Winning Needs to Matter in MVP Conversation Again

[dhsilv2]

If anything, all I am asking is for voters to place stronger emphasis on individual performances that lead to wins. Make wins matter again please.

They are! Nobody added more wins to their team than Jokic did this year. His team won 48 games, that's FREAKING AMAZING!

[antonac]

The winning thing is moot this year because no one really won that many games outside the Suns and no one can decide who the Suns best player even is.

If you want it to include the Play offs fine, I'd argue it should, I don't see why MVP can't be a season long award despite the fact it might far too often coincide with the finals MVP but it doesn't right now and Jokic had the best season. And if it did then people may be better waiting until the play offs are actually over. As while Jokic going out in a sweep in the first (though give them a chance to actually play a home game before it's a sweep) wouldn't help his case, Embiid and Giannis haven't really separated themselves from anyone yet either. In fact you'd have to argue Tatum is coming into contention.

No one won enough to separate themselves from anyone else (Embiid was almost a sure thing until he lost to Jokic, Durant and Giannis down the stretch) so this season we fall back on impact and play, and jokic was top 10 in 4 of the big 5 statistical category totals, set that 2000/1000/500 record and dragged a lotto team to clean play off spot.

[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.

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

When have other players really put up stats even in this stratosphere in heliocentric systems without the team success you're talking about? It's exceedingly difficult to do this stuff without better teammates than Jokic has. Even Westbrook that people want to bring up was 15th in RPM and 6th in RAPTOR, behind someone like Leonard who I think had a legit case for MVP that year. The history of stats tells a COMPLETELY different story than you're asking about. The history shows that team success is needed to have massive stat lines like Jokic is having. And a player being in a helocentric system doesn't actually seem to support better overall stats. So please in the modern era of stats who are players who could have dominated the stats like Jokic who could today leap someone else from MVP? Cause to be frank, I don't see any history to support this.

I think what we're more so seeing is that team success is more and more driven by having MULTIPLE allstar level players who stay healthy, and building more and more complete teams as we're seeing with the suns and heat. I think we may see more teams like the 2013 spurs going forward, and that's a sign that the talent pool in the NBA is greater than ever.

[losmi]

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.

What advanced stats are affected by a big disparity between the player and the rest of the team?

He didn't have an abnormal USG% to get his stats. 66 TS% while averaging 27 ppg, which is probably a significant factor in most catch-all formulas, would rather imply that he's playing with great teammates.

+8.4 on-court even more. Bad teammates certainly don't improve on-court +/-.

[TheWhiteMamba]

If you switch Jokic with Gobert (All-Star level Center) last two season, imho Denver will be atrocious, probably bottom 3-4 in western conference, both years. It's not his fault his best team-mates got injured all time...

[Stan]

The NBA legitimately has the least intelligent fans in all of sports. It’s 5 vs 5 and a large number of them will continue to evaluate the sport like it’s tennis.

[MaxZaslofskyJr]

By this insipid logic, a 10 dollar bill in a wallet with four 5 dollar bills would be "more valuable" than a 20 dollar bill in a wallet with four 1 dollar bills. Idiotic.

[matt6715]

VORP and BPM and RAPTOR and whatever else will always continue to matter more now regardless

[JHFVF07]

Then people complains when players form superteams...

[Tottery]

He carried a mediocre team to 48 wins. MVP is a regular season award, so I don't get it.

[maxpower8888]

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 for one, the award is called the Most Valuable Player, not the Most Valuable Roster.

[F Saunders]

Why is everyone ragging on OP? I think it's fair to say the MVP must win, so Jokic, Embiid, Giannis, Luka, Tatum are all eliminated, since none of them played in 50 wins. The MVP vote should look like this:

1) Devin Booker
2) Chris Paul
3) Jaren Jackson Jr
4) Mikal Bridges
5) Desmond Bane
6) Steven Adams

I mean any argument that leads to Steven Adams being top 6 in MVP voting seems valid to me.

[Fairview4Life]

What reasonable question am I not answering related to this thread?

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 you strictly care about total wins applying to an individual award, then answer the implied question about why the Nuggets winning 46 games when Jokic played is less "valuable" (using your metric) than the Sixers winning 45 games when Embiid actually played, or the Bucks winning 45 games when Giannis actually played.

Is it the %? Jokic played 74 games, Embiid 68 and Giannis 67. It's not like those numbers are all that different either.

[Stribor]

By this insipid logic, a 10 dollar bill in a wallet with four 5 dollar bills would be "more valuable" than a 20 dollar bill in a wallet with four 1 dollar bills. Idiotic.

Yes but on the other hand you can say that your logic is that 10 dollar bill with four 1 dollar bills is more valuable than 12 dollar bill with 4 8 dollar bills (I know those bills do not exist , but just to make a point). As I previously sad, I think Jokic Is a 20 dollar bill, but if you are blind (and all of us are since you can not read attribute values of the player like in computer game), then it is hard to buy that he is 20 dollar bill cause whenever you open your wallet you can not buy anything with the content of it.

[hauntedcomputer]

Most sensible media/voters vote for whomever they have the most invested in rookie cards.

[Stribor]

Then people complains when players form superteams...

This is actually the best argument against the narrative I also support. While I am not sure that you can get multiple MVPs and always drop in playoffs, getting killed because of playoff success can lead to stupid superteam supremacy down the line.

[Cubbies2120]

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.

Context should also matter in MVP conversations.

Dude is missing two 20ppg scorers, and 40%+ 3 point shooters. We saw what Murray is capable of in the playoffs.

He also won more games than the other top two MVP candidates. Unless we're going to credit Embiid/Giannis with games won when they were sitting on the bench/at home?

[NetsJets]

You can’t have it both ways. If we’re praising him for carrying a team then you can’t absolve him of blame for losing with that same team. We’re going to look back on his B2B MVP campaign very differently.

[-Luke-]

I predict Jokic will have another great season next season, but when it comes to MVP he gets the Lord Voldemort treatment that Giannis got last season.

But I would be very happy if it ends just like with Giannis: back-to-back MVPs but no playoff success -> Lord Voldemort treatment ("Can't give him another MVP if he doesn't win a title") -> Jokic and the Nuggets win the title that year.

[timO]

Just not enough PER for cp3 and booker, even mcgee and Ayton has superior PER, yeah i know PER favors bigs.

If they had at least top 10 PER, maybe, but they are 33&38, 25&30, eliminating the non starters players.