The NBA MVP is a joke, but I figured it out. Don’t miss out on all the action this week at DraftKings! Download the DraftKings app today! Sign-up using [ Ссылка ] or through my promo code MJ2K
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Those are the statements of actual MVP voters and trust me, I wish I was wrong. Every year the NBA season ends and we’re left with one question. Who’s going to win the MVP award? Some years, it’s an easy choice. Other years not so much and this is one of those years.
But the past few years have been really eye opening on just how flawed this process is, not just for MVP, but all awards. When you realize that there is actually no criteria for awards and that now more than ever, narratives seem to be dominating the conversation.
The MVP race has boiled down to Jokic, SGA, and Luka, but for most of the season Luka wasn’t in the conversation, it was Giannis. But as you can see, in about Week 22, something changed. The reason? Because the Mavericks went on a 9-1 run and became the 4th seed. Jokic was predominantly #1 because the Nuggets were the #1 seed in the tough west and Jokic was clearly the leader averaging a near triple double.
Being a player putting up great numbers is a prerequisite, but to be MVP, those numbers need to mean something, they need to lead to winning. ****You hear the phrase, best player on the best team.
Just 10. 10 players in almost 70 years, meaning 80% of MVPs have been 2 seed and up. But for example Julius Erving in 1981 was the third seed despite winning 62 games. So let’s go even deeper. Only 4 players have been under a 4th seed.
Now all MVP candidates also have to play a sizeable portion of games. Last year was rough
so somewhere in the 75-80% range. and all the candidates thanks to the rule change have played more than 65 games. Sorry Embiid.
But what is interesting is that in all this is what is the acceptable trade off of production and winning? **That hasn’t fully been answered.** We will get into ho’s the MVP based on this criteria, but because none of these criteria are set, it’s not consistent and leaves room for bias, but more than that, the system actually encourages it.
To fix this system, we need to have categories with standardized weight and then with that system I’ll dive into who should be MVP.
So based on this, who’s the MVP of this season.
Luka leads the entire NBA in points and second assists. I think it’s really easy to give him the top spot, but it’s also not that easy if he isn’t necessarily the most efficient. Between Jokic and SGA, that’s a bit tough because both players run their offense and are pretty efficient. Jokic has the highest PER at 31, Giannis at 29.9, SGA 29.3, Luka 28.1. Giannis is averaging more points and assists than SGA while shooting better and it’s actually quite crazy how their box plus minus and VORP are that close. In fact Giannis is the only person in NBA history to average over 30 points a game on 60% from the field and he’s averaging 11 board sa game. If we’re talking purely from a production standpoint, Giannis has been insane, even if we normalize it and no one talks about it.
**At this point, I think it’s fair to go either way and in the event of a tie breaker, we go to number of games played** and going by that, Jokic is MVP. .5 of a difference is insane.
But ok let’s get to the one everyone’s been waiting for, Luka.
The bias in me was rooting for SGA or Luka to be MVP purely off vibes, but that’s why I wanted to be objective and see who’s MVP and it’s Jokic. Man is just too good.
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