NBA MVP Discussion Thread 2022-23 (pt 2)

[Cubbies2120]

Embiid is a great scorer but he'd be nowhere near those numbers without being an all-time great foul baiter and pro flopper ...

Drawing fouls is a skill, it's part of the game.

Correction, if Jokic does it it's a skill lol.

And if Embiid flops to the floor on half his possessions it's because the "Doctor said he should" lol.

[Infinite Llamas]

Being compared to Bird is never an insult…

[BelgradeNugget]

Can Jokic team win 60 games? That’s the key question

He’s got 2 other max players with him (mpj and Murray) and Aaron Gordon ain’t exactly cheap at $20 plus million a year and he’s playing the best ball of his career. So no excuses not to get to 60 wins for Jokic to claim 3rd mvp in a row.

Luka gets my vote if he can drag a mediocre Dallas team with a 6 seed or higher.

Curious why is 60 your arbitrary cutoff? 59 wins automatically disqualifies him?

Earlier in the season Jokic needed a "top 3 seed", then a "#1 seed", and now 60+ wins.

By the end of the year I expect the requirement list to be:
- Publicly donate 50% of salary to humanitarian causes
- Work part time at a soup kitchen helping the homeless
- Work part time in a lab trying for cure to cancer
- 65 wins (must include 20 win streak)
- All other possible candidates retire
- Donate one kidney

And he'll be MVP no doubt

It’s called the Derrick rose rule winning the mvp over lebron James. We all know rose didn’t deserve it. Voters will find any way lot to award 3 straight mvp to Jokic. As they did with James.

Similar happen to Giannis.

OK now make your best argument for Giannis over Jokic for MVP, and LeBron over Rose

[playa-hater]

I have to be honest, as a huge Jokic fan, it's always going to be a massive compliment for him to be compared to Bird.

Guy is a top 10 all time, there's literally no one alive it's an insult to compare him to, you can have a straight faced Jordan vs Bird debate in some areas.

Yeah, I think I have Bird eleventh, but that guy was tripping saying it's an insult to Jokic. Definitely a big compliment.

EDIT: Maybe he just meant Jokic is a better player than Bird, but he chose the wrong words to say it. Jokic being better than Bird is a very valid take. (Not higher on the all-time list yet, of course, but if you're just talking peaks. But I don't concern myself with peaks as much as careers, so I'm not taking a stand either way.)

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, it is sports and that is part of the fun.. But having Bird at 11 is an insult to me.. Just had to get that off my chest..

[antonac]

here's a very anal question.

jokic currently has 405 assists in 41 games, which works out as 9.878 assists, rounded up to 9.9.


He's 5 short of it being exactly 10, BUT does he need an extra 5 assists over 10 (420 assists in 42 games) to average a triple double, or an extra 3 over 10 as 418 divided by 42 will be 9.952 and will thus be rounded up to 10 and no one will actually care that he's technically 2 short?

Interestingly, he can actually be 3 short by the final game if rounding up still counts so weirdly, if he makes 11 assists in his next two he will be on 9.9, but as long as he keeps on track with 10 a game the numbers will take care of themselves and he'll tip into 10 by around the 70 game mark.

[AleksandarN]

I honestly feel like it’s an insult to Jokic to compare him to Bird at this point. It’s like saying LeBron is the closest thing we’ve had to Dr. J in the late 2000s.

Come on. I am a huge Jokic fan maybe the biggest one. But he is no where near Bird in just accomplishments alone. Bird was a better competitor than Jokic by a mile

Accomplishments maybe, but you’re really going to try to say he was a better competitor? GTFO. Bird consistently struggled to maintain his level in the postseason and in the rare occasions he didn’t choke in the playoffs, he was still well below the level Joker established the last 3 seasons.

Tell me you haven’t seen Bird play without saying you saw bird play. Btw don’t go off what I say just listen to his peers talk about him like MJ magic Isaiah etc. but maybe you know more about bird than they do.

