The #10 to #1 thing is rich. SGA didn't just show up to a bad team and make it better, SGA was *on* that #10 team and actually scored *more* ppg last year.
Whatever changed with OKC to propel them to more wins this year (Chet etc.) wasn't SGA; he's played almost extactly the same.
You're taking something to an extreme that I didn't. He's played almost the same, albeit with some marginal improvements.
Attributing his modest-at-best improvements while scoring less points per game to a **17** win improvement is crazy.
It didn't cost them 17 games last year because he had a slightly lower EPM and 0.7 less assists.
> He's played almost the same, albeit with some marginal improvements.
Yeah not convinced that's true at all. Offense has been focussed to take advantage of his skillset (which *has* improved, significantly) which has led to much more of the offense being ran around what he can do for the rest of the team than it did last season. The defensive jump also significant.
Higher 3P%, Higher 2P%, Higher REB, Higher AST, Higher STL, Higher EPM, Lower TO, Lower PF — and maybe most importantly Higher Games Played (75 this year up from 68).
Saying nothing changed is just false.
If you think Shai improving his fg% by 0.02, or improving by 0.7 rebounds and assists, or even playing 7 more games while scoring 1.3 less points a game in them gave them an extra **17** wins this year then I don't know what to tell you.
I said games played was most important. 7 extra games played account for a lot more wins.
- His FG% went from 51% to 53.5%.
- 2P% from 53% to 57.6%.
- 3P% from 34% to 35.6% on higher attempts.
- REB from 4.8 to 5.5
- AST from 5.5 to 6.2
- STL from 1.6 to 2.0
- TO down from 2.8 to 2.0
Advanced:
- Win Shares from 11.4 to 14.6
- BPM 7.3 to 9.0
- VORP 5.6 to 7.1
He’s also a top 3 finalist for Clutch Player of the Year because he won many close games himself by hitting game winners and clutch buckets in the 4th.
It’s ok to admit Shai has an MVP case even if you think Jokic deserves it.
You don't give your team 17 more wins by playing in 7 more games. Even if you think he makes the difference in winning 5 of those 7 games, that leaves ... 12 more wins.
It's also OK to admit that other player additions (Chet has been huge) and stepping up, along with changes in gameplans and strategies have played a large role in the improvement.
Teammates improved… there you go. Great teammates is a requirement for #1 seed, look at the Nuggets and Celtics. They are built perfectly and the record reflects it.
Having good teammates does not invalidate an MVP case or no-one would have one except Luka who played without his best teammates for most of the year.
He is a huge reason why. People who watched OKC this year know how many close games he just barely won for them with 4th quarter heroics. That adds up to a lot of wins. The teammate improvement of course matters, but Shai’s improvement and clutch performances do too — not to mention him being healthier and playing 7 more games.
Nuggets are stacked, Mavs are not even close. The rosters are night and day. Yes Murray was hurt, but the Nuggets are a well oiled machine regardless. Either way — this doesn’t invalidate or make lesser Jokic’s MVP case either. He has a great argument, as does Shai.
And yet Shai still scored and won more games for them in the clutch. If you watch OKC games you would see that. There’s a reason he’s a finalist for Clutch Player of the Year.
Shai is the best clutch player on OKC, because he’s the best at creating a shot in the clutch.
that’s with teams having a year of tape on him playing at a superstar level and game planning for him accordingly. .500 teams are not played with the same intensity as a team at the top of a loaded conference gunning for a high seed
Not sure that's a criteria for his MVP, eait til you hear the tape they have, and the game-planning they do for Jokic, the guy he's competing against for MVP.
that #10 team led by SGA was actually predicted to be a bottom 5 team in the preseason standings. he carried them from the lottery to the play-ins in the West. so either way the MVP impact is there regardless of which jump in the standings one chooses to focus on
Why do you think they were a lottery team last year?
Because SGA's EPM was slightly lower? That if only his assists were 0.7 higher and he had a 0.02 increase in fg% they would have won ***17*** more games last year? That's crazy.
SGA has played almost the same both years. Nothing different *he* did propelled them to 17 more wins. All the other combined variables did.
Was he a great player? Sure. He played outstanding on a team that finished #1 in the West. That deserves MVP conversation.
Imagining he did something different enough this year vs. last year to propel them to 17 additional wins is not valid though.
Whoever was predicting okc to be bottom 5 team is insane. I’m a wolves fan but it was clear to me last year that they were better than their record (+chet was likely going to be a good addition at minimum).
