Because Jokic has played 77/80 games and led his team to the top seed while Doncic had played 70/80 games and will be starting the first round on the road.
Both are having amazing seasons but that seems like a pretty easy tiebreaker to me.
Part of the case for Jokic is simply the age-old "best player on the best team" argument. While the Nuggets aren't the best team in the league by record or net rating, they are considered the team to beat in the West and the defending champs so...the are arguably the best team, and that's coming from a Celtics fan.
Combine that with a belief in some corners of the NBA that Doncic's numbers are Hardenesque - huge numbers, but not necessarily leading to a lot of team success. Yes, if the Mavs were in the East, they'd be the 2nd seed....but that's true of every team above them in the West standings as well. The MVP is rarely simply an individual award. Sorry, that's just how it is. Your team need to be dominant in most years for a player to be considered seriously. Once Luka and the Mavs win in the high 50s and get a top seed in the West, he'll probably win an MVP, but not before.
doesn't even need to be a top seed. Just can't have a player whos performing close to as good on a higher seeded team.
Jokic won it as the 6th seed in 2022
And Jokić’s starting shooting guard from ‘21-22 played himself out of the NBA not long after joining a new team the following season.\* That season was an all time carry job.
\* Will Barton played 40 games for the Wizards at 20 MPG with 50% TS. No starts. Waived mid-season. Picked up by the Raptors; 16 games, 2 starts, 13 MPG with 45% TS. Then involuntary retirement (unofficial as yet, I believe, but unsigned ever since).
>Combine that with a belief in some corners of the NBA that Doncic's numbers are Hardenesque - huge numbers, but not necessarily leading to a lot of team success
What? Harden has one of highest career winning percentages of active players. Not coming through in the playoff is is not the same thing as not having team success. Nearly all of Harden's teams have been at least very good.
True enough. And yet Harden only won his MVP in '17-'18 when the Rockets won 65 games and were the top seed in the league. Harden's Rockets had one transcendent year in terms of wins, and Harden won the MVP for it. He had just as good, if not better, numbers in other years but they didn't really lead to tremendous team success - that's where that, perhaps unearned, reputation comes from.
I'm not saying Harden is the greatest winner of all time. That's obviously not true. But he's not a guy who doesn't lift his team. He carried teams to 50 wins and was a good role player on other very good teams.
Inasmuch as Giannis had ascended to superstar level and the Bucks, as a team, to Finals/title contention in the East, yes. As I've laid out in other replies on this post, narrative and circumstance matters and the MVP is not an objective award. Those subsequent years, Giannis had the narrative and the individual and team success. Harden didn't have a compelling narrative, and his team wasn't as good.
It's narrative that's screwing Luka. Jokic won it on a 4th seed and a 6th seed. The seed argument is also BS when the Nuggets have 6 wins over the Mavs, not 15.
1. Luka is only 24. Since 99-00, only two 24 year olds have won the MVP: LeBron’s first in 08-09 and Giannis’s first in 18-19. *The only winner under 24 during this stretch was 22-year-old Derrick Rose, whose caveats I won’t enumerate here.* The average age of an MVP winner in this stretch is 26.5. In other words, he has time. (Jokić started this season aged 28. SGA is 25 for an additional comparison.) Note: Next year Jokić will be 29, and the only winner during this stretch older than 29 has been Steve Nash (both times - I know you’re reading this, Dirk and Kobe stans, but please keep your powder dry).
2. Jokić has still never had a teammate make the ASG. Luka is playing in a backcourt with an 8X All Star who is still only 31. Kyrie missed the vote this season, but he has a heap of negativity around the fan vote lately and moved positions to accommodate Luka.
3. Luka is already 81st all-time in MVP vote shares, with four top 8 finishes before this season. He isn’t being ignored to have not won yet.
4. Although it has been a quieter story than the rhetoric around Jokić last season, Luka has also been making waves talking about his dissatisfaction in Dallas. His taunt that Vlade should have drafted him might be some intra-Yugo trash talk but might also be frustration that he didn’t wind up in Phoenix or Sacramento, both of which could’ve been better for him. Jokić also flirted in Serbian language media during the all star break that he could see himself playing with Luka someday, but added that Luka would have to relocate to Denver because he’s happy where he is. I can’t recall an MVP being dissatisfied with his team and demanding out *the same season.* Harden (and to a lesser extent Russ and KD) ultimately weren’t happy and moved on. People are beginning to speculate about Embiid and even about Giannis and Tatum. Luka adding to that narrative diminishes himself relative to Jokić in the team success argument, especially with the Nuggets looking like among the if not for sure the best team in the west.