[kuclas]

Curious why is 60 your arbitrary cutoff? 59 wins automatically disqualifies him?

Earlier in the season Jokic needed a "top 3 seed", then a "#1 seed", and now 60+ wins.

By the end of the year I expect the requirement list to be:
- Publicly donate 50% of salary to humanitarian causes
- Work part time at a soup kitchen helping the homeless
- Work part time in a lab trying for cure to cancer
- 65 wins (must include 20 win streak)
- All other possible candidates retire
- Donate one kidney

And he'll be MVP no doubt

It’s called the Derrick rose rule winning the mvp over lebron James. We all know rose didn’t deserve it. Voters will find any way lot to award 3 straight mvp to Jokic. As they did with James.

Similar happen to Giannis.

OK now make your best argument for Giannis over Jokic for MVP, and LeBron over Rose

There are so many variables to wining mvp

Let’s face facts. Lebron getting screwed in 2011 cause of the backlash of his decision

People want to defend Jokic winning last year despite a a so so team record (for nba mvp). You can only give nba mvp to stats for so long. They need to do something special for their third nba mvp in a row. He’s got to win. 60 games. Jokic had one of the worst winning records last year for nba mvp in history. So if voters justified giving it to him cause of his stats and dragging team to playoffs

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/worst-record-of-an-mvp

Luka is having a statistically better year than Jokic. So if Luka can drag his team into playoffs as a 6 or higher seed. The same justification can he given to give it to Luka using last years justification for Jokic. Only sounds fair? Correct? Jokic team is completely healthy. He’s got 2 other max players. Murray (who could have played late last season) got an extra 6 months recovery so is 100% recovered. Plus Gordon who may be their second best player now.

[iggymcfrack]

It’s called the Derrick rose rule winning the mvp over lebron James. We all know rose didn’t deserve it. Voters will find any way lot to award 3 straight mvp to Jokic. As they did with James.

Similar happen to Giannis.

OK now make your best argument for Giannis over Jokic for MVP, and LeBron over Rose

There are so many variables to wining mvp

Let’s face facts. Lebron getting screwed in 2011 cause of the backlash of his decision

People want to defend Jokic winning last year despite a a so so team record (for nba mvp). You can only give nba mvp to stats for so long. They need to do something special for their third nba mvp in a row. He’s got to win. 60 games. Jokic had one of the worst winning records last year for nba mvp in history. So if voters justified giving it to him cause of his stats and dragging team to playoffs

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/worst-record-of-an-mvp

Luka is having a statistically better year than Jokic. So if Luka can drag his team into playoffs as a 6 or higher seed. The same justification can he given to give it to Luka using last years justification for Jokic. Only sounds fair? Correct? Jokic team is completely healthy. He’s got 2 other max players. Murray (who could have played late last season) got an extra 6 months recovery so is 100% recovered. Plus Gordon who may be their second best player now.

The only stat Luka has over Jokic is PPG. Literally every other stat goes to Jokic. Jokic is also winning more than anyone else in the league. His team has the best record in the West and they’re +12.4 with him on the floor. Even Tatum only has the Celtics at +9.3 when he’s on the floor and he has the best supporting cast in the league.

[Infinite Llamas]

Luka is having a better year than Jokic based on what?

PPG?

Lol

[bisme37]

Tatum has been excellent vs other MVP candidates and other top teams but he's famously stunk vs the Warriors lately. Pretty big game for him tonight if I'm being honest. They show him different coverages than he usually gets and it will be interesting to see if he makes the right adjustments this time and generally breaks out of his mental block vs them or whatever's been going on.

[ITYSL]

BBref has Jokic at 70.2% and Doncic in second place at 7.5%. I agree that it's probably just Jokic and Tatum going forward. Basically, Tatum is Jokic's understudy. If Jokic gets hurt soon and the gap in games played is big enough, Tatum will win it. If he's healthy, Jokic gets the Award. That's pretty much the only two scenarios I can foresee.