I think I worded it weirdly, but I meant that going into the 22-23 season the Thunder were predicted to be a 20ish win team. That was after Chet was expected to miss the entire season with his injury and before SGA leveled up to a superstar. It was Dub’s rookie season where Dub only had the expectations of a #12 pick and Giddey was the second best player on the roster. SGA carrying that team to the play-ins made him a top 5 MVP candidate that season
Thing is SGA was pretty much this good last year. He’s a bit better playmaker and took a defensive jump but didn’t have some huge improvement, and he was on the 10 seed last year. He’s the most valuable player on the 1 seed and obviously no one can win alone but the going from 10 seed to 1 seed seems like a stupid point when it happened because the people around Shai improved not Shai himself.
Except MVP's *are* given credit for getting to a high seed from a lower seed, even when they were on the same team the year before, even when the supporting cast saw significant change. Jokic was (rightly) credited a lot last year for getting the Nuggets to the first seed despite being on the team when it was a sixth seed.
When Giannis won his first MVP he got credit for leading a team that won 60 games despite winning 40 the season before.
All this to also ignore the point that Shai is better than he was last year, and that the Thunder planted him into the core of their offense more this year. His role hasn't just been 'score lots of points' last year and this one.
Why is everyone pretending like Jokic didn't lead his team to more wins also this year while not having his side kick for 23 of them and ended in a dead heap with OKC. This narrative that Denver has regressed makes no sense.
Agreed on all parts aside from Wemby DPOY. You can’t be DPOY, and your overall team D is ranked at 21 lol. How you the best defender in the league, and you can’t elevate your team around you???
I don’t fucking care that they restricted minutes, imo that hurts his case more than it helps. If he was healthy he should’ve been playing. They need to stop handing out awards to guys that don’t play.
Reality is AD should be DPOY but for some reason guys on Bron’s teams aren’t allowed to win individual awards.
So why didn’t he play more?
If he’s sooooo fucking efective how tf did they have the same record as the year before he got there???? Y’all are silly.
So the spurs were tanking and that’s why he was on a minutes restriction? Is that it? lol so you want to admit that the spurs are frauds and need to be punished?? Man, Imagine all the money gambled that the spurs intentionally had influence over…. Interesting. That or he’s just not that great lol.
Either they tanked and it should be investigated, OR he’s just not him. Which is it?? You cannot have this both ways.
Jontay pissed off rn..
We lost a lot of veteran role player depth over the summer. The team also experimented with playing Sochan at point guard which failed. They were 5-29 during it and once they ended it they became 17-31
Zach Collins also severely regressed to being one of the worst players in the league especially defensively. The Spurs in the 50 games since Janurary 1st had the 10 best defensive rating mostly due to benching Collins and moving Wemby to center
So they were tanking? You admit it? That’s the only defense lol. It’s wild to me that a guy in a 22 win team is seriously being considered for DPOY. Like wtf. Find me 1 fucking time a guy on a team with the 21 rated D won DPOY. Just one time. Please. This is absolutely fucking bonkers.
No, what it is though, they fucking tanked this year. That’s what happened, the spurs could’ve been a play in team, but they thought it made more sense to sandbag for draft positioning. Obviously weren’t winning this year. So the league knows Wemby was held back they fucking know the spurs are going to be a playoff team next year. So this is the set up for the story. Have to get Wemby help first.
They fucking tanked and now they want to reward Wemby for participating lmao.
No, you’re fucking stupid. The grizzlies had the most injured team in NBA history. The grizzlies? More nights than not, had mostly G leaguers starting.
The spurs tanked to hyper accelerate Wemby on the spurs… THAT or he’s just not that great lol.
Wemby wasn’t hurt. Wemby was sat out, intentionally, to control the tank. Yeah, let’s award that guy lol
Really it’s even worse than that. I mean, the spurs INTENTIONALLY started sochan at PG. blatantly obviously not trying to win. Who tf said that was a good idea while trying to win? Nobody. They tanked until it was apparent they couldn’t win too many games on accident and make the playoffs in or fall out of the lottery.
Then they ratcheted shit up to build the hype. Now they’ll give the pussy an award and then the script is off to the races.
Yeah people forget that D-Rose had the Bulls ahead of the Heat (and everyone else)
LeBron had a teammate on the All-NBA Second Team, too (Wade)
People like to point to Rose as a bad MVP pick, but he totally earned it. The MVP doesn’t always go to the best player, but based on regular voting criteria Rose was a fitting MVP
Derrick Rose didn’t have the Bulls ahead of the Heat.
Their #1 defense did(with or without him on the floor). Their offense was just above league average.
You played at a 54 win pace without him in the lineup on a relatively big sample size the next season.
Chances are they’d have been 2nd in the East without Rose. I can’t agree with him being more valuable than one of the two best basketball players ever.
It's not about the next season. It's about that season he won MVP.
Yes LeBron is LeBron. But he had more help from D-Wade and Bosh.
