Jadoogar wrote:leolozon wrote:Jadoogar wrote:
In your example, i believe the second is way more valuable. Going from good to elite is much harder than going from terrible to good.
You have stats to prove this? What is harder is being elite, not necessarily one player making a good team elite.
Also, even if it is harder, it doesn’t mean it’s more valuable. Bringing a bad team to be good enough to make the playoff could be more valuable even IF it is easier.
You saying it’s more valuable BECAUSE it is harder doesn’t make sense to me. It’s close to impossible to get to 82 wins, it doesn’t mean it’s incredibly valuable. Once you are first, you are first, any wins over that, however hard they are, could in fact be the opposite of valuable for a team.
It being harder is not the only reason. There's a lot of 45-50 win teams and those teams don't win the championship often. There's very few 55+ win teams and that's a better indicator of contender status. Bringing a team to contender status is very valuable.
I don't think playoffs should have anything to do with a RS award. No one should care about who will potentially win a championship or not. There's already a trophy for that. Giannis won a MVP last year and the "contender status" didn't amount to much. We can't read into the future. Making the playoffs is the first, most important step.
Westbrook won the MVP with his team having 47 wins, despite the Spurs having 61 wins (Kawhi), the Rockets having 55 wins (Harden) and the Cavs having 51 (Lebron). And let's not talk about the Warriors having 67 wins. Fair or not, most people didn't have Kawhi as number 1 or 2 despite his team having 14 more wins.
I think all of this is highly debatable and people will change their criteria whenever they feel like it.
By the way, as of right now I would vote for Giannis 1st and Harden 2nd considering how well they've played. I just thought that the comment "50 wins isn't enough" was problematic. It's all about context and 50 wins can clearly be enough. If a guy on a 50 win team is playing better than a guy on a 65 win team, I would have no problem at all voting for him. The same way I would have no problem voting Luka ahead of Kemba, Jokic or Butler right now, and so probably would you, even though Boston, Denver and Miami are all on pace to win 60+ games.
