Winning Needs to Matter in MVP Conversation Again

[Prez]

The Nuggets this year were +8.4 points per 100 with Jokic on the floor and -8.0 points per 100 with him off the floor. Terrific with him and a dumpster fire when he sat. He is off the charts good by virtually every other deeper impact metric (RAPM, RPM, EPM, etc) as well.

People aren’t basing Jokic’s MVP candidacy purely on him stuffing the box score. We have a ton of numbers beyond the counting stats to evaluate impact on the game and Jokic is dominant across the board. He took a team that in all likelihood would’ve won 20 something games without him (if that), to instead approach 50 wins and lock up a playoff spot in a pretty tough West. Anyone who can’t see the value in that is not looking hard enough.

This blind W/L argument is just extremely simplistic, and this idea that he can’t win MVP because his team 'didn’t win enough' is basically penalizing him for roster flaws and injuries that are out of his control. Disqualifying an all-time great player having a generational season because of his teammates not being able to pull their weight is way worse than the optics of the MVP losing in the 1st round.

[vxmike]

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.

The award isn’t “best player on a top team” it’s “most valuable”. Most people think Jokic’s results are exceptional considering how depleted his roster was.

[HurricaneKid]

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?

His roster is extremely weak and wouldn’t sniff the play-in without him. Does Embiid or Giannis get more than 49 wins from this depleted roster?

Let's say Den doesn't get to the 33 wins they need to make the play-in without Jokic.

Does going from a team that didn't make the playoffs to a team getting swept in the 1st round sound like MVP?

No, I don't think a lot of guys could have made this team viable. But they still aren't viable.

A B2B MVP winning 4 playoff games combined in his 2 MVP seasons is a real problem.

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[HurricaneKid]

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.

The award isn’t “best player on a top team” it’s “most valuable”. Most people think Jokic’s results are exceptional considering how depleted his roster was.

The history of the award shows two previous non-top 3 seed players won it and there is a fair volume of people regretting one of them just a few years later.

So yeah, it kind of is.

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[Yuri Vaultin]

Kevin Booker should not even be in the Conversation for MVP.

As good as Kevin has been, my money is on Noel Embiid or Nigel Jokic.

[Gusto1903]

Didnt know the P in MVP stands for Team

[Bank Shot]

How many games does Devin Booker plus that Nuggets cast win? 25?

[vxmike]

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

His roster is extremely weak and wouldn’t sniff the play-in without him. Does Embiid or Giannis get more than 49 wins from this depleted roster?

Let's say Den doesn't get to the 33 wins they need to make the play-in without Jokic.

Does going from a team that didn't make the playoffs to a team getting swept in the 1st round sound like MVP?

No, I don't think a lot of guys could have made this team viable. But they still aren't viable.

A B2B MVP winning 4 playoff games combined in his 2 MVP seasons is a real problem.

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So you don’t think an all time great player on a mediocre team can win MVP? What if Jordan never got Pippen or LeBron stayed in Cleveland his whole career which meant no Kyrie.

I do agree it’s a flawed award for a lot of reasons. Both Jordan and LeBron should have more MVPs than they do.

[ElectricMayhem]

I am not trying to compare players in this topic. I am asking to reconsider awarding MVP to a player on such a mediocre team. Winning needs to matter a hell of a lot more

Winning already matters a hell of a lot. The teams that win the most play the worst teams remaining in the playoffs. If they win the games in the playoffs, they get to advance to the next round. If they advance to the finals and win the most there, they become champions. How does winning need to matter more?

We have a misunderstanding. I meant winning needs to matter more for determining MVP. We are getting to the point where I truly believe we are headed further down direction of narrative + stats being most important factors for mvp, and actual results are being swept aside. Look at all of the replies and justifications in this thread alone arguing why wins were not that important because of factors like injuries.

It doesn't make sense to me to make the Most Valuable Player award into the I'm The Star With The Best Teammates award. Due to the nature of the MVP award, the greatest players are likely to be on the most successful teams, but when that's not the case and they still have a year as amazing as Jokic has, why punish them? Yeah, you played the best basketball in the league. Yeah, you were the most valuable to your team. Yeah, your team made the playoffs and got to their position specifically because of you. But your teammates were too injured for us to recognize you?

I completely agree. MVP should not go to simply best player on the best team. That would be silly. That’s not what I’m advocating. I am saying there is a big difference between best player on the best team vs best player on the 11th best team with only 48 wins. I believe we have gone way to far towards not valuing wins when we start considering teams this low in standings/success

At the end of the day, it’s really difficult to compare the most elite players in a given season. Instead of telling those players, hey, we want to reward you with most prestigious regular season award, that will be based on counting stats and media narrative, how about we tell those players that one of the most important considerations for winning said award will be the actual results? At the end of the day we know how valuable a win is, but we are so far off from assigning real value to counting stats impact on winning.

Understood. I guess our main point of contention is on how valuable Jokic actually was this year.

[ty 4191]

The Nuggets this year were +8.4 points per 100 with Jokic on the floor and -8.0 points per 100 with him off the floor. Terrific with him and a dumpster fire when he sat. He is off the charts good by virtually every other deeper impact metric (RAPM, RPM, EPM, etc) as well.

People aren’t basing Jokic’s MVP candidacy purely on him stuffing the box score. We have a ton of numbers beyond the counting stats to evaluate impact on the game and Jokic is dominant across the board. He took a team that in all likelihood would’ve won 20 something games without him (if that), to instead approach 50 wins and lock up a playoff spot in a pretty tough West. Anyone who can’t see the value in that is not looking hard enough.