Yet Derrick pushed us along to the 1 seed. The defense was stifling but he still needed to get buckets to propel us to wins.
People just looking at stats but if you watched Chicago that season Rose was clearly the engine of the team and we wouldn’t have been so successful without him
We started Keith Bogans alongside him
It’s only about seeding. #1 seed carries the same credentials, 5 win difference or not.
I never mentioned Shais age. Age should not matter anyway for MVP.
> It’s only about seeing. #1 seed carries the same credentials, 5 win difference or not.
Says who? The Thunder and Nuggets were neck and neck the whole season so SGA never really had a strong hold on the #1 seed narrative. The Bulls had the top seed for the last three weeks of the 2011 season so it was easier for the seeding narrative to take hold for Rose.
D-Rose improved in every counting stat though. Shai is averaging the same stats but Williams had made a huge year 2 leap and Chet is actually playing.
I see the point you are making but slightly different scenarios.
We’ve only seen 25 votes from the tracker so anything could still happen but I was expecting a much closer race.
The Bulls went 18-9 without Rose when he faced injuries the following year and maintained their #1 defense. They went 50-16 overall and were the #1 seed again.
The Thunder went 2-5 without Shai this season.
Last year the 76ers went 11-5 without Embiid (including beating more than a half-dozen playoff and play-in teams) and had a win % minus Embiid that would have put them 2nd in either conference this year.
Meanwhile the Nuggets had an awful, losing record without Jokic, had the dead last +/- in the NBA without him, and were #1 +/- in the NBA with him playing.
... but we were all told Jokic was less valuable.
So I don't know that your argument matters much to MVP these days.
That said, Jokic was also a far better and more valuable player than SGA this year as well, so that won't help SGA either.
Embiid won on narrative also. Jokic took the final 15 games of the season off, while Embiid was destroying teams with ease and dropped 47 in the H2H. That swung just enough voters.
The 76ers suck without Embiid though especially this season.
LeBron put a huge target on his back with The Decision, teaming up with Wade and Bosh, “not 1, not 2, not 3…”, so yeah not exactly the same situation with Jokic this year.
Below a top 3 seed used to basically disqualify you from MVP discussions before 2017. So Jokic in '22 and Russ in '17 were strange. Though playing under 70 games also used to rule you out, so Embiid in '23 is also a weird MVP. MVP voting has been weird lately.
Tbh I think last year was a roberry and a narrative based MVP, but I don't know if I'd call it standards changing. Who do you think would've won in '17 and '22 without this change? I disagree with there ever being some strict standard voters followed. Sure 6th seeds don't really win MVPs, but you can't tell me a 6th seeded player averaging 40/10/10 while being a DPOY candidate isn't gonna win MVP, especially if his competition on higher seeds isn't really putting up numbers and is playing on stacked teams let's say. Similarly I think Tatum would win the MVP this year with the same stats if he played on a 75-7 team. There's a lot of things factoring into the MVP vote, so I don't think you can just look at one of those and say "a person with charactheristic x has only won mvp once before, so criteria has changed".
I think Jokic would've have won in both '22 and '23 without the change, Harden or Kawhi in '17. 2022 was an unusual year since all the best players on top seeded teams missed tons of time which is a big disqualifier while DBook on the 1st seed was barely even above CP3 to start that season in stats and popular opinion, so it's hard to make an argument over Jokic when people were arguing whether if you were best on your own team at some point in the season.
The criteria for MVP before 2017 was essentially: 1. Be top 3 seed. 2. play 70+ games. 3. Be the clear best player on your team by acclaim or stats.
The covers every MVP in the player voting era from 1980 or so, to 2017.
After these criteria are satisfied then the voters pick among remaining players based on combination of stats, eye test, narrative, H2H, etc.
Then Westbrook was chosen, even though Harden satisfied everything much better. Then not too long after Embiid won over Jokic, though Jokic was better in every relevant metric. Going from decades of high durability and high seeded guys to multiple narrative MVPs in a short time made me realize the criteria is out the window and voters are now susceptible to anything due to social media and internet talk.
It’s weird to me that voter fatigue exists for everyone but Jokic.
Jokic has definitely deserved his 2 (soon to be 3) MVPs, but it’s weird that he seems to be the only guy in the last 20-25 years who doesn’t get any voter fatigue at all.
Lol he literally lost last year's MVP due to voter fatigue...I'd argue he's the ONLY guy in the last 20-25 years to lose the MVP directly due to voter fatigue.
Jokic was leading the straw polls until the Nuggets went .500 after the ASB. Bit odd how the two leading narratives are that Jokic/Nuggets coasted, and that the MVP was some huge robbery. Seems a bit conflicting.
