2016-17 MVP Discussion Thread

[Shock Defeat]

Harden is the whole Rockets offense. His on/off splits are absurd. He's doing it efficiently, he's getting others involved, and his team has a winning record. He is rewriting the stats book. It seems like every game he has 8 assists by half time. He makes it look effortless. His combination of size, scoring ability, and court vision is second to none. The most complete offensive player in the NBA.

[Triples333]

Harden is amazing. He's worthy of MVP talk and has been. The thing is... he's seen a huge uptick in assists but also turnovers. When I looked earlier he was at 5.5 or 6 TOPG. That's barely a 2.3 to 1 assist to turnover ratio? Not horrible but he's no CP3 for example. That ranks him 69th in the NBA after guys like Lance Stephenson BTW.

Point is we are caught up in big stats without looking at the efficiency of a James Harden pass or assist. So the assist/ball handling up tick comes at a price. Outside of that his 30 ppg, 6 rpg average or whatever is on par with what he's done the last 3 years.

It actually is highly efficient even with the uptick in TO's to 5.6 a night. We can't just lean on Assist:TO ratio when the player is also putting up north of 30 points a night. His USG% is extremely high, and he's going to have a lot of TO's on account of that. Consider that his 13 APG (!) is a 62% Assist%. 62%. # of players who have ever reached 60% assist%, let alone 62? Zilch. Not Magic, not Stockton, not CP3, not Nash. Nobody ever. And his TO% at 19.5% is actually lower than the average season of Nash (19.5), Stockton (20.8), and Magic (19.4). It's early still, but what he's currently on pace to accomplish would be one of the most remarkable feats in the history of the PG position... and he's a SG who's putting up north of 30 a night on career high efficiency.

[OkcSinceSGA]

Harden is MVP worthy, I'm just saying the 13 apg itself that people keep locking in on isn't nearly as impressive when you look at the turnover rate approaching 6 per game. The Rockets are 6-4 and we know the MVP almost always goes to a top 1 or 2 seed. I don't see the Rockets getting there and I see Harden's numbers naturally coming down.

I think Harden will finish the year somewhere around 29/7/9 apg. Still insane, still MVP worthy.

[Triples333]

Harden is MVP worthy, I'm just saying the 13 apg itself that people keep locking in on isn't nearly as impressive when you look at the turnover rate approaching 6 per game. The Rockets are 6-4 and we know the MVP almost always goes to a top 1 or 2 seed. I don't see the Rockets getting there and I see Harden's numbers naturally coming down.

I think Harden will finish the year somewhere around 29/7/9 apg. Still insane, still MVP worthy.

I don't know, I think I just did a pretty good job explaining why his TO rate is actually not out of whack at all (and in fact better than most of the great PG's in history). If a player has the highest Assist% in NBA history and he's also carrying the scoring load to the tune of 30+ PPG, that player will accrue a ton of turnovers. There's no way around it.

And so far so good as a team. To be 5-3 with 7 of their first 8 games being played on the road, including a highly impressive win over the Spurs in San Antonio to close off the road trip is MVP level stuff. Gotta consider that there's no other top 75 player on that team, and they fall apart every time he sits.

[HurricaneKid]

Lebron is a net-zero at best in the reg season

This is indefensible. And willfully absurd.

The Cavs are 26.8 pts/100 possessions better with LBJ on the floor than without.

Last year the Cavs were -4.8 pts/100 poss in the reg season (well worse than the Knicks) and -7.2 (Nets level) in the playoffs. And won a title.

He has been the best regular season player since AT LEAST Jordan.

I was speaking to his defense specifically. And the regular season specifically (also, not very interested in the 200 minute sample size of a team-centric stat. But for reference, last season teams had a 104 Orating with him on and 106 with him off. Pretty negligible)

How about an 8 year sample size that has his on/off at +15.3?

And it was actually 2.6 difference on/off defensively. And his defense wasn't "negligible". He was 4th in the NBA (for non-C) in Def Real +/-. So "negligible" seems to be a peculiar choice of terminology and a really weird thing to attempt to nitpick.

[Triples333]

This is indefensible. And willfully absurd.

The Cavs are 26.8 pts/100 possessions better with LBJ on the floor than without.

Last year the Cavs were -4.8 pts/100 poss in the reg season (well worse than the Knicks) and -7.2 (Nets level) in the playoffs. And won a title.

He has been the best regular season player since AT LEAST Jordan.

I was speaking to his defense specifically. And the regular season specifically (also, not very interested in the 200 minute sample size of a team-centric stat. But for reference, last season teams had a 104 Orating with him on and 106 with him off. Pretty negligible)

How about an 8 year sample size that has his on/off at +15.3?

And it was actually 2.6 difference on/off defensively. And his defense wasn't "negligible". He was 4th in the NBA (for non-C) in Def Real +/-. So "negligible" seems to be a peculiar choice of terminology and a really weird thing to attempt to nitpick.

Real +/- has a year by year carry-over effect that I'm not entirely comfortable with. IE why Duncan still rated at the top of the NBA on it defensively at nearly 40 years old and clearly being a shell of himself (on both ends). "+15.3 the past 8 years"? Again I'm speaking about the current regular-season version of James, so stats from 2008-2014 are just not relevant to me (also, I'm guessing that must be offensive+defensive). Bottom line is that I don't consider Lebron a game-changing defensive player in the regular season at this stage of his career. Certainly not DPOY level or anything close to what we're getting out of a guy like Kawhi.

