Brunson-“Jokić is playing absolutely absurd, but they are not seeded like last season, and people are still talking about him like being the MVP. When Luka was averaging damn near triple-double, they were like ‘oh, he shouldn’t win MVP because of his seeding”.
I’ve been telling people, the MVP is going to be decided on March 9th and 10th. OKC and DEN play each other in B2B games.
It’s dumb for sure, but the first game is on ABC. i 100% believe if one team wins both of those games, the media’s vote is going to swing heavily one way.
if they split them, they’ll just go with whoever has the better record. but I think those games will be the deciding factor for the casual viewer/voter.
The most important part in their discussion was when Josh Hart said how it’s impossible to compare Shai and Jokic because their game is completely different.
The SGA vs Jokic MVP debate is going to be toxic late into the season
I honestly don’t care this season… but in a good way for once.
Maybe rooting a bit mire for SGA as he hasn’t won one yet, but at the same time, Giannis and Jokic are just absolutely insane as well.
Fans should appreciate having this much talent to watch instead of arguing about media awarded titles.
Now if we really want to talk about « qualifications »: I personally disagree that stats and seeding should be looked at simultaneously. Maybe my view on this is wrong, but to me, MVP should go to the most impactful player on his team while being top of the league in most aspects.
Have you seen the bucks or Nugs without their MVP candidates? Their winrate is almost non existent. OKC can still compete without SGA.
Then again, that would punish the player with the better team on his side.
Which is why, no matter who of the three wins, I’m all for it. All of them deserve it, and I see the argument for each of them.
Man, were gonna have another toxic finish this season with these mvp discussions.
Theres this really weird effect this season where people think Denver is like a play in team when theyre the 4 seed in the west and not that far back from the 2 seed. Denver has been playing well lately.
im a jokic stan but i have no issue with SGA winning the mvp. He will never be a better player than Jokic though.
I just wish for the reasoning to be consistent.
Is MVP the best player? The most valuable? Does seeding matter? Or do we leave it up to the voters how much these aspects matter?
Imo:
No, but it certainly helps.
Matters more than being the best.
If you’re a Playoffs team it’s irrelevant. Play-in team you’d had to be insanely better than everyone. Out of play-in yeah no.
It’s incredible how the MVP discussion is always just people trying to take an extremely complex and hard to pin down analysis based on multiple factors and trying to simplify it to 1 or 2 basic variables and then getting mad about any “exceptions” to their oversimplification.
Jokic is going to drop a 50 point trible double in his next game against the Knicks
If seeding (and not the record) is really the question, it’s not out of the question to think that the Nuggets could get to the 2nd seed. Their remaining SOS compared to Houston and Memphis is relatively easy (19th vs. 4th and 2nd).
But if there’s a huge gap in the record, ok give it to Shai, no problem.
Why did you leave out when he said “individually, he deserves it”
Its just another stupid MVP conversation where one player is *obviously* the best player in the world playing the best basketball in the world and then people start trying to spin whatever narratives about team records and blah blah blah blah blah like it isn’t extremely obvious who the MVP is when one of the two players is in fact the most valuable player in the world on any team anywhere lol. Its a battle of common sense vs media narratives and secondary concerns like how good the supporting cast is and how that influenced team standings since its a team game
They do this shit for engagement and it works though. If we were being real about MVP Bron, MJ etc would have crazy numbers when it comes to that award but we try to spin some shit up to give it to whoever excites people the most that year instead of who is obviously the best because its more interesting to people that way
Nuggets is the 4th seed of West. What is he talking about?
Lol Denver had a slow start. They were like under 10th seed but now they are 4th seed but this narrative continues lmao
I think momentum cost Luka last year. MVP narratives usually start taking shape at the beginning of the season, and the Mavs were seen as a play-in team up until the trade deadline. He faced a very steep hill to overcome the “good stats, bad team” tag that the media and fans had attached to him up to that point.
Awesome to see Brunson going to bat for Luka. It’s a blatant double standard.
And some in the media make clear they’re biased. Windhorst flat out said “I can’t stand watching Luka play basketball” on his podcast last year in the midst of Luka averaging a 37 point triple double and keeping a garbage Mavs roster without Kyrie (and pre trade deadline) above .500 for two straight months
I’m not arguing Luka is/was better than Jokic, but it’s ridiculous the degree to which the “criteria” for MVP has been selectively applied
I mean Denver is 2.5 games from 2nd seed, if they won the next 2 they will be in the mix for it and league wise being a top 5 seeded team…
At some point you just have to be ok with the MVP being the best player in one of the best team, or we have to restrict to the best player in the beast team only, which seems stupid.
I would rather say that there are Knicks players throw in the MVP mix and have no business being there, only because NY is being good and NY being NY.
Before anybody comes in with, but advanced stats. Luka’s advanced stats were incredible last year.
He was 2nd in overall EPM, led the league in O-EPM. Was 2nd in BPM, VORP, fantastic individual and team-lineup on-off splits and even led in some lesser known advanced stats.
Hell EPM that everybody says is the best publically available stat had Jokic 4th last year.
You combine that with his historical box-score production, the numerous records he broke, the incredible peak moments he had in games. He should have been the MVP, let alone 3rd…lol
Idiots like Stephen A Smith, Kendrick Perkins and Chris Broussard vote for mvp every season. Therefore, I consider the award meaningless.
I want Jokic to win to keep Shaq salty
Could Denver finish 2nd in west?
Jokic should win mvp because he’s my favorite character on the show 😍
That’s because last year on March 1 Luka and the Mavs were the 8 seed. Voters had probably already made up their mind about who was/wasn’t in the race and the last month where teams coast isn’t going to shift the race that much and they weren’t going to talk about a player who might miss the playoffs for the 2nd year in a row and calling him the MVP. Mavs run to end the year was impressive but that was probably the logic when the Mavs didn’t clinch a playoff spot until April 10.
Shai deserves MVP right now but the Nuggets are the 4 seed right now. It’s not totally absurd that it’s a close race when Nuggets are 3 games out of 2nd in the West, even if there’s a big gap between OKC and everyone else.
There was a massive gap between Boston and everyone else last year and Tatum didn’t even finish above Brunson in MVP voting. Where is Donovan Mitchell in this year’s race? Winning matters to an extent, but not that much.
The MVP race always seems to boil down to narratives and voter biases rather than pure performance. It’s wild how Jokic can dominate statistically yet still be questioned due to team record. Meanwhile, when Luka was in a similar situation last year, the narrative was conveniently different. If SGA keeps leading OKC to wins, it’ll be hard to overlook him, but it’s frustrating that consistency in criteria is so lacking. Ultimately, the debate should focus on who impacts their team the most, regardless of record.
It’s definitely messed up that these arbitrary rules are not the same for all players.
The other thing is that you can usually make a clear argument for Jokic in terms of advanced/impact metrics, but SGA is either ahead of Jokic or very close to him in many of them.
SGA’s team is almost 10 games better and the impact/advanced stats are similar. It should be SGA’s to lose right now imo
Edit:
For those that want to talk about talent disparity:
– Thunder are 9 games ahead of the 4th seeded Nuggets
– Nuggets are 9.5 games ahead of the 13th seeded Blazers
– The talent gap between the Thunder and Nuggets is SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than the talent gap between the Nuggets and Blazers
When impact metrics and advanced stats look similar, the talent disparity argument doesn’t move me as much.
Maybe we should have 1 white and 1 black MVP
The writers are also goal post movers
Voted award. Narratives promoted. “WINNER”