is everyone has too much help let's give him another mvp for winning games at a play in rate? (AGAIN)

It worked for Jokic's 1st MVP so Jokic stans think it will work again this season. But SGA's case for MVP is too strong. It will be one of the biggest injustice in NBA, if he does not win MVP this season.

I need Calvin Booth to test the limits of these guys , give us a 10th seed Denver year and I swear to god we will have people saying Jokic should be MVP because this team should be 15th.

EDIT: He's the best player in the world , i'm not taking that from him. But we're changing basketball history here by awaring Joker the MVP no matter what happens in season.

Eh.

We started to change when Westbrook won MVP with his triple double.

With Jokic, it's somewhat similar if he could get a triple double and the whole narrative about carrying the team. SGA will likely win it by my guess, but depends on the seeding that Denver gets too. I wouldn't get too surprise if Jokic were to win. Again, a 30+ pt triple double with the best 3pt % in the league. That's tough. And it also depends how far OKC get from the rest of the West.

But I wish voters back in the day would've gave it to Kobe in 06. We probably would've now judging how current voters are voting.

[Special_Puppy]

So this year's narrative for Jokic is everyone has too much help let's give him another mvp for winning games at a play in rate? (AGAIN)

It worked for Jokic's 1st MVP so Jokic stans think it will work again this season. But SGA's case for MVP is too strong. It will be one of the biggest injustice in NBA, if he does not win MVP this season.

I need Calvin Booth to test the limits of these guys , give us a 10th seed Denver year and I swear to god we will have people saying Jokic should be MVP because this team should be 15th.

EDIT: He's the best player in the world , i'm not taking that from him. But we're changing basketball history here by awaring Joker the MVP no matter what happens in season.

FWIW I'm for Burrow for MVP despite thinking that Burrow was overrated before the season and despite Allen being my favorite QB. I try to be consistent about focusing on individual impact over team results (although the two are connected obviously)

[Rdude22]

SGA having a better supporting cast is irrelevant to me if he's been more impactful. MVP is the player that adds the most value, by multiple metrics he is adding the most value.

Wait... the narrative now is SGA has too much talent compared to Jokic???? lmaoo

Is that how the nonsensical pettiness will manifest itself if SGA wins this year?

I mean obviously Lu Dort is a swole french Ray Allen, Casen Wallace is prime Jru Holiday, and Dirk counts his blessings everyday that the real German Engineering prodigy iHart wasn't in the league to take his shine, but c'mon!

"If Jokic doesn't win an MVP every year it's his teammates fault for not winning him enough games"

Yikes

[Special_Puppy]

SGA having a better supporting cast is irrelevant to me if he's been more impactful. MVP is the player that adds the most value, by multiple metrics he is adding the most value.

Wait... the narrative now is SGA has too much talent compared to Jokic???? lmaoo

Is that how the nonsensical pettiness will manifest itself if SGA wins this year?

I mean obviously Lu Dort is a swole french Ray Allen, Casen Wallace is prime Jru Holiday, and Dirk counts his blessings everyday that the real German Engineering prodigy iHart wasn't in the league to take his shine, but c'mon!

"If Jokic doesn't win an MVP every year it's his teammates fault for not winning him enough games"

Yikes

The Thunder have a +15.3 net rating right now while the Nuggets have a +3.6 net rating. In your estimation, How much of that difference in net rating is SGA playing better than Jokic this season vs SGA's supporting cast playing better than Jokic's this season?
https://www.pbpstats.com/team-leverage-summary/nba?Season=2024-25&Leverage=Medium,High,VeryHigh

[RB34]

SGA having a better supporting cast is irrelevant to me if he's been more impactful. MVP is the player that adds the most value, by multiple metrics he is adding the most value.

Wait... the narrative now is SGA has too much talent compared to Jokic???? lmaoo

Is that how the nonsensical pettiness will manifest itself if SGA wins this year?

I mean obviously Lu Dort is a swole french Ray Allen, Casen Wallace is prime Jru Holiday, and Dirk counts his blessings everyday that the real German Engineering prodigy iHart wasn't in the league to take his shine, but c'mon!

"If Jokic doesn't win an MVP every year it's his teammates fault for not winning him enough games"

Yikes

Boggles my mind how people continue to ignore how stacked OKC are. Either wilful ignorance or the LeBron treatment when you talk down the team to make the star look better.

[CobraCommander]

Yeh, it feels like the momentum is (rightly) shifting to SGA.

At some point- It feels like it but Jokic just avg 43 and 13.5 and 9.5 over the weekend against Wemby.