That said, Jokic is top five all-time in the three "traditional advanced" stats: 3rd in BPM (last season he set the record), 4th in WS/48 (closest modern player is 2013 LBJ in sixth), and 2nd in PER (last season he set the record). That's top five all-time, not top five this season. And his team is in the first seed, one game out of best record in the league. If the vote were today, he should not only win, but win unanimously. Tatum should be second, then whoever: Doncic, Embiid, Durant, Morant, Antetokounmpo, Sabonis, in roughly that order...

Honestly, this thread should be dead for a while if the only thing to discuss here is "who deserves to win MVP this season."

Only thing I disagree with is if Jokic falls off for whatever reason - injury, play quality inexplicably plummets - then it's not really Tatum's to lose. It's more of a toss-up at that point depending on who dominates and who's available. If Embiid plays most of the rest of the season and goes super saiyan, it could be him. Same with Luka, Giannis, KD, Tatum.

[BelgradeNugget]

It’s called the Derrick rose rule winning the mvp over lebron James. We all know rose didn’t deserve it. Voters will find any way lot to award 3 straight mvp to Jokic. As they did with James.

Similar happen to Giannis.

OK now make your best argument for Giannis over Jokic for MVP, and LeBron over Rose

There are so many variables to wining mvp

Let’s face facts. Lebron getting screwed in 2011 cause of the backlash of his decision

People want to defend Jokic winning last year despite a a so so team record (for nba mvp). You can only give nba mvp to stats for so long. They need to do something special for their third nba mvp in a row. He’s got to win. 60 games. Jokic had one of the worst winning records last year for nba mvp in history. So if voters justified giving it to him cause of his stats and dragging team to playoffs

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/worst-record-of-an-mvp

Luka is having a statistically better year than Jokic. So if Luka can drag his team into playoffs as a 6 or higher seed. The same justification can he given to give it to Luka using last years justification for Jokic. Only sounds fair? Correct? Jokic team is completely healthy. He’s got 2 other max players. Murray (who could have played late last season) got an extra 6 months recovery so is 100% recovered. Plus Gordon who may be their second best player now.

Well, some arguments so I'll try to answer. For winning MVP, you have:

1. Lead your team to wins. You can't win MVP for putting stats on losing team, that is called empty stats
2. Have good stats to compare to other players leading their teams to winning
3. Exceed expectations for your team success and your individual success, or just meat the goal, you can't underachieve
4. Play in enough games as a proof that player in conversation most contributed to team success
5. If you achieve something historical it is a plus
6. Be among the best in all 5. If you are bad in one or two it is hard to get MVP

And of course be better than other candidates in a that specific season.

So let's see. In 2009/10 with Cleveland LeBron wins 61 games. Best record in NBA. Then he joins 2 HOF players, one with championship and finals MVP, top 5-player in NBA other top 20 player. Goal is to win multiple championships. Expectations are high.
And they underachieve. 58 wins with better team. 3 best record in the league. Stats are down (ppg and ast) - it would be ok if he won more games but he didn't.
Bulls goes from 41 wins 8th in the East to 62 wins, 1st in the league, with Rose as leader, who had good stats as well. Was he better player than LeBron overall? No. Was he more deserving of MVP. Of course he was. That is why LeBron was not MVP, not because of decision.

You can look at this and try to compare Giannis in 2021 to Jokic. And really there isn't comparation. That is why Jokic won 91 first place votes that year and Giannis won 1.

So in these two cases, there wasn't any voter fatigue or similar BS, more deserving players won.

As for last year, Jokic broke all time records for some advanced stats, led in all others, first in history to achieve 2000/1000/500 (not first since Wilt or Shaq or MJ...), first ever. Oh, BTW, only MVP candidates who played in more wins for their teams were Booker and Tatum.

So the fact is simple. There wasn't better candidate then him in any of those two seasons

But I see you use number of team wins as argument against Jokic, and then pro Luka (or again against Jokic again, we know what you were thinking). Interesting.