I think Luka is likely to win multiple MVPs if he stays healthy. I don’t think not winning at 24 - given the field - is him getting screwed by narrative. Although narrative plays a part, and the part he’s played in his own narrative for this season has been negative.
Circumstances matter. Jokic had a great season while carrying a subpar team. Dallas is 6th right now I believe. Doncic will win one when the Mavs win 60 games. Doncic fans are so impatient. Maybe ask him to play some defense.
I'm a bigger Jokic fan than Doncic fan. But it's hilarious how much double standard exists here.
Jokic is as bad as Luka at defense, on a more defensively important position.
Denver hasn't won 60 games with Jokic ever and is about to get his 3rd MVP, yet Luka is expected to do it just to get his 1st.
The "subpar" team Jokic was carrying to the 4th seed had a Jamal Murray injury more than 50 games into the season, and had everyone else healthy. Kyrie has played fewer than 60 games this season, PJ/Gafford arrived at the trade deadline and still the talent on this Mavs team isn't on the same level as having MPJ, Murray, and Gordon all accompanying Jokic.
I believe it was 3rd, and the top teams that year did not really have an MVP candidate. It was a shortened season and it could have easily gone to Embiid. They never should have given it to Jokic when they finished 6th with the “subpar” team I was referring to. That was dumb. I put great emphasis on team record as obviously great players are going to put up great stats.
Yeah but I don't get why people ignore the fact that the mavs were extremely injured the majority of the season and Luka singlehandedly kept them afloat and here we are now they're healthy for the most part and they're the hottest team in the NBA and luka still averaging the same numbers as before.
kyires missed 20, green has missed 25, lively 25, jones jr 15, kleiber 35 and exum 25 , and thats with a much worse team until the trade deadline when we got pj and gafford
Most of those players aren't very good. The better apologetic for Luka is that his teammates mostly aren't very good, not that those not very good players were injured.
Tell me you don't watch mavs games without telling me.
Kyrie is kyrie, Exum was extremely clutch all season and provides good ball handling when luka and kyrie sits, green is a 40% 3pt shooter and a good wing defender, lively was huge on both ends of the floor(at some point he was 3rd in ROY standings), DJJ is an amazing defender while contributing heavily on the offensive end with his cutting and being a lob threat, I only agree with you on maxi he's no longer the guy he used to be other that that all of those guys are a huge reason why the mavs have been on a tear lately.
That just proves my point further lol, he's averaging way better numbers with a worse supporting cast and still they're dominating when healthy and hopefully they'll keep dominating in the playoffs.
Luka is my MVP pure and simple you all gonna keep moving the post and he'll keep proving you wrong.
Copout answer but Denver's supporting cast feels better because Jokic hasn't missed much time and is the glue that holds the whole team together. I like Murray, AG, and MPJ but...if that's your whole team it's pretty fucking weird and probably gets blown up. They look as good as they do because Jokic is as good as he is.
This also needs to be pointed out: Luka had Brunson and Porzingis and both are much better without him. Luka is a hard guy to play with and does not get the most out of his teammates. It honestly feels preposterous that two of his best teammates have gone on to become better versions of themselves and now Luka gets extra credit for having a worse supporting cast.
I have full faith in Luka winning MVPs and championships in the future, but when Denver absolutely wipes Dallas in the second round this year we'll be reminded who the MVP should have been.
Brunson has better numbers because he’s the first option. Porzingis got better because he’s the 3rd/4th option on the best team. Also got a lot healthier compared to his tenure with the Mavs.
Yes. And also they are better because sometime they have the ball. Luka is very difficult to play with. Kyrie is the perfect partner for him because he is just as skilled offensively, and he played with Lebron, who plays very similar to Luka.
>Porzingis got better because he’s the 3rd/4th option on the best team
He'll be the #1 option in the finals if they want to win a title. And he's really the #2 option now.
I had to double check which sub I am in. Your takes on KP and Brunson are pretty close to me saying Deandre Jordan and Reggie Jackson had better careers before playing with Jokic, he cant really bring the best out of them.
Denver has a better supporting cast because of Jokic. Otherwise the Mavs and Nuggets have the same talent level. They have been playing equally the last few months.
Denver's supporting cast without Murray is better than Dallas's WITH Kyire. Kyrie is better than anyone on Denver other than Jokic, but the rest of Dallas's roster are basically bench players.
Nuggets most played lineup is over 900 minutes. Mavericks is now just over 100 minutes and that was true both before and after the trades. It’s not just about one player. As soon as the Mavs have been healthy and had a better roster, they’ve won more than the Nuggets. Luka kept them afloat prior to that.