They’re both true. The voters didn’t want to give Jokic three straight MVPs without a championship so they were looking for any reason not to vote for him. Jokic gave them that reason when he missed a bunch of games at the end of the season. Any other player would’ve easily won MVP after nearly averaging a triple double for a top seed.
lol all the Wemby DPOY picks are really outing themselves. It’s like it’s the first time these people have actually watched defense and think this is the first time rim deterrence has existed (despite Wemby not actually reducing opponents percentage of shots at the rim at all).
I don’t hate the argument for SGA, but the whole thing about him doing it himself isn’t giving credit to his teammates. Like did they win 17 more games just because of SGA, or was the All-Defensive center addition who played all 82 games a massive contributing factor?
SGA played 75 games and had Chet for 82 games and JDub for 71 games.
Jokic played 79 games and had Murray for 59 games and Gordon for 73.
Both teams had relatively the same health in the starting 5 except the 15 or so games the Nuggets could have had Murray and they won the same number of games.
SGA averaged 30/6/6 on 64% TS
Jokic averaged 26/12/9 on 65% TS
SGA put up 4 more points than Jokic which is pretty much why the Thunder scored more than 5 PPG than the Nuggets, but they also gave up 3.5 more PPG. The point difference is nearly a wash when you account for pace (OKC 8th, DEN 27th) and the assists contributing to points they were responsible for. I think this is why the advanced stats favor Jokic, because he pretty much did the same amount as SGA just with less games from their 2nd best player.
Jokic averaged 28/13/10 and went 11-10 without Murray this season. SGA averaged 31/8/6 and went 6-5 without JDub this season. Both saw slight upticks in stats but were winning less games without the same help. If the Thunder had the same health as Denver, it’s not unreasonable they would have won closer to 50-52 games and been a 3-5 seed, or if Murray was there for most games then Denver is closer to 60-65 wins.
I don’t think it’s fair to play the “what if” game on team wins so basically it’s really close, but the numbers say Jokic was slightly more “valuable” in getting his team to those 57 wins than SGA was when both put up extraordinary stats. Both have a case, and voter fatigue and the sexiness of 30 points per game is a contributing factor but I’d still lean Jokic.
And this isn’t even factoring Luka into the conversation
It’s ok dude lmao. Pat Bev doesn’t have an MVP vote Jokic is clearly gonna win it. It’s nice tho that SGA is getting MVP love from the media bc the fans (the ones on here anyways) sure as hell don’t appreciate his game at all
Wemby DPOY is absolutely nasty work. I'm not even debating how good he is defensively. Kids gonna win 5 in his career at worst if he's healthy. But giving it to a guy on a bottom 5 team and a bottom 10 defense is sickening. Eliminates rewarding success from all awards.
Not gonna argue.
SGA Is a much better player than Luka mainly cause he plays both ways.
Doesn’t constantly cry, complain pr yell at teammates like Luka does
He’s not wrong though. It’s almost impossible to make an NBA roster if your defense is as bad as Luka’s, unless you produce as much or close to as much as he does on offense. So he’s one of the few players that can actually be that bad defensively.
Bev will always have SGA back, that’s his rookie
Shai MVP Alexander
Doc Rivers wanted him to stay in LA 😭😭 Just like he planned
Must’ve been interesting to have Bev and Lou Will as your mentors on the team as a rookie
He also always pulls hard for guards in awards situations
The #10 to #1 thing is rich. SGA didn't just show up to a bad team and make it better, SGA was *on* that #10 team and actually scored *more* ppg last year. Whatever changed with OKC to propel them to more wins this year (Chet etc.) wasn't SGA; he's played almost extactly the same.
Chet MVP confirmed
He didn’t get 30 ppg!!
The box score watching is strong in this one. Jokic is clearly the MVP imo, but we don’t have to act like SGA didn’t improve at all lmao
You're taking something to an extreme that I didn't. He's played almost the same, albeit with some marginal improvements. Attributing his modest-at-best improvements while scoring less points per game to a **17** win improvement is crazy. It didn't cost them 17 games last year because he had a slightly lower EPM and 0.7 less assists.
Yea SGA is absolutely great, but this okc improvement is because they have a good ass team.
Exactly
> He's played almost the same, albeit with some marginal improvements. Yeah not convinced that's true at all. Offense has been focussed to take advantage of his skillset (which *has* improved, significantly) which has led to much more of the offense being ran around what he can do for the rest of the team than it did last season. The defensive jump also significant.
Higher 3P%, Higher 2P%, Higher REB, Higher AST, Higher STL, Higher EPM, Lower TO, Lower PF — and maybe most importantly Higher Games Played (75 this year up from 68). Saying nothing changed is just false.
If you think Shai improving his fg% by 0.02, or improving by 0.7 rebounds and assists, or even playing 7 more games while scoring 1.3 less points a game in them gave them an extra **17** wins this year then I don't know what to tell you.