This blind W/L argument is just extremely simplistic, and this idea that he can’t win MVP because his team 'didn’t win enough' is basically penalizing him for roster flaws and injuries that are out of his control. Disqualifying an all-time great player having a generational season because of his teammates not being able to pull their weight is way worse than the optics of the MVP losing in the 1st round.

Yes, this, exactly!

Excellent post!!

[Dutchball97]

Booker isn't MVP level, especially considering CP3 and Bridges have been just as valuable as him. Let it go and focus on the play-offs or something. This all sounds so incredibly salty and sad.

[losmi]

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.

That's what it has been consistently. Goes to the top seed but the Suns...do they have a main cog? Booker, maybe?

I dont want to derail the thread by bringing up who I think real candidates should have been.

My request is for those who are solely focused on the numbers/ individual performances, and not properly valuing how those performances lead to wins, to reconsider what we should be rewarding with mvp.

I really hate what MVP award is becoming. When we don’t care about end result (wins), We are heading down path where MVP is going to be awarded each year to the most heliocentric stat machines on a mediocre team

Why would bringing up better candidates derail the thread? Jokic is going to win the MVP because the voters think he is the most deserving of all the players who have played this year. If you think that is a mistake, then who should be the MVP instead of Jokic?

[KGtabake]

So, Giannis should be having 4 straight MVPs?

[Stribor]

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.

Have to agree with this. I love Jokic, but it gets hard to give MVP to player that did not prove anything in the play off. His great advanced stats do not say that he is the greatest player ever, but that there is a historic disparity between the player and the rest of the team. Who knows how advanced stats of LBJ or MJ would look if they played with **** that Denver has. What would be advanced metrics for Giannis or Embiid if they would slot in Denver. I am perfectly ok to give a player MVP if he carries his team more than anyone else. But that can happen once and he got it last year for this feature. And yes, I know MVP is a reward for the year, but still many greats have only one MVP title or so. It seems problematic that player gets it two times in a row and then perhaps once surrounded with good players shows that he is not able to deliver.

That sad I love Jokic, and hope he wins at least one more MVP but in a team that at least goes to finals.

[brutalitops]

Yeah, need to win at least 52 games for the MVP

[brutalitops]

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.

Have to agree with this. I love Jokic, but it gets hard to give MVP to player that did not prove anything in the play off. His great advanced stats do not say that he is the greatest player ever, but that there is a historic disparity between the player and the rest of the team. Who knows how advanced stats of LBJ or MJ would look if they played with **** that Denver has. What would be advanced metrics for Giannis or Embiid if they would slot in Denver. I am perfectly ok to give a player MVP if he carries his team more than anyone else. But that can happen once and he got it last year for this feature. And yes, I know MVP is a reward for the year, but still many greats have only one MVP title or so. It seems problematic that player gets it two times in a row and then perhaps once surrounded with good players shows that he is not able to deliver.

That sad I love Jokic, and hope he wins at least one more MVP but in a team that at least goes to finals.

So Dirk/Nash/Giannis/Harden/Westbrook didnt deserve their MVP's?

[makubesu]

Funny how we’ve gone from “well Giannis and Embiid are good but this is a historically great season from all these guys” when Jokic was beating up bad teams, to “well none of these guys win a bunch of games anyways” when his team is losing. It feels like come June we might be watching Steph vs KD in the finals and we all conclude that our three big men were just filler until the real guys got healthy.

[JN61]

Nobody would beat this Warriors team with his cast. No MVPs in the league.

According to a few blind witnessesses Lebron would.

[Stribor]

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.

Have to agree with this. I love Jokic, but it gets hard to give MVP to player that did not prove anything in the play off. His great advanced stats do not say that he is the greatest player ever, but that there is a historic disparity between the player and the rest of the team. Who knows how advanced stats of LBJ or MJ would look if they played with **** that Denver has. What would be advanced metrics for Giannis or Embiid if they would slot in Denver. I am perfectly ok to give a player MVP if he carries his team more than anyone else. But that can happen once and he got it last year for this feature. And yes, I know MVP is a reward for the year, but still many greats have only one MVP title or so. It seems problematic that player gets it two times in a row and then perhaps once surrounded with good players shows that he is not able to deliver.

That sad I love Jokic, and hope he wins at least one more MVP but in a team that at least goes to finals.

So Dirk/Nash/Giannis/Harden/Westbrook didnt deserve their MVP's?

Read the whole thing. He DESERVED MVP and he already HAS one. My [point is that it is hard to give multiple MVPs to a player that does not deliver. I love him, I hope he wins one or two rings and a few more MVPs. I will always support balkan players, but in this case it is becoming a hard ask. What if he gets even better advanced stats and box score next year and falls in play in? Should he then again be MVP? MJ had only once 2 mvp titles in row. Magic also. They were great players but also showed that their teams can win. What if Jokic goes to for instance healthy clippers and losses in second round playoffs. Or opposite he wins it all but his advanced stats go bellow Kawhi, for instance. He is still the same player. He shows that he is playing in the greatest ever disparity between the star and the rest of the players, but that does not mean that he would be most valuable player in the league. I am all for giving MVPs to individual performances, and taking the bad team into account. But it cannot be the argument season after season. One MVP in this conditions is enough until he changes his conditions.

[dhsilv2]

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.

You can be the #1 seed and loose in the first round as well... If you care about playoff success for a regular season award you need to wait until after the first round to allow votes to be submitted.

I’m not suggesting to wait until after the first round. Based on nuggets regular season performance this year, Jokic should not have been in mvp conversation.

At that point there wouldn't really be anyone to even consider for MVP. We'd just have to give it to Ja given there's nobody on the suns to give it to nor miami. After those 3 teams you can't really argue any team was all that meaningfully better than the nuggets.