MVP Discussion [19/20] [part II] - voting opened

[Ballerhogger]

I’m all for the C’s love but who tf voted for Kemba lol

Kemba walker

[Magic Giannison]

If Giannis keeps making habit shooting from 3 like that then damn.

[90sAllDecade]

Since Harden became the league's highest scorer in the decade last game vs the Nuggets, here are highlights of his plays over the decade to close out the year for this current MVP race.

Watch on YouTube

[AussieBuck]

Anyone know what Giannis weighs these days? He's jacked.

I'm assuming he's somewhere in the 240-250 pound range. He's been fairly consistently gaining about 8 pounds a season. Always been much stronger than the numbers though. He's been moving 280 pound guys in the post for years. Has power-to-weight like only a few outliers. Young Wilt might be the best example I've seen film on. Lots of old timers were swearing he was a **** monster, throwing them around when he still looked like a stretched out string-bean well before he got jacked on the Lakers.

[blazza18]

Still obviously Giannis for me with KAT a close fourth.

[DutchManDanFan]

Also, Harden is first in winshares while Giannis is first in Win Shares per 48. In other words per minute on the court Giannis is more valuable. In other words again scrabbarista is trying to ovwr value total minutes played to fit his narative.

You can have a debate about how valuable it is to play more or less minutes. I’m neutral in this debate.
But his formula definitely under values the best record in the league, certainly when that team only has 1 star.
Harden needs 40 ppg and/or 1st seed in the West to have a chance if Bucks race to 65+ wins.

[MrPerfect1]

Also, Harden is first in winshares while Giannis is first in Win Shares per 48. In other words per minute on the court Giannis is more valuable. In other words again scrabbarista is trying to ovwr value total minutes played to fit his narative.

You can have a debate about how valuable it is to play more or less minutes. I’m neutral in this debate.
But his formula definitely under values the best record in the league, certainly when that team only has 1 star.
Harden needs 40 ppg and/or 1st seed in the West to have a chance if Bucks race to 65+ wins.

Considering that the entire goal of teams and players in the Regular Season should be to dominate as quickly as possibly to minimize the minutes they have to play, I would say it makes much more sense to reward rather than penalize players who are doing so.

It is like when people try to use 4th Quarter Comebacks as this great QB evaluating stat. A perfect QB would have essentially 0 since his team would never trail in the 4th and would be pulled by halftime of most games.

[scrabbarista]

Since Harden became the league's highest scorer in the decade last game vs the Nuggets, here are highlights of his plays over the decade to close out the year for this current MVP race.

Watch on YouTube

That was fun! Could have been a few minutes longer, but a great selection. Should be required viewing for NBA fans.

Reinforced what every defender should already know: you have to guard James Harden's body. If you guard the ball (or the arms... or the shoulders... or the hips...), it probably isn't going to work out for you.

[fchowd0311]

Also, Harden is first in winshares while Giannis is first in Win Shares per 48. In other words per minute on the court Giannis is more valuable. In other words again scrabbarista is trying to ovwr value total minutes played to fit his narative.

You can have a debate about how valuable it is to play more or less minutes. I’m neutral in this debate.
But his formula definitely under values the best record in the league, certainly when that team only has 1 star.
Harden needs 40 ppg and/or 1st seed in the West to have a chance if Bucks race to 65+ wins.

Considering that the entire goal of teams and players in the Regular Season should be to dominate as quickly as possibly to minimize the minutes they have to play, I would say it makes much more sense to reward rather than penalize players who are doing so.

It is like when people try to use 4th Quarter Comebacks as this great QB evaluating stat. A perfect QB would have essentially 0 since his team would never trail in the 4th and would be pulled by halftime of most games.

Why reward a player for hypothetical extrapolations?

Anyways, I've also noticed that people say that Gainnis and Harden's scoring is similar when looking at per 36 min. These type of arguments would somewhat make sense if Harden was only scoring 8 more ppg than Gainnis only because of more volume and minutes but that isn't the case. Harden has a 3% point lead in true shooting percentage even with more minutes and volume. Since in general, players drop efficiency when they increase their volume and minutes, I'm going to assume that if Gainnis increased his minutes and volume, his scoring efficiency would only go down which would increase the scoring efficiency gap between Harden and Gainnis.

Dominating teams in 3 quarters has more to do with Gainnis' elite supporting cast around him anyways.

[Perseus1966]

nice video of Harden ,but he will never do what giannis does

Watch on YouTube

[ken6199]

Anyone know what Giannis weighs these days? He's jacked.

I'm assuming he's somewhere in the 240-250 pound range. He's been fairly consistently gaining about 8 pounds a season. Always been much stronger than the numbers though. He's been moving 280 pound guys in the post for years. Has power-to-weight like only a few outliers. Young Wilt might be the best example I've seen film on. Lots of old timers were swearing he was a **** monster, throwing them around when he still looked like a stretched out string-bean well before he got jacked on the Lakers.

Officially listed as 242lb. He's been moving big guys in the post with his upper body strength unlike Shaq and Yao but again I don't think it's a good idea for him to develop tree trunk legs because that put a lot of stress on the foot and ankle area, considering the amount of spin moves he does. I say 240-245 is the optimal weight going forward. I also read somewhere that Giannis has a 9'6 standing reach (same as Yao, who is 7'6 tall) that means he can just post a little less, ie further from the paint, then reach out and dunk over people. He also had a vertical reach of over 12 ft and that was from a few years ago. I would imagine it's a little higher now.

[NirvanaFC]

Best record in the league + historic stats + no elite teammates, this shouldn't be close

[ken6199]

Videos are cool. Can someone post one for Doncic, and by popular demand, Towns?

