2024-25 NBA MVP Discussion Thread (Pt. 4: Who is the MVP?)

[falcolombardi]

Yes trolling, Bickerstaff and Finch are also troll isn't it ?

You cannot honestly think Bickerstaff and Finch would say SGA has no skills. Stop trolling.

Sga has Jordan's skills and fundemantals ????

If you think so, it is what trolling is

You guys really get a kneejerk reaction whenever someone is compared to jordan at anythingh

[kazyv]

You said he was in the running for 3rd in steals per game, and mocked the notion he was a bad a defender with that as the reason. I pointed out AI was a league leader in steals but is considered a bad defender. Jokic isn't more of an "active defender" than Allen Iverson. He gets lots of steals on drives because he doesn't jump to contest shots, instead swipes at the ball and if it doesn't work concedes a layup most of the time. It's a similar flaw to AI gambling in passing lanes too much. Both had/have other issues as well on defense (Iverson too small, Jokic too slow/doesn't get off his feet).

I'm just not sure why Jokic being "in the running for third in steals per game " would make him a good defender.

because getting steals on defense is good, unless you're giving up something to get those steals, i.e. gambling to catch a pass and giving up your defensive assignment, so once you fail to get the steal, your assignment is open.

you suggest that jokic gives up... open shots so that he gets steals? he gets steals from... not contesting shots? that's got to be the dumbest point ever. getting steals is literally contesting your opponent. if you steal the ball, he can't shoot it. your comparison simply doesn't work, because Jokic isn't giving up something on defense to get those steals. the contrapositive is him simply not contesting a shot, not him all of a sudden becoming hulk and contesting every shot that he doesn't swipe for for a steal.

not to mention that most of his steals come from intercepting/getting disrupting passes/dribles, so his basket defense has nothing to do with it anyways.

him getting that many steals is him contributing to defense and showing that he does it on an elite level, since there's very few players in the nba that can do it as well as him

This what Jokic does, though. When his man sets a screen, and Jokic is supposed to hedge or recover he often just tries to swipe at the ball or steal the pass to his man. It results in a steal every now and then. If he doesn't get it, he generally gives up on the play. He occasionally gets them in helpside on the back line, as his move is usually to come try to swipe for a steal and not jump. If he doesn't get the steal, it's generally a conceded layup. It's a similar flaw to AI missing in passing lanes (which occured far less than than Jokic not rotating, selling out for a steal after his man sets a screen and giving up on the play if he doesnt get it). I don't know what else to tell you.

you fundamentally refuse to recognize cause and effect. when we talk about gambling for steals, the cause of it being bad is that you do something bad like leaving your assignment to gamble for a steal.

jokic isn't not contesting at the rim like gobert because he wants to get steals. he isn't doing it because he can't do it. same with p&r defense. he isn't out there seeing every p&r as an opportunity to pad his steal stats. he simply can't defend it as perfectly as some defensive specialist, especially when his own teammates aren't exactly all defense players either. so the options aren't

A defend perfectly and don't swipe for steals

B swipe for steals

rather when he's in a situation when he can't recover/hedge/whatever else is the best play it's

A don't do anything

B swipe for steals

[lessthanjake]

You said he was in the running for 3rd in steals per game, and mocked the notion he was a bad a defender with that as the reason. I pointed out AI was a league leader in steals but is considered a bad defender. Jokic isn't more of an "active defender" than Allen Iverson. He gets lots of steals on drives because he doesn't jump to contest shots, instead swipes at the ball and if it doesn't work concedes a layup most of the time. It's a similar flaw to AI gambling in passing lanes too much. Both had/have other issues as well on defense (Iverson too small, Jokic too slow/doesn't get off his feet).

I'm just not sure why Jokic being "in the running for third in steals per game " would make him a good defender.

because getting steals on defense is good, unless you're giving up something to get those steals, i.e. gambling to catch a pass and giving up your defensive assignment, so once you fail to get the steal, your assignment is open.

you suggest that jokic gives up... open shots so that he gets steals? he gets steals from... not contesting shots? that's got to be the dumbest point ever. getting steals is literally contesting your opponent. if you steal the ball, he can't shoot it. your comparison simply doesn't work, because Jokic isn't giving up something on defense to get those steals. the contrapositive is him simply not contesting a shot, not him all of a sudden becoming hulk and contesting every shot that he doesn't swipe for for a steal.

not to mention that most of his steals come from intercepting/getting disrupting passes/dribles, so his basket defense has nothing to do with it anyways.

him getting that many steals is him contributing to defense and showing that he does it on an elite level, since there's very few players in the nba that can do it as well as him

This what Jokic does, though. When his man sets a screen, and Jokic is supposed to hedge or recover he often just tries to swipe at the ball or steal the pass to his man. It results in a steal every now and then. If he doesn't get it, he generally gives up on the play. He occasionally gets them in helpside on the back line, as his move is usually to come try to swipe for a steal and not jump. If he doesn't get the steal, it's generally a conceded layup. It's a similar flaw to AI missing in passing lanes (which occured far less than than Jokic not rotating, selling out for a steal after his man sets a screen and giving up on the play if he doesnt get it). I don't know what else to tell you.