As far as Luka's and Jokic stats, plays... go through 69 pages of conversation here, everything will be clear to you, if that is the goal. BTW considering Luka last year with Brunson, without Wood they had .634 winning pct. Knicks had .451. Now Dallas has .522 and New York .543. Maybe last year there was some help there that we underestimated.

And, at the end I 100% agree that healthy Nuggets must win at least 57+ games (it would have been team record), 60 wins is ok. And at least first in the West. If they don't achieve that I would argue they underachieved. But, he may still get award anyway if he is simply better candidate than anybody else. IMO his competition rn are Tatum and Ja.

[scrabbarista]

BBref has Jokic at 70.2% and Doncic in second place at 7.5%. I agree that it's probably just Jokic and Tatum going forward. Basically, Tatum is Jokic's understudy. If Jokic gets hurt soon and the gap in games played is big enough, Tatum will win it. If he's healthy, Jokic gets the Award. That's pretty much the only two scenarios I can foresee.

That said, Jokic is top five all-time in the three "traditional advanced" stats: 3rd in BPM (last season he set the record), 4th in WS/48 (closest modern player is 2013 LBJ in sixth), and 2nd in PER (last season he set the record). That's top five all-time, not top five this season. And his team is in the first seed, one game out of best record in the league. If the vote were today, he should not only win, but win unanimously. Tatum should be second, then whoever: Doncic, Embiid, Durant, Morant, Antetokounmpo, Sabonis, in roughly that order...

Honestly, this thread should be dead for a while if the only thing to discuss here is "who deserves to win MVP this season."

Only thing I disagree with is if Jokic falls off for whatever reason - injury, play quality inexplicably plummets - then it's not really Tatum's to lose. It's more of a toss-up at that point depending on who dominates and who's available. If Embiid plays most of the rest of the season and goes super saiyan, it could be him. Same with Luka, Giannis, KD, Tatum.

Yeah, I think it would be Tatum's to lose, but only if he stays healthy and Boston gets the one seed. I think those two things are likely enough that I'm pretty sure about it. But I can definitely imagine a world where, for example, KD wins the MVP this season. Or maybe a couple of those other guys. I just think it's so unlikely as to be statistically negligible.

Taking a betting angle, all of the good bets are probably gone at this point, unless you happen to know something about Jokic's health that no one else does, in which case Tatum would be the bet.

[scrabbarista]

I just want to say we are half way through the season and Jokic is currently 0.2 assists shy of averaging a 25ppg triple double and currently is at a 69.8 TS%... And he's not slowing down. His last 17 games hes averaging essentially 26/12/11 on 71 TS%. His TS% right now is 12% higher than the league average. We are looking at a legit chance of a 70TS% triple double.

And just to add onto how different he is. Giannis, Luka and Joel all have a USG% of at least 38% and theyre the top 3 in the league. Ill throw in Tatum's as well at 33% (7th in the league). Jokic is currently 31st in the league in USG% with 27%. Then you can mention he is 2nd in the league in assists while not even being top 50 for Time Per Possession. He is legit breaking the system haha.

Bonkers. Each number gets crazier than the one before it. Really brain-breaking stuff. If he keeps this up and anyone doesn't vote him #1 on their ballot, they'll have outed themselves forever as unworthy of the vote.

[Duke4life831]

I will say this, at the moment I think the more intriguing discussion is will Jokic be unanimous. I also want to be clear, this is not me saying other players shouldnt be talked about in this thread, bring on all the Tatum love. All Im saying is I think 45ish games in, I think Jokic is closer to being a unanimous winner than Tatum/Luka are to Jokic.

I also want to be crystal clear when I say this, this is not a put down on any of the other guys. Like Ive said many times, if we were to erase Jokic from this season and say Tatum keeps up his level of play and wins the MVP. No one would look back a few years from now and say, "that was a weak MVP winner." Tatum is a legit elite 2 way player who is averaging 31/8/4 with a 61TS%. And even if you want to claim the raw stats and efficiency stats are inflated this year, cool doesnt really matter because Tatum is still 3rd in scoring and has a TS% that is 4% higher than league average, and he's doing on the team with the best record. That is a legit MVP worthy season.