[AussieBuck]

Anyone know what Giannis weighs these days? He's jacked.

I'm assuming he's somewhere in the 240-250 pound range. He's been fairly consistently gaining about 8 pounds a season. Always been much stronger than the numbers though. He's been moving 280 pound guys in the post for years. Has power-to-weight like only a few outliers. Young Wilt might be the best example I've seen film on. Lots of old timers were swearing he was a **** monster, throwing them around when he still looked like a stretched out string-bean well before he got jacked on the Lakers.

Officially listed as 242lb. He's been moving big guys in the post with his upper body strength unlike Shaq and Yao but again I don't think it's a good idea for him to develop tree trunk legs because that put a lot of stress on the foot and ankle area, considering the amount of spin moves he does. I say 240-245 is the optimal weight going forward. I also read somewhere that Giannis has a 9'6 standing reach (same as Yao, who is 7'6 tall) that means he can just post a little less, ie further from the paint, then reach out and dunk over people. He also had a vertical reach of over 12 ft and that was from a few years ago. I would imagine it's a little higher now.

I think he'll likely keep gradually filling out more until he's full David Robinson size. He's been working on his post fade, I assume as a counter to doubles, I'd prefer him to kick the ball out and get it back and either go middle for the easy hook/dunk or drop step. Feels like he's letting the defense off too easy a lot. Needs to embrace the inner Shaq more when he's down low.

[leolozon]

Best record in the league + historic stats + no elite teammates, this shouldn't be close

No elite teammates, yet they won by double digits in the 3 games he missed. The Bucks have a great team.

Still would vote for Giannis, but Harden is close and is getting the short end because people hate him.

[Fico92]

Best record in the league + historic stats + no elite teammates, this shouldn't be close

No elite teammates, yet they won by double digits un the 3 games he missed. The Bucks have a great team.

Still would vote for Giannis, but Harden is close and is getting the short end because people hate him.

The Rockets had wins of 18, 9, 9, 17, 23, 32 without Harden in Harden's MVP season. Also beat the Warriors (fully healthy) without him last year.

[MrPerfect1]

You can have a debate about how valuable it is to play more or less minutes. I’m neutral in this debate.
But his formula definitely under values the best record in the league, certainly when that team only has 1 star.
Harden needs 40 ppg and/or 1st seed in the West to have a chance if Bucks race to 65+ wins.

Considering that the entire goal of teams and players in the Regular Season should be to dominate as quickly as possibly to minimize the minutes they have to play, I would say it makes much more sense to reward rather than penalize players who are doing so.

It is like when people try to use 4th Quarter Comebacks as this great QB evaluating stat. A perfect QB would have essentially 0 since his team would never trail in the 4th and would be pulled by halftime of most games.

Why reward a player for hypothetical extrapolations?

Anyways, I've also noticed that people say that Gainnis and Harden's scoring is similar when looking at per 36 min. These type of arguments would somewhat make sense if Harden was only scoring 8 more ppg than Gainnis only because of more volume and minutes but that isn't the case. Harden has a 3% point lead in true shooting percentage even with more minutes and volume. Since in general, players drop efficiency when they increase their volume and minutes, I'm going to assume that if Gainnis increased his minutes and volume, his scoring efficiency would only go down which would increase the scoring efficiency gap between Harden and Gainnis.

Dominating teams in 3 quarters has more to do with Gainnis' elite supporting cast around him anyways.

It isn't hypothetical extrapolation to say that a Historically dominant player should be rewarded rather than punished for playing fewer minutes due to his team, a team likely without even a 2nd All Star, often being so far ahead that he has no reason to play more.

[scrabbarista]

as of today:

1. Harden
2. Antetokounmpo
3. James
4. Butler
5. Doncic

6. Gobert
7. Leonard
8. Jokic
9. Tatum

[scrabbarista]

Considering that the entire goal of teams and players in the Regular Season should be to dominate as quickly as possibly to minimize the minutes they have to play, I would say it makes much more sense to reward rather than penalize players who are doing so.

It is like when people try to use 4th Quarter Comebacks as this great QB evaluating stat. A perfect QB would have essentially 0 since his team would never trail in the 4th and would be pulled by halftime of most games.

Why reward a player for hypothetical extrapolations?

Anyways, I've also noticed that people say that Gainnis and Harden's scoring is similar when looking at per 36 min. These type of arguments would somewhat make sense if Harden was only scoring 8 more ppg than Gainnis only because of more volume and minutes but that isn't the case. Harden has a 3% point lead in true shooting percentage even with more minutes and volume. Since in general, players drop efficiency when they increase their volume and minutes, I'm going to assume that if Gainnis increased his minutes and volume, his scoring efficiency would only go down which would increase the scoring efficiency gap between Harden and Gainnis.

Dominating teams in 3 quarters has more to do with Gainnis' elite supporting cast around him anyways.

It isn't hypothetical extrapolation to say that a Historically dominant player should be rewarded rather than punished for playing fewer minutes due to his team, a team likely without even a 2nd All Star, often being so far ahead that he has no reason to play more.

It's not really a matter of being "so far ahead" when the Bucks outscore their opponents by 8.8 points per 100 when Antetokounmpo sits. This means he could be losing by a small margin every time he leaves the game and still win most of his games. Harden has the Rockets at 23-11 despite that they're outscored by 4.1 pp100 when he sits - a gigantic 12.9 pp100 gap with the Antetokounmpoless Bucks.

[greekbuck34]

Harden 2 seasons ago had +10 net rating and his rockets had +5.6 net rating when was he was sitting on the bench.
4 main players even had better net rating than Harden that year(Nene, CP3, Tucker and Gordon).

That team won 65 games.

Harden was clear MVP.