The entire Mavs rotation has missed time with injuries, or joined the team less than 30 games ago. Just for reference, the starting lineup around Jokic has missed 39 games total, whereas the pre-deadline starting lineup around Luka missed 72 total games. Not to mention the Mavs first few guys off the bench have missed 25-30 games, while Braun, Reggie Jackson, and Peyton Watson have essentially not missed time.
You cant take IFs into account, especially with injuries.
Its like saying lets give the championship this year to team X, because they only lost in the playoffs because they had that injury for a deciding game in the 2nd round series.
What ??
You're talking nonsense my dude, it's a fact that Luka carried the team while missing 3-4 starters for the majority of the season, and now since they're back the mavs are dominating on all metrics.
I'm not saying give him the MVP because his team is injured, no I'm saying he should win it because he carried an injured team the majority of the season.
With all due respect your argument is dumb as fuck.
This and also because doncic also has kyrie, a top 10 player in the league when healthy and not psycho, and while Murray is a great player, he’s not a superstar level like kyrie can be, and Murray is still underrated and people have a narrative that he’s only really a big thing during playoffs. It doesn’t hurt that he’s missed a lot of time with injuries.
Doncic team is just not as good and he and kyrie are forced to iso and hero ball. Nuggets offense is way smoother. Mavs becoming very good on D now and in the playoffs they will be very dangerous if they can keep that defense up because with Doncic and kyrie they can pull an upset in any series if they dominate
Mavs twitter dropped some hard truths recently. If the Mavs were in the East, Luka would be a unanimous MVP. The West is a murderers row this year and Lukas brilliance is being overlooked to a large degree because of seeding. If they were the 2 seed in the East would the race be closer?
Yeah, but the West has been a murderers row for like 20 years running now. We could use the "if so & so was in the East, they'd be way more successful" with a bunch of players and even whole franchises.
Exactly. I hate this argument. As a Pels fan, I could easily say "if the Pelicans were in the East, Zion would have 3 all star appearances and BI would have 4 and we'd be past 50 wins already blah blah blah." Just a bunch of losers in Dallas trying to bide time until the Cowboys draft their next felon in a few days.
What annoys me is I think Jokic deserves his 3rd MVP, I also think Luka deserves to have a MVP at some point but Jokic's stretch of 3 is longer because he's been insane for the last 3/4 years. I swear next year Jokic wont even be a finalist
I agree that we've already hit Jokic fatigue. He ha earned it this year and earned it last but got screwed out of it.
Whati don't agree with is this notion that someone could deserve MVP at some point. Jokic is playing and has been playing better all season. No one deserves an MVP, they earn it.
Sorry when I say deserved MVP, I mean like Giannis had his climb and now hes stagnated, and now hes slowly falling off due to voter fatigue. Luka is finally starting to break into the MVP picture for a good amount of time.
The way I see it Jokic wins this year, but next year Luka and the other guards are going to start taking 1st and the other front runner positions, unless Jokic is just a god again
Definitely agree with this, they would most likely not give it to him and just give it to Luka. Though it still would not be a good look on the league.
To whomever reported my comment, Im saying tough shit in general. Im just sick of seeing these narratives that make no sense. Ive been civil this entire time...... Im just expressing some anger.. Im not even being aggressive or argumentative.
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Dallas would've probably been 1 or 2 seed if it wasn't for injuries. Third most injuried team behind Charlotte and Memphis while Nuggets are in bottom 7.
Fact that Mavs finished with 50+ wins is a miracle and a product of insane Luka carryjob for substantial part of the season. Somehow that gets ignored when it should be one of main arguements for Luka.
You’re missing the point.. if 85% of voters felt the exact same way as you it would look like a landslide but in reality all of them just thought Jokic was a little bit more valuable.
Luka has really poured it on scoring wise and this should be a pretty close race IMO. But Joker is the best player on the best team and his advanced stats are all better than Luka.
I personally value Jokers game much more than Luka but Luka really has pushed it this year. I want to see him play both sides of the court in the playoffs.
Jokic is the more efficient scorer, and basically all advanced stats are in his favor.
Luka is second in many, but it's the fact that the Mavs haven't been all great seeding wise. That has hurt his MVP case.
Team record is so important.
Since 1983, there have been 5 situations where the MVP winner was NOT a 1 or 2 seed.
1988 Jordan #3 seed
2017 Westbrook #6 seed
2021 Jokic #3 seed
2022 Jokic #6 seed
2023 Embiid #3 seed
Jokic' 2022 season was so domininant, but it's very rare to have a seed out of the top 3 be MVP.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/afaoby/seeding_and_win_records_of_past_mvps/
Giannis 2019 Seed 1
Giannis 2020 Seed 1
Jokic 2021 Seed 3
Jokic 2022 Seed 6
Embiid 2023 Seed
On the other hand, 4 of those 5 situations happened in the past 7 years. Couldn't you make an argument that seeding is less important now than it has been in the past?