I just think that really puts into perspective the kind of season Jokic is having.

[jokeboy86]

It’s called the Derrick rose rule winning the mvp over lebron James. We all know rose didn’t deserve it. Voters will find any way lot to award 3 straight mvp to Jokic. As they did with James.

Similar happen to Giannis.

OK now make your best argument for Giannis over Jokic for MVP, and LeBron over Rose

There are so many variables to wining mvp

Let’s face facts. Lebron getting screwed in 2011 cause of the backlash of his decision

People want to defend Jokic winning last year despite a a so so team record (for nba mvp). You can only give nba mvp to stats for so long. They need to do something special for their third nba mvp in a row. He’s got to win. 60 games. Jokic had one of the worst winning records last year for nba mvp in history. So if voters justified giving it to him cause of his stats and dragging team to playoffs

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/worst-record-of-an-mvp

Luka is having a statistically better year than Jokic. So if Luka can drag his team into playoffs as a 6 or higher seed. The same justification can he given to give it to Luka using last years justification for Jokic. Only sounds fair? Correct? Jokic team is completely healthy. He’s got 2 other max players. Murray (who could have played late last season) got an extra 6 months recovery so is 100% recovered. Plus Gordon who may be their second best player now.

I think the voters didn't really want to give it to Jokic the past two years because of the Nuggets records in the standings but I bet they penalized the other candidates last year cause of the expectations they had for their teams(Giannis/Embiid) and then saw their teams were only 3 games better than Jokic's who was missing his 2nd and 3rd best scorers. And for Booker the CP3 is the best/important player media narrative was something that he unfortunately couldn't change in their minds. In '21 the other candidates simply didn't play as many games as Jokic and they couldn't ignore that.

I've said this in another thread(or maybe this one) but Jokic will be a top 1 or 2 candidate for MVP every year just for the fact that he doesn't really miss time like other stars. He has yet to play less than 70 games in a season and it honestly wouldn't surprise me if he plays all 82 one year.

[kuclas]

OK now make your best argument for Giannis over Jokic for MVP, and LeBron over Rose

There are so many variables to wining mvp

Let’s face facts. Lebron getting screwed in 2011 cause of the backlash of his decision

People want to defend Jokic winning last year despite a a so so team record (for nba mvp). You can only give nba mvp to stats for so long. They need to do something special for their third nba mvp in a row. He’s got to win. 60 games. Jokic had one of the worst winning records last year for nba mvp in history. So if voters justified giving it to him cause of his stats and dragging team to playoffs

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/worst-record-of-an-mvp

Luka is having a statistically better year than Jokic. So if Luka can drag his team into playoffs as a 6 or higher seed. The same justification can he given to give it to Luka using last years justification for Jokic. Only sounds fair? Correct? Jokic team is completely healthy. He’s got 2 other max players. Murray (who could have played late last season) got an extra 6 months recovery so is 100% recovered. Plus Gordon who may be their second best player now.

The only stat Luka has over Jokic is PPG. Literally every other stat goes to Jokic. Jokic is also winning more than anyone else in the league. His team has the best record in the West and they’re +12.4 with him on the floor. Even Tatum only has the Celtics at +9.3 when he’s on the floor and he has the best supporting cast in the league.

And lebron had more ppg/asg/rebounds per game over Derrick rose. And voters didn’t give him his 3rd straight mvp

The heat finished with 58 wins. Bulls finished with 62 wins.

What happens if Boston finishes with 62 wins and Denver 58 wins? Do u give it to Tatum than?

Right now Memphis and Denver are tied in losses. Essentially a dead heat

My point is Jokic has to do something special to get the third mvp in a row.
25/10/10 isn’t going to do it with 58 wins and 2bd or 3rd best overall record in the nba.