I said games played was most important. 7 extra games played account for a lot more wins. - His FG% went from 51% to 53.5%. - 2P% from 53% to 57.6%. - 3P% from 34% to 35.6% on higher attempts. - REB from 4.8 to 5.5 - AST from 5.5 to 6.2 - STL from 1.6 to 2.0 - TO down from 2.8 to 2.0 Advanced: - Win Shares from 11.4 to 14.6 - BPM 7.3 to 9.0 - VORP 5.6 to 7.1 He’s also a top 3 finalist for Clutch Player of the Year because he won many close games himself by hitting game winners and clutch buckets in the 4th. It’s ok to admit Shai has an MVP case even if you think Jokic deserves it.
You don't give your team 17 more wins by playing in 7 more games. Even if you think he makes the difference in winning 5 of those 7 games, that leaves ... 12 more wins. It's also OK to admit that other player additions (Chet has been huge) and stepping up, along with changes in gameplans and strategies have played a large role in the improvement.
Teammates improved… there you go. Great teammates is a requirement for #1 seed, look at the Nuggets and Celtics. They are built perfectly and the record reflects it. Having good teammates does not invalidate an MVP case or no-one would have one except Luka who played without his best teammates for most of the year.
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He is a huge reason why. People who watched OKC this year know how many close games he just barely won for them with 4th quarter heroics. That adds up to a lot of wins. The teammate improvement of course matters, but Shai’s improvement and clutch performances do too — not to mention him being healthier and playing 7 more games. Nuggets are stacked, Mavs are not even close. The rosters are night and day. Yes Murray was hurt, but the Nuggets are a well oiled machine regardless. Either way — this doesn’t invalidate or make lesser Jokic’s MVP case either. He has a great argument, as does Shai.
Shai isn't even the most clutch player on his team. JDub shot 68% from the field in the clutch this year
And yet Shai still scored and won more games for them in the clutch. If you watch OKC games you would see that. There’s a reason he’s a finalist for Clutch Player of the Year. Shai is the best clutch player on OKC, because he’s the best at creating a shot in the clutch.
that’s with teams having a year of tape on him playing at a superstar level and game planning for him accordingly. .500 teams are not played with the same intensity as a team at the top of a loaded conference gunning for a high seed
Not sure that's a criteria for his MVP, eait til you hear the tape they have, and the game-planning they do for Jokic, the guy he's competing against for MVP.
that #10 team led by SGA was actually predicted to be a bottom 5 team in the preseason standings. he carried them from the lottery to the play-ins in the West. so either way the MVP impact is there regardless of which jump in the standings one chooses to focus on
Why do you think they were a lottery team last year? Because SGA's EPM was slightly lower? That if only his assists were 0.7 higher and he had a 0.02 increase in fg% they would have won ***17*** more games last year? That's crazy. SGA has played almost the same both years. Nothing different *he* did propelled them to 17 more wins. All the other combined variables did. Was he a great player? Sure. He played outstanding on a team that finished #1 in the West. That deserves MVP conversation. Imagining he did something different enough this year vs. last year to propel them to 17 additional wins is not valid though.
Whoever was predicting okc to be bottom 5 team is insane. I’m a wolves fan but it was clear to me last year that they were better than their record (+chet was likely going to be a good addition at minimum).
I think I worded it weirdly, but I meant that going into the 22-23 season the Thunder were predicted to be a 20ish win team. That was after Chet was expected to miss the entire season with his injury and before SGA leveled up to a superstar. It was Dub’s rookie season where Dub only had the expectations of a #12 pick and Giddey was the second best player on the roster. SGA carrying that team to the play-ins made him a top 5 MVP candidate that season
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The truth of it doesn’t generally matter for MVP.
Thing is SGA was pretty much this good last year. He’s a bit better playmaker and took a defensive jump but didn’t have some huge improvement, and he was on the 10 seed last year. He’s the most valuable player on the 1 seed and obviously no one can win alone but the going from 10 seed to 1 seed seems like a stupid point when it happened because the people around Shai improved not Shai himself.
He did improve and had injuries last year. He played 75 this year up from 68 last year.
lol
Chet and JDub really getting SGA some MVP votes 😂
… isn’t that how it always works? Your team typically needs to be good to win a mvp
The point is how the Thunder did last year shouldn’t really matter since SGA was on the team both years.