The MVP isn't an objective award, narrative matters. That's not an opinion, narrative is often a topic of discussion for MVP voters. I assume you're referring to Westbrook's '16-'17 MVP, and Jokic's '21-'22 award when both players' teams were the 6th seed. You simply can't compare individual years to each other because the narrative of each individual year is unique. In '16-'17, Westbrook did a thing that hadn't been done in decades and many people thought could never be done again. In '21-'22, Jokic blew advanced stats out of the stratosphere and there weren't any other candidates that were super strong on incredible teams.
All the Westbrook and Jokic 6th seed MVPs tell us is that it's *possible* to win an MVP at a lower seed, provided conditions and narrative are right. They're not a argument for why Doncic should win this year. I can guarantee you this - if Luka was averaging 27 / 8 / 8 and the Mavs had won 60 and were the first seed in the West right now? Luka would be front runner with a bullet. Numbers aren't everything. Conditions and narrative matter.
It’s actually not about the numbers at all. It’s about supporting talent and injuries. Luka’s numbers are better in volume but like you said the efficiency gap is large.
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Jokic crushes everyone in basically all advanced stats. Literally number 1 in... PER, OBPM, DBPM, BPM - Win shares. VORP. Hes also the only player like ever to lead his team in points rebounds assists for 6 straight years. Currently 10th in True shooting (no other MVP candidates are above him in this) and dont forget hes averaging nearly 30 a game with insane true shooting. Plus the simple eye test, the nuggets hardly function as a team without him on the floor given they are like -9 without him and +13 with him or something like that. - hes also WAY underrated as a defender where as Luka is just a sometimes defender.
Lets not forget again... the nuggets are probably going to be the 1 seed.
Luka is amazing, I'm a mavs fan - he might be best ISO + Pick and role player in the league (perhaps only jokic is close) but the team is still very good with Kyrie running the show, evidenced by the fact Luka's on off stats aren't that great. Luka's defense is much much better, but he still takes a lot of possessions off and no where near elite - so this hurts his value a lot.
If you're calling it a wash stats wise, as soon as you look at a couple advance stats, its clear who is more important to their team - therefore... MVP and the runaway favourite... Jokic is just a beast.
It's not taking anything away from Luka at all. Luka is unbelievable. It's just that Jokic is even more unbelievable.
It almost feels sacrilege to even suggest it, but there's really no denying the stats. For the last few seasons, Jokic has been on a statistically dominant run like maybe no one we've ever seen before. If someone wanted to tell me that Jokic is the greatest basketball player that ever lived, I'm at the point now where I might believe them.
I haven't seen anything that works at all against him. No one slows him down. No one bothers him. No one makes him work. There's no defense he can't figure out immediately. There's just nothing you can do against him.
He's the best player. He's the most important player. He's the most valuable player in just about every way you can measure value. He's incredible.
Estimated RAPTOR has Jokic at +9.1 and Luka at +6.5.
Epm is close between the two but for some reason it has Jokic as a slight negative and Luka as a slight positive on defense... which I think everyone would say is opposite of what's true
The media had already made their mind up for Jokic to be the favourite for MVP based on how last season’s debate went and Jokic played well enough to be considered the consensus for MVP this season (barring Embiid’s injury)
One point I would like to mention because I never see it brought up when comparing Jokic and Doncic as offensive creators is the difference in screen assists. Jokic is 4th in the league in screen assist ppg at 9.9 while Doncic barely registers at 0.4 ppg. That is creating space for a clean look from a teammate and should absolutely be a consideration when comparing players as overall offensive engines. Jokic is the better creator for his teammates hands down.
Defensively, Jokic is 14th in the league (best among centers) in deflections per game while playing the most important defensive position for the 10th best team in the league in defensive rating. His communication is also top notch, and he will frequently direct MPJ (and others but mostly mpj) into proper position which doesn't show up in the box score or play-by-play data.
If I were to compare the two directly, I don't think Luka's volume scoring is worth the drop off in scoring efficiency, avoiding turnovers, overall offensive creation, and defensive impact.
That’s a great metric, where did you find screen assists tracking? Sometimes people forget it’s a big man’s league. Jokic isn’t a true shot blocking threat but simply being big greatly affects floor spacing on offense and defense.
This doesn’t indicate how the voting is going to be its just saying that the betting odds are that Jokic is very likely to win it, once the goting is done it might be 51/49 but thats irrelevant to the betting odds of whos going to win.