But damn 15 in a row? And people were saying SGA wasn’t as as the other top 7 guys because Chet and he team was too good- but at some point SGA and Tatum ARE the reason why their teams are so good and thus they are better guys with slightly better numbers -

I’m not team SGA yet but I’m squarely in team SGA is at worse the 3rd best player on earth - mvp or not- everyone healthy or not… sga is proving to the be the best LEADER in the NBA -

Don't put Tatum in the same sentence as SGA like that.

Why not - Tatum avg 28, 9 and 6 shooting 46,37 and 80%... those numbers are as good or better than anyone not named Jokic or Giannis and he has a RING ...plus his team is winning right now. Tatum is a great player on both ends, good teammate and best player on a championship team. I don’t like his Kobe riding but other than that he as good or better than anyone else In the top 7 that don’t have a ring...and he has that ring...objectively he is great regardless of how any feels

[Bergmaniac]

SGA would be a worthy winner, but OKC obviously has a much better squad than Denver, this isn't really debatable. OKC are stacked with really good defenders, Denver has 3 very good defenders in their whole roster and only one anywhere close to an All-Defence team level and he's been injured most of the season. Westbrook is Denver's 6th man and often starter but he probably wouldn't make the rotation of the Thunder except for purely sentimental reasons.

[Special_Puppy]

Jokic winning MVP at this point would probably have to involve a combination of
-OKC winning “only” ~62 games
-Denver winning ~54 games
-Jokic more clearly separating himself from SGA in terms of individual play
-Voters thinking that SGA’s supporting cast is clearly better than Jokic’s

[MaliBrah]

Jokic had the superior team , a 1-3 record vs SGA's thunder with Shai hitting a game winner in Denver and finished below them on a tie breaker with Shai leading the youngest team to ever finish 1st in the conference and with a HUGE win improvement. MVP still goes to Jokic

Shai playing at a level close to Jokic and even slightly better in some metrics , is playing better defensively. Has dealt with Serious injury problems to the team and is on pace for 65+ wins wheras the Nuggets are on pace for less then 50 and frankly lucky Kawhi's been out and Luka is out now they could very well be in the play in. Jokic is still MVP !!!

You guys would give it to Joker with the nuggets in the lottery man

[Special_Puppy]

Jokic had the superior team , a 1-3 record vs SGA's thunder with Shai hitting a game winner in Denver and finished below them on a tie breaker with Shai leading the youngest team to ever finish 1st in the conference and with a HUGE win improvement. MVP still goes to Jokic

Shai playing at a level close to Jokic and even slightly better in some metrics , is playing better defensively. Has dealt with Serious injury problems to the team and is on pace for 65+ wins wheras the Nuggets are on pace for less then 50 and frankly lucky Kawhi's been out and Luka is out now they could very well be in the play in. Jokic is still MVP !!!

You guys would give it to Joker with the nuggets in the lottery man

I think people who supported Jokic for MVP last year would dispute the idea that Jokic had a better supporting cast than SGA last season

[Snake3]

Jokic had the superior team , a 1-3 record vs SGA's thunder with Shai hitting a game winner in Denver and finished below them on a tie breaker with Shai leading the youngest team to ever finish 1st in the conference and with a HUGE win improvement. MVP still goes to Jokic

Shai playing at a level close to Jokic and even slightly better in some metrics , is playing better defensively. Has dealt with Serious injury problems to the team and is on pace for 65+ wins wheras the Nuggets are on pace for less then 50 and frankly lucky Kawhi's been out and Luka is out now they could very well be in the play in. Jokic is still MVP !!!

You guys would give it to Joker with the nuggets in the lottery man

One of them wins was without Jokic. And Murray missed about 23 games.

SGA had a case last year though. I thought SGA or Luka would've won. I personally thought it would've been Luka. Jokic had a good case for it too, but I felt it was a makeup MVP for the 2023. But it's whatever. He had a strong case.

This year SGA has a greater case for it. Without Chet for long period of time, but they have I.Hart. OKC floor is way better than last year.

It's funny you say that ppl would give to Jokic with the Nuggets being in a lottery. Cuz without Jokic, they'll probably will be in the lottery. Down there with the Pelicans or Wizards. With Jokic, they could be a top 3-4 in the west. That's crazy given at how stack the West is.

I don't think I can't say the same thing about OKC without Shai.

And that's why Jokic is in this race with SGA, and Jokic having historic numbers. But the wins will probably give SGA the edge.

[Doctor MJ]

EDIT: He's the best player in the world , i'm not taking that from him. But we're changing basketball history here by awaring Joker the MVP no matter what happens in season.

I don't want to dive too much into some of the things being discussed, but did want to respond to the above point.

Before I do, I'll reiterate:
1. I think Shai had an MVP caliber season last year, and has clearly improved on that this year.
2. I believe that if the voter were held today, Shai would win the MVP.
3. I'm completely happy with that. Go Shai!