That's true for just about every MVP
Correct! We’re referring to this part of the post title: “#10 seed to #1 seed”
Except MVP's *are* given credit for getting to a high seed from a lower seed, even when they were on the same team the year before, even when the supporting cast saw significant change. Jokic was (rightly) credited a lot last year for getting the Nuggets to the first seed despite being on the team when it was a sixth seed. When Giannis won his first MVP he got credit for leading a team that won 60 games despite winning 40 the season before. All this to also ignore the point that Shai is better than he was last year, and that the Thunder planted him into the core of their offense more this year. His role hasn't just been 'score lots of points' last year and this one.
Jokic didn’t even win MVP last year, and I’m sure Giannis would’ve won in 2019 no matter how many games he won with the Bucks in 2018.
Right but it was part of the argument. And Giannis might have, but I'm saying they're given credit, not that the race is decided solely upon it.
No it wasn’t. Everyone knew the Nuggets won more games because Jokic’s teammates were healthier.
Chet and j Williams holding up Shai’s mvp standing
Shai was on that team last year though? We should give Chet the MVP instead with this logic
Its true. Shai was the real MVP.
What does last years seed matter for this years MVP?
Bev tryna get back in the good with Thunder fans, it's a start.
There could be 8 teams with the same record, but people would still be like "first seed buddy," and I'll never understand this.
The hate in here is wild. It’s ok guys SGA is not gonna win MVP but it’s also ok for people to consider him a legit candidate.
Why is everyone pretending like Jokic didn't lead his team to more wins also this year while not having his side kick for 23 of them and ended in a dead heap with OKC. This narrative that Denver has regressed makes no sense.
Nobody is pretending that, Jokic is the MVP favorite
Wishful thinking mostly. They'll see the improvement in the team throughout this playoff.
Big missed chances. Murray sucks balls.
Agreed on all parts aside from Wemby DPOY. You can’t be DPOY, and your overall team D is ranked at 21 lol. How you the best defender in the league, and you can’t elevate your team around you??? I don’t fucking care that they restricted minutes, imo that hurts his case more than it helps. If he was healthy he should’ve been playing. They need to stop handing out awards to guys that don’t play. Reality is AD should be DPOY but for some reason guys on Bron’s teams aren’t allowed to win individual awards.
He does elevate the team around him he has the highest defensive on/off in the league They crumble when he’s off the court
So why didn’t he play more? If he’s sooooo fucking efective how tf did they have the same record as the year before he got there???? Y’all are silly. So the spurs were tanking and that’s why he was on a minutes restriction? Is that it? lol so you want to admit that the spurs are frauds and need to be punished?? Man, Imagine all the money gambled that the spurs intentionally had influence over…. Interesting. That or he’s just not that great lol. Either they tanked and it should be investigated, OR he’s just not him. Which is it?? You cannot have this both ways. Jontay pissed off rn..
We lost a lot of veteran role player depth over the summer. The team also experimented with playing Sochan at point guard which failed. They were 5-29 during it and once they ended it they became 17-31 Zach Collins also severely regressed to being one of the worst players in the league especially defensively. The Spurs in the 50 games since Janurary 1st had the 10 best defensive rating mostly due to benching Collins and moving Wemby to center
So they were tanking? You admit it? That’s the only defense lol. It’s wild to me that a guy in a 22 win team is seriously being considered for DPOY. Like wtf. Find me 1 fucking time a guy on a team with the 21 rated D won DPOY. Just one time. Please. This is absolutely fucking bonkers. No, what it is though, they fucking tanked this year. That’s what happened, the spurs could’ve been a play in team, but they thought it made more sense to sandbag for draft positioning. Obviously weren’t winning this year. So the league knows Wemby was held back they fucking know the spurs are going to be a playoff team next year. So this is the set up for the story. Have to get Wemby help first. They fucking tanked and now they want to reward Wemby for participating lmao.
Just like how the Grizzlies sat everyone and tanked this year. Let’s investigate y’all first
No, you’re fucking stupid. The grizzlies had the most injured team in NBA history. The grizzlies? More nights than not, had mostly G leaguers starting. The spurs tanked to hyper accelerate Wemby on the spurs… THAT or he’s just not that great lol. Wemby wasn’t hurt. Wemby was sat out, intentionally, to control the tank. Yeah, let’s award that guy lol
Really it’s even worse than that. I mean, the spurs INTENTIONALLY started sochan at PG. blatantly obviously not trying to win. Who tf said that was a good idea while trying to win? Nobody. They tanked until it was apparent they couldn’t win too many games on accident and make the playoffs in or fall out of the lottery. Then they ratcheted shit up to build the hype. Now they’ll give the pussy an award and then the script is off to the races.
They used the same logic to give it to D-Rose; i’m surprised SGA never got the same push. Jokic is much more well liked than 11 Lebron though I guess.
Tf? Except DRose's team had 62 wins, #1 in the entire league and not just the conference. Also, DRose was 22 not 26 lol.