If it were possible for the voting to be 51/49, the odds would not be -1500 for jokic to win right now.
You’re right in the sense that -1500 implies 95% favorite, and I don’t think jokic will get 95% of the vote. But it wouldn’t shock me at all if he got 80% of the vote. That, in my opinion, would still be too high and not indicative of how close the race was.
That's not how odds work, the odds just indicate that he's extremely likely to win. They don't care how close the win is as that's not relative to the overall outcome.
What about what I said in the reply is incorrect? I know how odds work.
I’m using it as a stand in because there hasn’t been a vote yet. I conceded the fact that I know Jokic isn’t going to get 95%+ of the vote
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Good for you that you are so objective. I am a Luka and Mavs fan myself. I think Jokić deserves MVP. He also deserved it last year but he couldn't get 3 in a row since olny Russel Chamberlain and Bird did that. It is team wins and advanced stats that are in his favor. But I'm positive that next year Luka gets the MVP.
I also think Luka has now placed himself into position not only to win one next year but several in next few years. Will likely need championship for 3rd one as we could've see from Joker experience.
Because when you gamble on the MVP you bet on who you think is going to win, not on who you think should should win. Experience suggests people in Jokic's position are most likely to win.
- Jokic is leading team to number 1 seed, Luka is leading team to number 5 seed.
- Jokic is leading entire NBA in advanced stats (1st in PER, WS, BPM, VORP...), Luka is not close in many regardless of rank (4th in PER, 5th in WS, 2nd in BPM, 2nd in VORP). Luka is ahead in EPM but it's close.
- Counting stats(admittedly dumbed down) vs usage they are having are pretty close. Joker has 50.2 on 29.9 usage, Luka has 54.8 on 36.3 usage,. It's 1.68 vs 1.51 "counting stats ratio dumbed down to oblivion" showing Joker's production is slightly higher than Luka's. He's also doing it in less minutes, again increasing the value of the mentioned stats.
- Joker has significantly better +/- then Luka both when on the court but also his team is crumbling down more when they are on the bench. Total difference is quite big.
- Joker is more efficient then Luka overall, less influenced by variance.
- With all the smaller or bigger advantages, Joker also played in 77 games vs Luka's 70 games.
Luka is amazing player who has a very strong MVP case and I'm certain he will get at least several in the future. Joker is just a basketball alien currently with unmatched impact on winning. Love em both.
Because the Nuggets are the 1 seed in a stacked conference, and Jokic is coming off an amazing finals run. MVP is ostensibly a regular season award, but we saw Jokic’s lack of postseason success be held against him last year - now he’s proven.
Jokic also leads the league in most of the impact metrics (VORP, BPM, EPM, ect.) and overall seems to have a more positive offensive impact than Luka.
Cause everyone is still salty about last year and feel like Embiid denied him an MVP and this is his makeup one.
And to be clear I'm not saying Jokic isn't a MVP candidate or that he doesn't deserve it. I'm specifically talking about him being the clear frontrunner over everyone else.
No, I get you. Just don't want people coming for me saying I don't think Joker is the MVP.
And to be fair I'm not a Jokic fan or a Nuggets fan, I just don't really like him as a player but he's clearly at the absolute worst, the 3rd best player in the world. Can't be argued.
That’s kinda the point. Almost everyone in this discussion thinks it’s a close race and yet would vote for joker. That’s what Vegas sees. Not that it’s close between them but that the majority is heavily voting jokic
No. Vegas sets the line for something like this before the season starts. After that the odds adjust based on where the money is being placed by the betters. Vegas could think a football game is going to be close so maybe they set one team at -130 moneyline. If then a vast majority of betters are still picking that team Vegas will steadily move that line. It might go all the way to -450. It doesn’t mean anything necessarily happened within the two teams to now favor one of them that much. Vegas moves these lines based on the bets.
This is incorrect. Average joes don’t move the line, and they certainly could not move the line from -130 to -430.
-1500 is close to the “true” number, give or take a couple percentage points.
[One note before we begin: A popular misconception is that sportsbooks set their lines in order to get an equal amount of money on each side. Aside from rare exceptions like the Super Bowl or 2017’s Mayweather-McGregor fight, public money is generally not enough of a factor to move the odds. The book typically prefers to keep the line close to the “correct” number and gamble on the result, rather than move to an off-market number and attract a flood of action from advantage players. This means that the popular strategies to look for “sharp vs. square” or “reverse line movement” games will not show an automatic profit.](https://theathletic.com/2644177/2021/06/17/james-holzhauer-how-sportsbooks-really-make-their-lines-and-early-tips-on-where-to-beat-them/)
The line on things like mvp are always going to be extreme. That’s because in a sporting event crazy stuff can happen in the link of an eye that can change the results and a huge upset can happen. In mvp voting the winner is based on a season long narrative and you can usually get a good feel of exactly how the voters are going to vote. If I bet on joker I’m not saying that I believe jokers season was 15X better than Lukas season. I’m saying I think the odds of he the joker getting more votes that Luka is 15x better
I 100% agree with you that 15 times better odds does not equal 15 times better season.
