Winning Needs to Matter in MVP Conversation Again

[Mogspan]

Who does Jokic have on his team? Their second best player missed the entire season. Their 3rd best player missed most of it.

Exactly. They have a mediocre team. Maybe Jokic could provide more value with a better surrounding cast, but the current reality is his team is mediocre, and achieved mediocre results, 11th best record and 48 wins. We shouldn’t be rewarding this type of value, we should be rewarding players who can lead their team to success. This isn’t to take anything away from Jokics individual performances this season, but don’t reward him with this prestigious an award two years in a row when it’s obvious his team is not very good.

They already have an award for best team, dawg. It's called the championship. MVP goes to the best performer of the regular season, which Jokić was by far.

[bradybunch]

Or, we could give the vote back to the players. And then they might vote for guys on losing teams as they did for Kareem 1976 or Pettit 1956.

Denver went into both the Suns series last year and the Warriors series this year without two of their three top players.

The lesson here is not that Jokic isn't deserving of the MVP. It's the opposite, actually. The lesson is that Jokic dragged a scrub team to a playoff berth, and did it while having a historic season.

To be the man you have to beat the man, and no one beat him.

Finally, in individual wins Jokic had more (46) than both Embiid and Giannis (45). You can't reward guys for wins the team got without them.

If someone wants to argue that, say, Booker deserved the award, ok.

Ether.

[jokeboy86]

It should be humiliating to Jokic MVP voters that the soon to be back to back league MVP is about to get embarrassingly swept two years in a row.

Winning matters. 48 win season should be automatic disqualification from the discussion.

Well that settles it. Random poster on internet sports forum has the most logical answer to settle who should and shouldnt be eligible for the NBA MVP. I think there's nothing more to be said and fans and voters should stop wasting our time.

[Hobo4President]

Disagree completely. If I had it my way MVP would be completely separated from team record.

[ForeverTFC]

What are you arguing for exactly? That Jokic shouldn't win MVP because his team won 3 less games than Giannis and Embiid? Because I don't think a 3 game differential is any significant disparity in wins here. (and as already pointed out, doesn't even account for the wins each was involved in)

Or are you arguing that Booker should win it over all 3 because of his team record when individually Jokic, Embiid, and Giannis had much better seasons than him?

I'd like to know the argument before I start debating it.

[iLLmatic860]

Jokic Just another fake mvp.

[Crives]

48 wins is a winning season. Specially if its includes an amazing carrying job

48 wins and 11th place is a mediocre finish.
Trying to justify and award Jokic theoretical wins doesn’t change reality, this nuggets team is mediocre and the MVP should not be getting demolished like this.

Basketball is 5 on 5, bro. We have tools that allow us to isolate value that individual players provide. You have to be smart enough to grasp that a guy whose best teammate is rookie drafted late in the first round and losing to a team with 3+ All-Star-caliber players can still be an incredibly valuable player. The Nuggets absolutely should be getting demolished like this.

Do you know how those tools work? You realize we had tools 10+ years ago like PER that analytics community now laughs at. It’s going to be the same thing in 10 years when everyone looks back on how this mvp was awarded and the metrics used to justify.

It’s actually impossible to accurately isolate value that players provide. Every single one of these all in one advanced metrics are heavily flawed. You realize many of these “advanced stats” are just user set weighted averages of different box score stats?

[Jakay]

Who does Jokic have on his team? Their second best player missed the entire season. Their 3rd best player missed most of it.

Exactly. They have a mediocre team. Maybe Jokic could provide more value with a better surrounding cast, but the current reality is his team is mediocre, and achieved mediocre results, 11th best record and 48 wins. We shouldn’t be rewarding this type of value, we should be rewarding players who can lead their team to success. This isn’t to take anything away from Jokics individual performances this season, but don’t reward him with this prestigious an award two years in a row when it’s obvious his team is not very good.