[Cubbies2120]

It’s called the Derrick rose rule winning the mvp over lebron James. We all know rose didn’t deserve it. Voters will find any way lot to award 3 straight mvp to Jokic. As they did with James.

Similar happen to Giannis.

OK now make your best argument for Giannis over Jokic for MVP, and LeBron over Rose

There are so many variables to wining mvp

Let’s face facts. Lebron getting screwed in 2011 cause of the backlash of his decision

People want to defend Jokic winning last year despite a a so so team record (for nba mvp). You can only give nba mvp to stats for so long. They need to do something special for their third nba mvp in a row. He’s got to win. 60 games. Jokic had one of the worst winning records last year for nba mvp in history. So if voters justified giving it to him cause of his stats and dragging team to playoffs

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/worst-record-of-an-mvp

Luka is having a statistically better year than Jokic. So if Luka can drag his team into playoffs as a 6 or higher seed. The same justification can he given to give it to Luka using last years justification for Jokic. Only sounds fair? Correct? Jokic team is completely healthy. He’s got 2 other max players. Murray (who could have played late last season) got an extra 6 months recovery so is 100% recovered. Plus Gordon who may be their second best player now.

60 wins is an arbitrary number you came up with.. 59 disqualifies him?

Shouldn't it be relative to rest of league? What if zero teams get to 60 wins this year (only one is on pace I believe)?

Jokic's statistical dominance has only increased from last year, AND his team record is better.

If Luka and Jokic finished 5/6, of course you give it to Luka due to the voter fatigue (and assumption that there's a dropoff in Jokic's production to lead to that seed). But the gap between this year's "statistical dominance" of Luka / Jokic isn't close to the gap that happened last year between Jokic/Embiid

You're looking at it with a very basic logic - in your mind these two are equivalent:

Player 1 is putting up 50% of the stats of Player 2, therefore Player 2 > Player 1
Player 1 is putting up 99% of the stats of Player 2, therefore Player 2 > Player 1

Now lets get to your argument of Luka's stats > Jokic stats...

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2023_advanced.html

Triple double, leading almost every advanced stat category (PER#1, TS% #2 (almost 70%!)#1 OWS,#1 WS, #1 WS/48, #1 OBPM, #1 DBPM, #1BPM, #1VORP), #1 record in the West...

All while having the lowest usage rate of the MVP candidates...

He shoots 15 shots a game (!) and is putting up a 25 point triple double...ON THE 29TH HIGHEST USAGE RATING IN THE LEAGUE...

Nevermind, Luka doesn't even have the stats argument

[Jadoogar]

I will say this, at the moment I think the more intriguing discussion is will Jokic be unanimous. I also want to be clear, this is not me saying other players shouldnt be talked about in this thread, bring on all the Tatum love. All Im saying is I think 45ish games in, I think Jokic is closer to being a unanimous winner than Tatum/Luka are to Jokic.

i don't think there's any chance he's unanimous. Like i said, it he wasn't the reigning MVP, we wouldn't be having a discussion right now. But people will definitely use the "can't give him 3 in a row without a title" excuse".

[Duke4life831]

I will say this, at the moment I think the more intriguing discussion is will Jokic be unanimous. I also want to be clear, this is not me saying other players shouldnt be talked about in this thread, bring on all the Tatum love. All Im saying is I think 45ish games in, I think Jokic is closer to being a unanimous winner than Tatum/Luka are to Jokic.

i don't think there's any chance he's unanimous. Like i said, it he wasn't the reigning MVP, we wouldn't be having a discussion right now. But people will definitely use the "can't give him 3 in a row without a title" excuse".

Sure I get that. And I guess the better way I shouldve worded it wouldve been "should" not "will". Because I personally think he is having a more dominant season than even Curry's 2016 season. Now I know a part of Curry getting the unanimous MVP that year was the Warriors setting the win record. But ya this is one of the better regular seasons Ive seen from a player that I can remember. (obviously with the * of so far. Still plenty of time for him to slow down or get hurt).