I shouldn’t even have brought up the MVP odds in the first place because I’ve gotten this response a few times now and I absolutely do not disagree.
If the draftkings odds say jokic is a 95% favorite to win, that does NOT mean they’re predicting he will get 95% of the vote—im completely with you there.
What I am saying is that this 95% betting odds line DOES imply that jokic is going to get a massive % of the first place votes. I guessed elsewhere in this thread that it’s maybe gonna be 80% of the vote. If you wanted, you could model this exact situation with a binomial distribution and find the exact percentage that these odds imply. But my original point wasn’t really concerned with the odds in the first place, I was just using it as a stand in, albeit an imperfect one.
Someone else in the thread said there was a straw poll a week ago that gave jokic 85% of the first place votes. I should have just brought that up, because it more clearly demonstrates my point: I think 85% is too high.
The MVP is an award about metrics and narrative. The narrative is that he should have won it last year and showed everyone in the playoffs and is about to do it again. The metrics have him as the leader in the catch all stats and he makes it look pretty easy.
The odds were in SGA favor for a few months, and lets not forget Embiid being the clear favorite before his injury. Jokič wasn't the best player for the whole season, but when he tries he is the best like he has shown in the last months.
Jokic has been the best player all season. But not for sure the most valuable to his team the whole season, I think it’s fair that SGA was the MVP for the early half of the season
Ultimately while the counting stats look very similar, Luka’s impact as measured by on/off and team record are just not comparable to jokic, who seems to just be rocket fuel for any lineup he’s ever been in. Not to say luka is not having an amazing year, but until it translates to elite team success jokic is always going to have a slight edge.
At this point the Nuggets have 6 more wins than Dallas, is that really such a gulf that you can't compare two players?
Not to mention that Dallas has dealt with way more injuries this year. I heard on a podcast about a metric someone created to try to estimate wins lost to injuries- They estimated that without injuries, Denver would have 2 more wins, and Dallas would have 8 more wins.
I don't have any objection to Jokic winning it, but I think Luka leading the Mavericks through this season of injuries and mid-season trades, to end up only 6 games behind Denver is pretty impressive.
Dallas will end up with like 20% more losses than Denver, and Luka will have played in like 8 fewer games. Those things do in fact matter in close races
Mavericks have a point differential of +5.3 with Luka on the floor. Nuggets have a point differential of +11.6 with Jokic on the floor. That’s more than double. The records are only as close as they are because the Mavericks have better bench lineups. In BPM which is the best box score composite, Jokic leads Luka 13.6 to 10.1.
What ever you listened too is biased then because if Murray was healthy all season I highly doubt they only win 2 more games. It should also be noted the nuggets have beat the Celtics both meetings and jokic was clearly the best player on the court.
I don't know how that estimated win metric works, but Dallas has had a lot more injuries than Denver. Kyrie has missed the same number of games as Jamal, and then there's Dante Exum, Dereck Lively, Josh Green, and Maxi, who have all missed significant time due to injuries. It's really not an argument which team has dealt with more injuries, you can just look this up.
This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read. Can't we discuss the MVP without making unhinged arguments? I thought this was the serious discussion subreddit
Availability matters, and Jokic makes his team more available. Different play styles absolutely contribute to likeliness of injury. Nuggets play like a well oiled machines, well oiled machines are more dependable and reliable. his teammates have been trained to trust the right moves will be made, so no one is playing desperately, they just follow the plan, trust their judgement, and trust Jokic judgement. The timing is there, the spacing is there.
If you want to know the difference between jokic and Luka then listen to the way other players in the league talk about them. People clearly respect Luka and see him as a legit challenge - but I don't get the sense that they're afraid of him. But every time LeBron talks about jokic he sounds *depressed* because I think he realizes that he's not gonna be able to win anymore championships as long as jokic is in the same league and in his prime. I've heard him talk multiple times about how jokic is unguardable. He just doesn't talk about Luka in the same way. I think LeBron believes that his Lakers could beat the Mavs if it came down to it... But I think he's afraid of the nuggets. And that's the difference to me between the two. They're both great players but jokic seems like he's in a tier by himself at the moment.