Do you acknowledge the teams 2nd and 3rd best players are gone, and somehow, carrying them to the playoffs, to you, doesn't represent "value".

This isn’t to take anything away from Jokics individual performances

You should write Adam Silver and remind him it's the Most Valuable Players award.

It is definitely a regular season award though, otherwise Maxey has it locked up.

[Crives]

Who does Jokic have on his team? Their second best player missed the entire season. Their 3rd best player missed most of it.

Exactly. They have a mediocre team. Maybe Jokic could provide more value with a better surrounding cast, but the current reality is his team is mediocre, and achieved mediocre results, 11th best record and 48 wins. We shouldn’t be rewarding this type of value, we should be rewarding players who can lead their team to success. This isn’t to take anything away from Jokics individual performances this season, but don’t reward him with this prestigious an award two years in a row when it’s obvious his team is not very good.

They already have an award for best team, dawg. It's called the championship. MVP goes to the best performer of the regular season, which Jokić was by far.

How can you possibly argue Jokic was the best performer of the regular season when his team placed 11th with 48 wins?

[Pachinko_]

"You're not allowed to win MVP because your crappy little team is bad, go to LA immediately!"

And then we blame the players...

[Pachinko_]

Winning matters.

No it doesn't.
Because winning is the easiest thing in the world for Jokic, all he has to do is tell his agent to find him a good team, and then stop playing and pout until he gets a trade.

[LukaTheGOAT]

It's a RS award and therefore they vote on it before the PS. You are I suppose asking them to change the criteria.

[Infinite Llamas]

The irony of this whole thing is that Denver matches up a little better with Memphis despite what the regular season standings say. Jokic loses MVP if he falls to the play in but has a better chance of winning a series in that scenario.

Anyway, silly thread and an obvious Booker endorsement even though we saw who the best player on the Suns was last night in the 4th.

[GrandTheftRondo]

Joker is the best player when games dont matter. There is nothing wrong with the award and more with the regular season itself. it means lesser and lesser over the years and teams are saving the best of stars for PS.
maybe give MVP a min game requirement like 70 games and if you dont play enough games you dont get qualified for MVP.

Lol I suggest you go and look at his playoff stats for his career and quit embarrassing yourself.

Good lord.

[Pachinko_]

It's a RS award and therefore they vote on it before the PS. You are I suppose asking them to change the criteria.

They don't have criteria. Just look at the list of people who vote and listen to what they say, each one of them makes up his own criteria based on how they woke up that morning and which agent called them to break their balls at 2am.

[Crives]

Who does Jokic have on his team? Their second best player missed the entire season. Their 3rd best player missed most of it.

Exactly. They have a mediocre team. Maybe Jokic could provide more value with a better surrounding cast, but the current reality is his team is mediocre, and achieved mediocre results, 11th best record and 48 wins. We shouldn’t be rewarding this type of value, we should be rewarding players who can lead their team to success. This isn’t to take anything away from Jokics individual performances this season, but don’t reward him with this prestigious an award two years in a row when it’s obvious his team is not very good.

Do you acknowledge the teams 2nd and 3rd best players are gone, and somehow, carrying them to the playoffs, to you, doesn't represent "value".

This isn’t to take anything away from Jokics individual performances

You should write Adam Silver and remind him it's the Most Valuable Players award.

It is definitely a regular season award though, otherwise Maxey has it locked up.

First I don’t think MPJ is a top 3 player on the nuggets. His terrible defense offsets his special shooting.

But to your question, how should we reward players for carrying their team if they are missing multiple top players? I think that’s trying to reward Jokic for a theoretical team that didn’t exist this year. Why not let the mvp be an actual award and reward someone who led their team to an elite season instead of a mediocre season? Do you really want to reward mvp each year to players putting up massive stats carrying heavy loads due to injuried rosters instead of rewarding elite players leading their teams to elite seasons?

