MVP Voting from 2000 - 2021

[tsherkin]

So with all the usual disclaimers of this is rudimentary stuff, it shows only so much and what have you, I went back through the logs of MVP voting for the past 22 years. Feel free to inject other stuff, this is just like a bar napkin beginning to discussion. I've only focused on some simple stats. WS and WS/48 came literally from the b-ref page for the awards, and then just looking at WS and BPM and such for really quick snapshots of what's going on. Naturally, there is more texture to these things.

Figured that I would look at first-place votes, MVP shares, appearances in the top 5, average WS/48, that sort of thing. I tracked games played but I also haven't factored in the lockout or bubble seasons, so I'm not going to throw that in here just yet.

Meantime, some random things which popped up.

For MVP winners, average age was 26. Average number of 1st place votes was 93. Average share was .918. Average WS/48 was .267.

Steph's unanimous MVP was tops in share. Lebron and Shaq both posted a .998 share once. Garnett's 04 MVP had as many first place votes as Shaq in 2000 and Lebron in 2013.

Fun fact, 10 guys in this stretch placed in the top 5 of the MVP race and posted .290 WS/48 or greater. Only Chris Paul didn't win an MVP (he was ranked 5th for his 2009 season).

Top 5 Winners by WS/48

1. 2013 Lebron (.322)
2. 2016 Steph (.318)
3. 2009 Lebron (.318)
4. 2021 Jokic (.301)
5. 2010 Lebron (.299)

HM. 2012 Lebron (.298)

Bottom 5 Winners by WS/48

1. 2001 Iverson (.190)
2. 2005 Steve Nash (.203)
3. 2011 Derrick Rose (.208)
4. 2008 Kobe Bryant (.208)
5. 2006 Steve Nash (.212)

HM. 2017 Russell Westbrook (.224)


WS/48, of course, is an imperfect metric. There are various things to consider, but it's interesting that those line up with a lot of the most contested MVPs. With these bottom 5, we can look at some other stuff.

2001 Iverson

93 first place votes, .904 share. 31/4/4.5 type player on 51.8% TS (100 TS+, that was exactly league-average), 7.3 OWS, +5.0 OBPM.

Philly was a 56-win team, 13th on O, 5th on D and they made the Finals before an awakened-dragon of LA roflstomped them after game one.

For as much as a lot of discussion centers around why Iverson won that MVP, and how he stole it from Shaq, Diesel was actually third in the vote that year. And while Iverson's WS/48 was pretty low that year, the OWS and OBPM line up well with the narrative of him carrying a team that had very little help on O and relied primarily on D and rebounding apart from him. Also, this was several years before the rules changes and it was slow. The Sixers were playing at 90.6 possessions per game . League average this year was 98.2, no team slower than 95.4. 95.4 was faster than the faster team in the league in 2001. So, some considerations there. And then yeah, in the Finals, they played at 89.6. And again, league average this year was 56.6% TS, the worst being 53.0%. In 2001, average was 51.8%, Philly was at 51.8% and 53.0% would have ranked 8th. Worst in the league was 47.0%. Little bit of a different scoring environment, in all fairness.

Also relevant. Iverson's .190 was third-highest in the top 5, but Tim Duncan (2nd in the voting) was only at .200. Shaq, at .245, was the highest, which tracks with the narrative of the time about his general dominant performance, etc. And again, WS/48 means only so much, but AI's WS/48 despite being the lowest on this list of winners was actually fairly competitive in that particular race.

Duncan was at 6.2 OWS and a league-high 7.1 DWS, with +2.9 OBPM and +1.8 DBPM. Iverson was, again, 7.3 OWS, 4.5 DWS, +5.0 OBPM and +1.1 DBPM. The DWS obviously seem a little off-kilter, but the BPM certainly line up with his offensive impact on his team and based solely on those stats and their flaws, that actually illustrates a greater impact on his team than Duncan.

Shaq, for his part, posted 11.1 OWS, 3.9 DWS (league-high 14.9 WS), +7.0 OBPM and +0.7 DBPM, so there's some extra food for thought there.

2005 Nash.

This one reflects a vote that actually was closer.

Nash's share was .839 and Shaq's was .813. 65 first place votes for Nash, 58 for Shaq. That was a tight race in the actual voting.

Shaq (.211), Duncan (.245) and Dirk (.248) posted better WS/48 values in that race.

Nash was 7th in OWS, 8th in WS/48, 11th in BPM and 5th in OBPM that season.

2011 Derrick Rose.

Kind of 2001 Iverson-ish. 11th-ranked O, 1st-ranked D. Third-ranked in WS/48 in that award race behind Dwight (.235) and Lebron (.244). Chicago had the best record in the league and everyone hated Lebron that year. Rose wasn't surrounded by offensive stunners. He did post a +6.3 OBPM, was 5th in WS, 6th in OWS, was 10th in WS/48, was 3rd in BPM, and actually led the league in OBPM. He was 2nd in VORP behind Lebron (who also topped BPM, WS/48, OWS, total WS and was 2nd in OBPM). So... again, despite there being some contention surrounding the award, there are some things to suggest again that the narrative of him driving their offense and exerting a large impact despite the team itself not being a wild offense was pretty accurate... and that the team's defense drove it's upper bound of success on top of that. There's a lot to suggest Lebron really should have won that award, but there was no way he was ever going to.