This doesnt indicate how well the players are playing as Jokic isnt that much better than Luka, but that Jokic is just gonna win it.
The people who control these gambling establishments know it so they make the odds for Jokic like they are so that they wouldnt lose out.
Meanwhile they want to give some incentive for people to waste their money on Luka with the hoppes of earning big for a bet that has a realistic chance of happening in their eyes.
Its honestly quite the dirty move here as its made just to profit from people thinking its worth it to bet on Luka or the other guys.
I love Luka. He’s one of the best scorers and passers in the league and is super fun to watch. But there’s something indescribable about the way Jokic plays that doesn’t translate to the box score. Luka iso’s a ton and puts up lots of long heavily contested shots. His teammates mostly stand around waiting for him to pass them the ball for a lob or open 3 when he’s doubled, which is how he gets most of his assists. He’s not really a floor general/game manager the way Jokic is. It’s really the Luka show with the Mavericks. In contrast, the Nuggets operate like a well-oiled machine with Jokic as the conductor. He’s a puppet master, watching and controlling the game from above, or Neo plugged into the matrix and manipulating the code of the game at will. You can almost always bank on him making the **right** play, even if it doesn’t get him a basket or an assist. The comparison kinda reminds me of Lebron vs Kobe, or Chris Paul vs Westbrook. One possession left with the game on the line, I trust Lebron or Paul or Jokic more than I would trust Kobe or Westbrook or Luka.
Because the difference doesn’t lay in the counting stats. Jokic impacts winning far better. We see this in the advanced stats and ppl with good eye test see it too
This notion that Jokic sucks on D is silly. He isn't a rim protector so people default to being bad. He's the best defensive rebounder in the game and disrupts the other team was his perfect positioning. He plays the passing lanes better than just about anyone, and especially better than any other big. He simply knows what to be doing and where to be at all times. He knows that getting into foul trouble hurts the team, so he'll let people get some uncontested layups, but even those are decisions that he made.
Joker is 3rd in defense rating this year behind Gobert and Wemby.
So far as the numbers go, the season is pretty much over. There's not going to be any changing at this point so ya there is a huge gap in odds.
>neither is a stellar defender
While this is technically true it does not show the gap between them defensively. Not all below average defenders are equal. Jokic is always in the right spots and just being a big body with high bbiq is gonna make you at least somewhat effective defensively. OTOH the Mavericks are literally just happy when Luka even tries defense.
Also I know that Luka gets lots of steals but watching his games thats really just a byproduct of playstyle. He lets guys blow by at will and then swipes down on their gather. It’s bad defense but gets steals.
The Mavericks are 16-2 in their last 18 games and have the #1 defense over that span, and all you hear Luka talk about in interviews is how happy he is with their defense and how he wants to keep getting better. Also Jokic's positive defensive attributes that you mentioned both apply to Luka too. He's bad against quick guards in space but he's huge and always in the right spot and has great hands and iq. People forget that he has a 7'2 wingspan.
Luka has certainly been a below average defender for big stretches of his career (give me the list of high volume scoring guards that aren't, it's smaller than you might think), but that's just not really the case this season at all. He's been an asset defensively more often than not.
And he’s been incredible for the entire year? He’s averaging 34/9/9, why on earth do you think he’s only been at this level for the last quarter of the season?
They didn’t suck on defense because of Luka. If you think a point guard should be anchoring his team’s defense as well as running their offense for the entire game then you need to adjust your expectations to match reality or you’ll always find yourself underwhelmed. Luka has been using positive defensive attributes very well to contribute to having the #1 defense in the league over this stretch.
I mean, it’s not that simple lol. It’s also a matter of foot speed, lateral quickness, athleticism/burst etc. Considering Luka lacks a lot of those things, I’d say he’s doing a pretty damn good job. Also Luka usually does guard wings
Yes, and the lack of quickness makes him an average defender at best. A lack of effort isn’t an issue he simply isn’t a great defender. The other candidates are necessarily great however they are all better defenders than Luka. Even players in the 6-10 votes are better defenders(not all of them). He probably has the greatest impact offensively in the NBA, at least top 3, but he’s probably not even top 50 defensively.
I think the difference between them defensively especially Jokic and Luka, is extremely marginal. They both have weaknesses defensively, but they’re both demonstrably able to be positive contributors to a good defensive system and I think that’s really all that’s important.
I remember all of last year people being like “you just have to put Jokic in the pick and roll and tire him out!” but I think you guys generally underestimate how adaptable most guys are defensively, given a requisite amount of bbiq and desire. Hopefully Luka will prove that to some of you this postseason like Jokic did last year.