[ForeverTFC]

Exactly. They have a mediocre team. Maybe Jokic could provide more value with a better surrounding cast, but the current reality is his team is mediocre, and achieved mediocre results, 11th best record and 48 wins. We shouldn’t be rewarding this type of value, we should be rewarding players who can lead their team to success. This isn’t to take anything away from Jokics individual performances this season, but don’t reward him with this prestigious an award two years in a row when it’s obvious his team is not very good.

They already have an award for best team, dawg. It's called the championship. MVP goes to the best performer of the regular season, which Jokić was by far.

How can you possibly argue Jokic was the best performer of the regular season when his team placed 11th with 48 wins?

Why are you running away from the question? Are you arguing that one of Embiid or Giannis should win it? Because their teams are within 3 wins of each other. Or are you arguing Booker should win it over all of them? Your wins argument only works if you're arguing the latter. In which case I have to ask: do you really think Booker had a better season than Embiid, Jokic, and Giannis?

[Wolfgang630]

Exactly. They have a mediocre team. Maybe Jokic could provide more value with a better surrounding cast, but the current reality is his team is mediocre, and achieved mediocre results, 11th best record and 48 wins. We shouldn’t be rewarding this type of value, we should be rewarding players who can lead their team to success. This isn’t to take anything away from Jokics individual performances this season, but don’t reward him with this prestigious an award two years in a row when it’s obvious his team is not very good.

Do you acknowledge the teams 2nd and 3rd best players are gone, and somehow, carrying them to the playoffs, to you, doesn't represent "value".

This isn’t to take anything away from Jokics individual performances

You should write Adam Silver and remind him it's the Most Valuable Players award.

It is definitely a regular season award though, otherwise Maxey has it locked up.

First I don’t think MPJ is a top 3 player on the nuggets. His terrible defense offsets his special shooting.

But to your question, how should we reward players for carrying their team if they are missing multiple top players? I think that’s trying to reward Jokic for a theoretical team that didn’t exist this year. Why not let the mvp be an actual award and reward someone who led their team to an elite season instead of a mediocre season? Do you really want to reward mvp each year to players putting up massive stats carrying heavy loads due to injuried rosters instead of rewarding elite players leading their teams to elite seasons?

There is no set criteria and what Jokic AND Embiid did this year doesn’t happen every year.

[Mogspan]

48 wins and 11th place is a mediocre finish.
Trying to justify and award Jokic theoretical wins doesn’t change reality, this nuggets team is mediocre and the MVP should not be getting demolished like this.

Basketball is 5 on 5, bro. We have tools that allow us to isolate value that individual players provide. You have to be smart enough to grasp that a guy whose best teammate is rookie drafted late in the first round and losing to a team with 3+ All-Star-caliber players can still be an incredibly valuable player. The Nuggets absolutely should be getting demolished like this.

Do you know how those tools work? You realize we had tools 10+ years ago like PER that analytics community now laughs at. It’s going to be the same thing in 10 years when everyone looks back on how this mvp was awarded and the metrics used to justify.

It’s actually impossible to accurately isolate value that players provide. Every single one of these all in one advanced metrics are heavily flawed. You realize many of these “advanced stats” are just user set weighted averages of different box score stats?

You don't even need advanced stats to get an impression of his value.

Take on/off:

Bucks: +8 with Giannis on the floor; -3 with him off

76ers: +7.5 with Embiid on the floor; - 4 with him off

Nuggets: +8.4 with Jokić on the floor; -8 with him off

Suns: +9.7 with Booker on the floor; +4.9 with him off

In other words, the Nuggets with Jokić on the floor are about as good as any team with their best player on floor. When he's off the floor, his team is worse than the Pistons. This is noisy, but the more advanced stats make an attempt to account for the quality of one's teammates. When this is done, Jokić looks even better.

[GSP]

Jokic deserves Mvp its a regular season award. This Nuggets team without Murray/Mpj doesnt win 20 games without him this season.

With that said hes most likely never sniffing an Mvp again barring something insane like a 70 win season