Jokic doesn’t typically go hard to contest at the rim because he’s not good at it and therefore wouldn’t be all that effective. The question is whether what he does instead is effective or not. So what does he do instead? Well, he typically tries to swipe at the ball, and then gets in position to get a rebound (or box out so that a teammate can do so). Guys who go hard for the contest have to focus on that and can’t take that swipe at the ball or get in position for a rebound, so they have worse impact on opponents’ turnovers and on their team’s defensive rebounding. They also naturally end up fouling more, which is bad. We see the effects of this in RAPM that parses out the impact more specifically. Jokic has the best impact on defensive rebounding that we’ve seen. He also is far better than rim protecting guys in terms of impact on opponent turnovers (rim protectors are typically negatives there). And his impact on his team’s foul rate is very good (though elite rim protectors are often very good in this too, presumably because teammates trust them instead of fouling when they’re beat). The way this shakes out overall is that Jokic has significantly positive impact defensively in his career, despite having bad impact for a big when it comes to opponent effective FG%. Elite rim protectors are better, since their effect on effective FG% is so big that it outweighs the advantages of what Jokic does instead. But what Jokic does instead has enough impact to leave him still being a pretty good defender. And it’s surely better than if he himself tried hard to rim protect instead.

[Zadeh]

You cannot honestly think Bickerstaff and Finch would say SGA has no skills. Stop trolling.

Sga has Jordan's skills and fundemantals ????

If you think so, it is what trolling is

You guys really get a kneejerk reaction whenever someone is compared to jordan at anythingh

Interesting ?

I don't like Jordan, he is the reason what nba became today. He was product of Stern, at least have decent skills and abilities. If Stern wasn't protect him, I dont think he got any ring.
For example in 90 EF Finals detroit's fpg was 25, next year their fpg goes up to 31,5. Dumars fpg in 90 series was 2, next year Dumars fpg goes up to 4,25.


But today protection levels of some players goes to the moon.
for example

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Watch on YouTube

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this is disgusting.

Because Silver thinks Jordan blueprint is the right thing to raise ratings. Gives some player overly protective, and makes his teams take no calls all the times (like bulls in 90s).

[bbms]

there are so many sga detractors that produce turd opinions that almost makes me not want to read online basketball discussion

it's okay to have jokic over sga or something. but there is full on hatred against sga. this cant be only about this "foul baiting" factoid, really

i dont understand it

[antonac]

there are so many sga detractors that produce turd opinions that almost makes me not want to read online basketball discussion

it's okay to have jokic over sga or something. but there is full on hatred against sga. this cant be only about this "foul baiting" factoid, really

i dont understand it

I'm tempted to say it's partly that OKC have the deck stacked in their favour which no one likes. Can't blame the front office for making lots of shrewd moves and accumulating vast amounts of assets but that's how it goes.

but really, it can be just about the foul baiting. None of the foul baiting stars have been popular, this forum has been ripping Harden and Embiid to shreds for years for the same behaviour. People hate foul baiting.

[Mrakar]

Read on Twitter

The race is over but this is so true man.

[Mavrelous]

This is a friendly reminder that Jokic won last year with 26/12/9 over a guy that averaged 34/9/10 with a roster decimated by injuries, Jokic took his championship level roster to mere 6 wins more, but sure everyone has it for poor Jokic, they just don't want him to win

[SpreeS]

Read on Twitter

The race is over but this is so true man.

Its not. MVP isn’t about only individual numbers

[scrabbarista]

Well, Jokic is my favorite player, and I think he is the best and played the best this season, but as of today I would vote for SGA. I think the seven extra games he played make up the difference in Jokic playing better. Which says a lot about how great SGA has played.

But there is time left. I count all 82 games, so maybe Jokic will catch up.

(Yoke was still robbed in '23, though.)

[kazyv]

Read on Twitter

The race is over but this is so true man.

I mean... kinda true, but is that a problem? A center with 6 rebounds? That's just like... not that impressive, is it?
Do you have a problem with the fact that different player types exist? Would nobody but forwards/centers ever win MVP in your ideal world, because they can just put up more counting stats?

[Mrakar]

Read on Twitter

The race is over but this is so true man.