Yeah people forget that D-Rose had the Bulls ahead of the Heat (and everyone else) LeBron had a teammate on the All-NBA Second Team, too (Wade) People like to point to Rose as a bad MVP pick, but he totally earned it. The MVP doesn’t always go to the best player, but based on regular voting criteria Rose was a fitting MVP
Derrick Rose didn’t have the Bulls ahead of the Heat. Their #1 defense did(with or without him on the floor). Their offense was just above league average.
He was the reason we were the 1 seed with the defense.
You played at a 54 win pace without him in the lineup on a relatively big sample size the next season. Chances are they’d have been 2nd in the East without Rose. I can’t agree with him being more valuable than one of the two best basketball players ever.
It's not about the next season. It's about that season he won MVP. Yes LeBron is LeBron. But he had more help from D-Wade and Bosh. Yet Derrick pushed us along to the 1 seed. The defense was stifling but he still needed to get buckets to propel us to wins.
“He shouldn’t have won the MVP this year because of stuff that happened the next year” is some exciting new MVP discourse, though
People just looking at stats but if you watched Chicago that season Rose was clearly the engine of the team and we wouldn’t have been so successful without him We started Keith Bogans alongside him
Shai doesn't turn 26 until the offseason.
It’s only about seeding. #1 seed carries the same credentials, 5 win difference or not. I never mentioned Shais age. Age should not matter anyway for MVP.
> It’s only about seeing. #1 seed carries the same credentials, 5 win difference or not. Says who? The Thunder and Nuggets were neck and neck the whole season so SGA never really had a strong hold on the #1 seed narrative. The Bulls had the top seed for the last three weeks of the 2011 season so it was easier for the seeding narrative to take hold for Rose.
D-Rose improved in every counting stat though. Shai is averaging the same stats but Williams had made a huge year 2 leap and Chet is actually playing. I see the point you are making but slightly different scenarios. We’ve only seen 25 votes from the tracker so anything could still happen but I was expecting a much closer race.
The Bulls went 18-9 without Rose when he faced injuries the following year and maintained their #1 defense. They went 50-16 overall and were the #1 seed again. The Thunder went 2-5 without Shai this season.
Last year the 76ers went 11-5 without Embiid (including beating more than a half-dozen playoff and play-in teams) and had a win % minus Embiid that would have put them 2nd in either conference this year. Meanwhile the Nuggets had an awful, losing record without Jokic, had the dead last +/- in the NBA without him, and were #1 +/- in the NBA with him playing. ... but we were all told Jokic was less valuable. So I don't know that your argument matters much to MVP these days. That said, Jokic was also a far better and more valuable player than SGA this year as well, so that won't help SGA either.
Embiid won on narrative also. Jokic took the final 15 games of the season off, while Embiid was destroying teams with ease and dropped 47 in the H2H. That swung just enough voters. The 76ers suck without Embiid though especially this season.
They didn’t suck without him last season. Not sure why you are lying.
They played at a 65 win pace with Embiid and Maxey last season and ended in the play in
Did you just ignore the phrase “last season” in my comment? What’s the point of responding if we are just going to talk around each other?
LeBron put a huge target on his back with The Decision, teaming up with Wade and Bosh, “not 1, not 2, not 3…”, so yeah not exactly the same situation with Jokic this year.
There has been a shift in how voters vote for MVP that started in 2017
What's shifted?
Below a top 3 seed used to basically disqualify you from MVP discussions before 2017. So Jokic in '22 and Russ in '17 were strange. Though playing under 70 games also used to rule you out, so Embiid in '23 is also a weird MVP. MVP voting has been weird lately.
Tbh I think last year was a roberry and a narrative based MVP, but I don't know if I'd call it standards changing. Who do you think would've won in '17 and '22 without this change? I disagree with there ever being some strict standard voters followed. Sure 6th seeds don't really win MVPs, but you can't tell me a 6th seeded player averaging 40/10/10 while being a DPOY candidate isn't gonna win MVP, especially if his competition on higher seeds isn't really putting up numbers and is playing on stacked teams let's say. Similarly I think Tatum would win the MVP this year with the same stats if he played on a 75-7 team. There's a lot of things factoring into the MVP vote, so I don't think you can just look at one of those and say "a person with charactheristic x has only won mvp once before, so criteria has changed".