[Jadoogar]

When do we start talking about Chris Paul? I know his numbers aren't anything out of the ordinary (for him) but Clippers look like the best team in the West right now.

[PCProductions]

When do we start talking about Chris Paul? I know his numbers aren't anything out of the ordinary (for him) but Clippers look like the best team in the West right now.

CP3 is far and away #1 right now. Leads in PER, BPM, WS and his team is performing the best.

[NinjaSheppard]

If CP3 actually wins the MVP in a year that he stops defending elite point guards I am going to laugh.

[HurricaneKid]

I was speaking to his defense specifically. And the regular season specifically (also, not very interested in the 200 minute sample size of a team-centric stat. But for reference, last season teams had a 104 Orating with him on and 106 with him off. Pretty negligible)

How about an 8 year sample size that has his on/off at +15.3?

And it was actually 2.6 difference on/off defensively. And his defense wasn't "negligible". He was 4th in the NBA (for non-C) in Def Real +/-. So "negligible" seems to be a peculiar choice of terminology and a really weird thing to attempt to nitpick.

Real +/- has a year by year carry-over effect that I'm not entirely comfortable with. IE why Duncan still rated at the top of the NBA on it defensively at nearly 40 years old and clearly being a shell of himself (on both ends). "+15.3 the past 8 years"? Again I'm speaking about the current regular-season version of James, so stats from 2008-2014 are just not relevant to me (also, I'm guessing that must be offensive+defensive). Bottom line is that I don't consider Lebron a game-changing defensive player in the regular season at this stage of his career. Certainly not DPOY level or anything close to what we're getting out of a guy like Kawhi.

ESPNs is easiest to access but feel free to use any NPI RAPM measure. LeBron was incredible defensively last year. Is he excellent for 40 min? Maybe not. But he was absolutely the defender Kawhi and Dray are in high leverage moments, and was playing at an insane level the bulk of the other time as well.

You are in essence saying that no one outside of Kawhi and possibly Draymond are game changing defensive players. Which is a fairly unreasonable position to take, given that's two guys out of 450. Because whoever you put next, it will be in a tier that LeBron is a part of.

[nickhx2]

When do we start talking about Chris Paul? I know his numbers aren't anything out of the ordinary (for him) but Clippers look like the best team in the West right now.

if not now, soon enough.

also, not sure why cp3 is getting hate on the defensive end. he's been stellar all season. clips do lots of cross matchups and lots and lots and lots of switches. literally makes no difference who starts defense on whom.

[Madhouse]

Curry is taking over just saying.

1 Paul
2 Lebron
3 Curry
4 Harden
5 Westbrook

[Johnny Firpo]

Paul playing below 30 minutes per game, I'm not sure I would be comfortable giving an award to him while he is logging sub-30 minutes. His impact might be the biggest right now, that's hard to measure, especially this early into the season.

[QRich3]

Yeah I don't think Curry and Durant are out of the race or cancelling each other or whatever. Once the Warriors start dominating, and they probably started already, and both of them are scoring close to 30PPG on +65 TS%, the narratives will turn to them, and we all know MVPs are all about narratives.

Would love for Paul to get some recognition, but as soon as the Clippers start normalizing their record and point to their usual 55 wins, voters won't be enticed enough by his hammering consistency, that's not a story they can get clicks for.

And Luc only defends PGs when there's not a significant offensive threat at the wing (against the Thunder, Blazers etc.), when they play the top teams it's gonna be Paul defending Curry and Irving and them.

[Bobbcats]

Read on Twitter

Are we just overhyping the 22nd best player in the NBA?

I agree with the minutes being a problem for Paul, the paradox is that the better he plays the less minutes he'll be needed so I hope they look past it if he keeps it up all year

[Kolkmania]

Read on Twitter

Are we just overhyping the 22nd best player in the NBA?

I agree with the minutes being a problem for Paul, the paradox is that the better he plays the less minutes he'll be needed so I hope they look past it if he keeps it up all year

Nope. Draymond Green and Chris Paul simply don't belong there.

[Impuniti]

Yeah I don't think Curry and Durant are out of the race or cancelling each other or whatever. Once the Warriors start dominating, and they probably started already, and both of them are scoring close to 30PPG on +65 TS%, the narratives will turn to them, and we all know MVPs are all about narratives.

[nickhx2]

lol, moment you start taking kenny smith's views on basketball is the moment...

ah hell i'm just gonna get to the point. smith is a gigantic moron and you should feel bad for thinking he even has a remote clue.

[ChiCityHoops34]

lol, moment you start taking kenny smith's views on basketball is the moment...

ah hell i'm just gonna get to the point. smith is a gigantic moron and you should feel bad for thinking he even has a remote clue.

None of those guys watch any games that aren't on TNT. Chuck said last night Mcdermott was struggling shooting the ball this year and the Bulls need him to make shots. He's shooting 53%.

[The High Cyde]

Loving all the talent in the league, great time if you're a fan of the sport.