Okay, so on the precedent of history, I'd distinguish:

a) It does go against precedent to vote for the "best player" without consideration of in season performance.
But:
b) We have seen a guy win MVP on a team with a worse record than Jokic's team does now.

I'd argue it's therefore precedent tells us that we should not be dismissing players simply because their team isn't good enough.

Note that this isn't the same as saying it doesn't matter if your play influences winning. The expectation is always that the team would be hurt significantly without the value contributed by the MVP, but this doesn't make it objectively clear how bad a team has to be before a player cannot possibly be adding more value than a player on a better team.

And my 2 cents:

- I think Jokic still has a very strong case as being the most valuable player based on what I've seen so far.

- But even more strongly, he's got a pretty open & shut case as a top 2 guy right now I think most would agree...but if he can be accepted at #2, then there's no real reason he can't be #1 other than there happening to be a guy more valuable than he is.

[RRR3]

Everyone knows Jokic has been top 2, but he's going to have to be clearly better than SGA to win the MVP with the records the way they are. And it's debatable if he's been better at all at the moment, so SGA has the edge.

[BigGargamel]

Everyone knows Jokic has been top 2, but he's going to have to be clearly better than SGA to win the MVP with the records the way they are. And it's debatable if he's been better at all at the moment, so SGA has the edge.

The record discrepancy will be the only reason that Jokic doesn't win it. If you put both players side by side in a vacuum, there is absolutely zero debate on who is playing better. SGA is playing great, All Star, all NBA team level. Jokic is playing at an absolutely historic level that we really have only seen once or twice the past 30 years. (I would say never, but I'm trying not to sound like a homer)

[RRR3]

Everyone knows Jokic has been top 2, but he's going to have to be clearly better than SGA to win the MVP with the records the way they are. And it's debatable if he's been better at all at the moment, so SGA has the edge.

The record discrepancy will be the only reason that Jokic doesn't win it. If you put both players side by side in a vacuum, there is absolutely zero debate on who is playing better. SGA is playing great, All Star, all NBA team level. Jokic is playing at an absolutely historic level that we really have only seen once or twice the past 30 years.

Impact stats do not support your statement. Not sure why you're focusing on box score stats.

[BigGargamel]

I get it. Nerd stats have a place, but so do raw stats. SGA is not having a legendary run. Jokic is. The end of that comparison.

It's the team record, and that's it. Let's not pretend the two are on equal footing production wise.

[RRR3]

If you're arguing for disregarding impact data in favor of raw stats, you've already lost.

[Snake3]

Everyone knows Jokic has been top 2, but he's going to have to be clearly better than SGA to win the MVP with the records the way they are. And it's debatable if he's been better at all at the moment, so SGA has the edge.

The record discrepancy will be the only reason that Jokic doesn't win it. If you put both players side by side in a vacuum, there is absolutely zero debate on who is playing better. SGA is playing great, All Star, all NBA team level. Jokic is playing at an absolutely historic level that we really have only seen once or twice the past 30 years.

Impact stats do not support your statement. Not sure why you're focusing on box score stats.

Hahah, you can't do either without the other. You got to use everything. And everything within context. Otherwise you'll get some weird results.

Like Kris Dunn is having a +3.7 def in EPM. Best in the league. Does that mean he is more impactful than Tim Duncan ever was in 03 with him having +2.8 EPM? Hell no. Same thing within 25 season. He isn't more impactful than Wemby is. But Kris Dunn is impactful for his team. He does his job great. Remember when Jokic got a +1 def something within EPM? It was higher than the best LeBron 2013. And we know he isn't the better defender or the more impactful defender.

And then you have Evan Mobley who has the same EPM as Giannis. But it doesn't mean that he is more valuable per say. And it doesn't mean he is the better player.

You don't have to use EPM. You can use lebron stat. And even then you'll still get weird results. Especially start going down the list. And comparing across teams and eras.

SGA is great tho. SGA is proving to be a offensive system on his own. An elite one at that. It's no coincidence that he is competing with or surpassed Jokic in some advance statistic. I imagine he is producing in a similar lvl of prime MJ. Probably not as good, but it's similar.

And while data doesn't lie, but it could be misleading depending upon how you use it.

[Exp0sed]

Jokic would legit win 75 games with team and waltz to the title.

It’s not even close. Jokic is just on a different level.


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Last year Denver had KCP and Murray had the best season of his career, and finshed behind the Thunder.
SGA is good, really good, if anything, his supporting cast is overated offensively, he's having am insane carry job.

they might be overrated offensively but they're underrated defensively

they held the C's to 17 pts in the 3rd and 12 in the 4th, they've been doing it all season - is Shai doing that on his own too?