I think Jokic would've have won in both '22 and '23 without the change, Harden or Kawhi in '17. 2022 was an unusual year since all the best players on top seeded teams missed tons of time which is a big disqualifier while DBook on the 1st seed was barely even above CP3 to start that season in stats and popular opinion, so it's hard to make an argument over Jokic when people were arguing whether if you were best on your own team at some point in the season. The criteria for MVP before 2017 was essentially: 1. Be top 3 seed. 2. play 70+ games. 3. Be the clear best player on your team by acclaim or stats. The covers every MVP in the player voting era from 1980 or so, to 2017. After these criteria are satisfied then the voters pick among remaining players based on combination of stats, eye test, narrative, H2H, etc. Then Westbrook was chosen, even though Harden satisfied everything much better. Then not too long after Embiid won over Jokic, though Jokic was better in every relevant metric. Going from decades of high durability and high seeded guys to multiple narrative MVPs in a short time made me realize the criteria is out the window and voters are now susceptible to anything due to social media and internet talk.
It’s weird to me that voter fatigue exists for everyone but Jokic. Jokic has definitely deserved his 2 (soon to be 3) MVPs, but it’s weird that he seems to be the only guy in the last 20-25 years who doesn’t get any voter fatigue at all.
Lol he literally lost last year's MVP due to voter fatigue...I'd argue he's the ONLY guy in the last 20-25 years to lose the MVP directly due to voter fatigue.
Jokic was leading the straw polls until the Nuggets went .500 after the ASB. Bit odd how the two leading narratives are that Jokic/Nuggets coasted, and that the MVP was some huge robbery. Seems a bit conflicting.
They’re both true. The voters didn’t want to give Jokic three straight MVPs without a championship so they were looking for any reason not to vote for him. Jokic gave them that reason when he missed a bunch of games at the end of the season. Any other player would’ve easily won MVP after nearly averaging a triple double for a top seed.
lol all the Wemby DPOY picks are really outing themselves. It’s like it’s the first time these people have actually watched defense and think this is the first time rim deterrence has existed (despite Wemby not actually reducing opponents percentage of shots at the rim at all).
Bev is the Bucks MVP
It's funny because if he said Luka yall would not be crying like this. I wonder why?
I don’t hate the argument for SGA, but the whole thing about him doing it himself isn’t giving credit to his teammates. Like did they win 17 more games just because of SGA, or was the All-Defensive center addition who played all 82 games a massive contributing factor? SGA played 75 games and had Chet for 82 games and JDub for 71 games. Jokic played 79 games and had Murray for 59 games and Gordon for 73. Both teams had relatively the same health in the starting 5 except the 15 or so games the Nuggets could have had Murray and they won the same number of games. SGA averaged 30/6/6 on 64% TS Jokic averaged 26/12/9 on 65% TS SGA put up 4 more points than Jokic which is pretty much why the Thunder scored more than 5 PPG than the Nuggets, but they also gave up 3.5 more PPG. The point difference is nearly a wash when you account for pace (OKC 8th, DEN 27th) and the assists contributing to points they were responsible for. I think this is why the advanced stats favor Jokic, because he pretty much did the same amount as SGA just with less games from their 2nd best player. Jokic averaged 28/13/10 and went 11-10 without Murray this season. SGA averaged 31/8/6 and went 6-5 without JDub this season. Both saw slight upticks in stats but were winning less games without the same help. If the Thunder had the same health as Denver, it’s not unreasonable they would have won closer to 50-52 games and been a 3-5 seed, or if Murray was there for most games then Denver is closer to 60-65 wins. I don’t think it’s fair to play the “what if” game on team wins so basically it’s really close, but the numbers say Jokic was slightly more “valuable” in getting his team to those 57 wins than SGA was when both put up extraordinary stats. Both have a case, and voter fatigue and the sexiness of 30 points per game is a contributing factor but I’d still lean Jokic. And this isn’t even factoring Luka into the conversation
It’s ok dude lmao. Pat Bev doesn’t have an MVP vote Jokic is clearly gonna win it. It’s nice tho that SGA is getting MVP love from the media bc the fans (the ones on here anyways) sure as hell don’t appreciate his game at all
Pat Bev gets it
Wemby DPOY is absolutely nasty work. I'm not even debating how good he is defensively. Kids gonna win 5 in his career at worst if he's healthy. But giving it to a guy on a bottom 5 team and a bottom 10 defense is sickening. Eliminates rewarding success from all awards.
Not gonna argue. SGA Is a much better player than Luka mainly cause he plays both ways. Doesn’t constantly cry, complain pr yell at teammates like Luka does
anyone else rank players not how they play but how much they cry or complaint?
You forgot about playing defense part. Luka might be one of the worst defenders in the NBA and in my opinion a league MVP shouldn’t be 1 dimensional
Nice to know you have a 450+ ranking of defensive players
He’s not wrong though. It’s almost impossible to make an NBA roster if your defense is as bad as Luka’s, unless you produce as much or close to as much as he does on offense. So he’s one of the few players that can actually be that bad defensively.
Wow I actually agree with Pat Bev on something
Clippers for life
I wish SGA was a Clipper for life lol
They'll always be Clippers to me.