I mean... kinda true, but is that a problem? A center with 6 rebounds? That's just like... not that impressive, is it?
Do you have a problem with the fact that different player types exist? Would nobody but forwards/centers ever win MVP in your ideal world, because they can just put up more counting stats?

make it 10 rebounds and 3 assist since centers are not suposed to have 10 assists either... 33-10-3 still not cutting it close.

[kazyv]

Read on Twitter

The race is over but this is so true man.

I mean... kinda true, but is that a problem? A center with 6 rebounds? That's just like... not that impressive, is it?
Do you have a problem with the fact that different player types exist? Would nobody but forwards/centers ever win MVP in your ideal world, because they can just put up more counting stats?

make it 10 rebounds and 3 assist since centers are not suposed to have 10 assists either... 33-10-3 still not cutting it close.

I mean Embiid won with 33-10-4 though I guess people did point to his defense or something. But yeah, Embiid MVP case wasn't exactly the strongest ever. If he was up against Shai this year, he wasn't going to get it. SGA's year is just that outstanding. The original tweet is still dumb either way. Counting stats aren't everything and centers/guards are not the same.

[RRR3]

Counting stats are all Jokic fans have atp. **** impact stats they’re biased against poor Jokic.

[slick_watts]

the thunder still have a top 5 defense since 2001. right there with 2020 bucks, 2016 spurs and 2004 pistons. shai isn't close to being the best defensive player on the thunder but i think that a lot of people are considering this for his mvp candidacy, especially relative to jokic. everyone can have different opinions on how much shai contributes to the thunder defense- but it's a valid mvp scale tipping argument supported by some apm metrics.

[Castle Black]

Jokic is the best basketball player in the world, is the most "valuable" player to his team, has his Nuggets squad one game out of 2nd place in the West, and he's not going to win MVP. Wild.

Read on Twitter

[Mrakar]

Read on Twitter

[RRR3]

Jokic is the best basketball player in the world, is easily the most "valuable" player to his team, has his Nuggets squad one game out of 2nd place in the West, and he's not going to win MVP. Wild.

Read on Twitter

Impact data is lying! Jokic is easily the best because I say so! **** impact stats! Raw stats are all that matters Jokic goat!!

[canada_dry]

As a big Jokic stan myself, this MVP debate is opening my eyes to why so many people hate Jokic fans lmao. Yall are a very annoying bunch. Jokic is having an amazing historical season. But if Shai were to win the award, we cannot act as if it was some kind of robbery. Shai is having one of the best guard seasons in recent memory and leading a Thunder team to the 2nd best net rating of all time, only trailing the 96 Bulls. He is more than deserving of the award.

I echo this. Its been my own realization.

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[canada_dry]

You said he was in the running for 3rd in steals per game, and mocked the notion he was a bad a defender with that as the reason. I pointed out AI was a league leader in steals but is considered a bad defender. Jokic isn't more of an "active defender" than Allen Iverson. He gets lots of steals on drives because he doesn't jump to contest shots, instead swipes at the ball and if it doesn't work concedes a layup most of the time. It's a similar flaw to AI gambling in passing lanes too much. Both had/have other issues as well on defense (Iverson too small, Jokic too slow/doesn't get off his feet).

I'm just not sure why Jokic being "in the running for third in steals per game " would make him a good defender.

because getting steals on defense is good, unless you're giving up something to get those steals, i.e. gambling to catch a pass and giving up your defensive assignment, so once you fail to get the steal, your assignment is open.

you suggest that jokic gives up... open shots so that he gets steals? he gets steals from... not contesting shots? that's got to be the dumbest point ever. getting steals is literally contesting your opponent. if you steal the ball, he can't shoot it. your comparison simply doesn't work, because Jokic isn't giving up something on defense to get those steals. the contrapositive is him simply not contesting a shot, not him all of a sudden becoming hulk and contesting every shot that he doesn't swipe for for a steal.

not to mention that most of his steals come from intercepting/getting disrupting passes/dribles, so his basket defense has nothing to do with it anyways.

him getting that many steals is him contributing to defense and showing that he does it on an elite level, since there's very few players in the nba that can do it as well as him

This what Jokic does, though. When his man sets a screen, and Jokic is supposed to hedge or recover he often just tries to swipe at the ball or steal the pass to his man. It results in a steal every now and then. If he doesn't get it, he generally gives up on the play. He occasionally gets them in helpside on the back line, as his move is usually to come try to swipe for a steal and not jump. If he doesn't get the steal, it's generally a conceded layup. It's a similar flaw to AI missing in passing lanes (which occured far less than than Jokic not rotating, selling out for a steal after his man sets a screen and giving up on the play if he doesnt get it). I don't know what else to tell you.

Its the classic 40 year old dirk swipe down. It was his first and last line of defense lol

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