2008 Kobe

2nd-lowest in WS/48 behind Dwight (who ranked 5th in the vote, and posted .200 WS/48).

82 first place votes, though. Very clearly in everyone's mind as the #1 guy on that front. .873 share, 2nd place was .710 from Chris Paul. That counts as a fairly close share margin in this period. Some of it was probably a popularity thing, a lot of people didn't really want to give a tiny point guard who wasn't a huge volume score a lot of due. Kobe's Lakers won 57 games, though, topping the West and posting the 3rd-best record in the league.

The WS/48 for the top 5.

Kobe (.208)
Paul (.284)
Garnett (.265)
Lebron (.242)
Dwight (.200)

Kobe was 4th in WS (Paul was #1, Lebron was 2nd). Bryant was 5th in OWS; Paul was 1st, Lebron was 3rd. Dwight led the league in DWS. Paul, Garnett and Lebron were 1st, 2nd and 5th in WS/48; Kobe was 8th. Lebron and Paul went 1 and 2 in BPM, Garnett was 4th. Bryant was 7th. Lebron and Paul were 1 and 2 in OBPM; Kobe was 7th. Nash was actually 4th that year at +5.8. Garnett, Paul and Lebron were 2nd, 4th and 7th in DBPM. Lebron, Paul and Kobe went 1, 2, 3 in VORP, with Garnett 7th.

Tons of stuff to support the fairly evident truth that Kobe was a top player in the league. Team record was good. Not as overtly impressive in the raw box score stats as some others, but he was 2nd behind Lebron in the scoring race and clearly drove the team. They were 18-4 in games with Pau (or about 67-win pace), and 39-21 without him (or about 53-win pace). Obviously, 22 games does not mean they were going to necessarily be a 67-win team with him on the whole season that year... but they did win 65 the following season in their first title season together, so take that for what you will.

2006 Nash.

57 first place votes. .739 share, the lowest in the stretch I examined. Again the lowest WS/48 in the top 5. 6th on the season in OWS, 10th in WS/48, 8th in OBPM. Guided the 2nd-best O in the league (they'd been first the year before), but unlike the season before, he didn't have Amare (who played 3 games all year). Best 3pt shooting team in the league, and the fastest squad in the league. Narratively, this was the year Nash fans got to say "see? it wasn't Amare propping him up." An interesting year, a contentious award and some fantastic discussion.


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Other thoughts.

Lebron James has the most total appearances in the top 5 of the MVP vote since the 1999-2000 vote, with 14.

4 wins, 4 2nd-place finishes (also the highest), 3 3rds (tied with Kobe for the most), 2 4ths and 1 5th.


Kobe Bryant is second with 11. That speaks to a longevity of consideration in the vote. As I noted, he's tied with Lebron for most 3rd-place finishes and has the most 4th-place finishes as well.

The next-closest is Duncan, with 7. So they're the only two with double-digit representation in the top 5. Harden and Durant have 6 (so far). Paul, Shaq and Garnett have 5 (and again, so far for Paul).

Of the guys with only one appearance in the top 5 (there are 17), Derrick Rose is the only one to win an MVP, though obviously health comes into play there. Kidd and Embiid are the only ones with a 2nd-place finish. Mourning, Griffin, Melo, JO and Paul George all snuck in a 3rd-place finish (he also got a homer vote for 1st place which stole a unanimous win from Lebron, heh). Then Chauncey Billups, Isaiah Thomas and Tony Parker snuck in 5th-place finishes once each.

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Anyway, long ramble. Just some food for thought to stir some discussion. Make of it what you will; this is obvously imperfect stuff, but it hopefully gives folks something to chew on.

[Bobbcats]

Looking at WS48, CP3's career average over 17 seasons isn't too far from the average MVP winner (.234 vs .267). Hope he can shake off the best player not to win a title, but he'll always be the best not to win an MVP IMO

[70sFan]

Hope he can shake off the best player not to win a title, but he'll always be the best not to win an MVP IMO

Jerry West has a word.

[Stalwart]

Looking at the winners over the past 20yrs I don't see any undeserving winners. Some can be more contested than others but they have all been deserving.

[tsherkin]

Looking at the winners over the past 20yrs I don't see any undeserving winners. Some can be more contested than others but they have all been deserving.

Yeah. Ultimately as I looked at it, a lot of the old arguments I recall seemed... less potent. Shaq probably should have won over AI in 2001 but AI was still a legit candidate. It was a nice dive down memory lane.

The initial impulse came from I think the season awards thread or maybe the "mvps under 27" one or slmething like that. Just to see how many top 5 finishes people have to examine peak length and what have you.