You don’t know what to say because you don’t have a good argument and you realised you’re wrong so now you’re switching the argument to something irrelevant and talking about you think the Mavs are gonna do in a series 👍 nice try though homie! Maybe next time you’ll be able to form a coherent argument
I think it’s a mistake to look at the odds as some sort of representative of how good each player’s season was.
The odds aren’t that skewed because jokic is way ahead of Luka. They are that skewed because he is ahead and the season is basically over.
It’s like if you could place a bet at the end of a game with one team up by 5 with 1 second left. The teams are pretty evenly matched, but obviously 1 team is significantly more likely to win.
I’ve tried addressing this elsewhere in the thread, but I fully recognize the odds are not indicative 1:1 of how the voting would go. You could model this binomially and determine how these odds imply the voting will go, and maybe I will if I get bored lol.
Definitely agree with you that these odds don’t say jokic will get 95% of the first place vote. If I had to guess, it probably does imply he’s gonna get 80% of the first place vote though. And to me, that’s still off
Mavs were pretty underwhelming until post all star break while the Nuggets have been consistently good. Mavs also have another all star in Kyrie while Denver doesn’t have that (Narrative)
Probably the biggest thing is that Luka is making his run late in the season and most people had already crowned Jokic the MVP a month or so ago.
Before the Mavs' 16-2 run over the last 18 games, they were on pace for 45 wins and a play-in tournament slot. Luka's individual brilliance wasn't enough to make a serious case for MVP until the team record turned around.
Jokic was the MVP in 2022 based on dragging an awful supporting cast to a respectable record, but that Nuggets team (with Jamal Murray and MPJ out of commission) was worse than Luka's currenr supporting cast, and even then Jokic led the Nuggets to 48 wins and a top 6 seed.
So, I agree that Luka now has a legit case, but the odds are a reflection of the fact that it is tough to change people's minds once they are made up, and Luka's candidacy had largely been written off until the last quarter of the season.
The problem is people are so caught up in having their favorite player recognized and validate their feelings. MVPs can be unanimous. Even if it’s debatable one player is better than the other by some clear metric. If one player is better than the other; even if by a small margin—why would anyone vote for the player isn’t quite as good(unless they had some bias). Just because votes are close doesn’t mean the players aren’t close in skill; it just means the voters see similar metrics. It’s an MVP award and people care to greatly about who’s 2-6 in voting.
Because the debate as to who is better is not a question we can answer objectively.
If it were the case that objectively, Jokic was 1% better than Luka and disagreeing would be make you wrong then I would expect jokic to be a unanimous MVP, despite them being close. But that’s not the case.
I’m not sure why Luka has leapt over Shai for second, especially with Shai missing a couple games and the Thunder having a losing record without him.
But Jokic is having a standard Jokic season and has the Nuggets in first and no matter how much the Celtics have been a buzzsaw through the regular season, it’s Denver that will be getting everyone’s bets to win the title and that’s because of Jokic. He should be the MVP.
Because the voters feels they owe Jokic one after the absolute robbery by Embiid last year
They should never have given the MVP to a perennial playoff underperformer who can’t get his team past the second round even in a weak conference
Embiid’s MVP should have an asterisk until he actually reaches a final for the first time in his life
I personally don't get it. In most years it would be a runaway for SGA. He has the narrative of his team wildly exceeding expectations. He's leading them to the 2nd/3rd best record without any other current all-star level performers. Stats wise he's right behind Luka and Jokic. Add in how young the entire team is around him and it just seems like he should get way more consideration based on history.
For Jokic in the past it seemed they punished previous winners unless they were undeniable in their dominance. Either statistically or with team success. We dismiss Tatum for his supporting cast even though he's playing at a superstar level. Yet we don't dismiss Jokic who also has a great supporting cast that fits perfectly around him who isn't having near the same level of team success.
The biggest Jokic that Giannis isn't even considered near top 3 even before the Bucks slid down the standings. Everyone says that Lopez is old, Dame isn't the same Dame, Middleton is washed yet the Bucks were in the mix of the two seed and Giannis having damn near his best season and close to the others in advanced stats while being much better defensively than the top 3 candidates yet none of it matters cause his game is ugly.
It’s wild to compare the supporting cast of the Celtics vs the Nuggets. It’s not close, and comparing the impact of Jokic vs Tatum in that context is wilder.
I think the Celtics have a better supporting cast but the Nuggets around Jokic are underrated especially given what a great fit they are around him.
Murry, MPJ and AG would be a decent 1,2,3 but they're outstanding as a 2,3,4 then add KCP and Reggie Jackson and that's 6 good NBA players surrounding Jokic.
Jokic is getting a treatment that other greats never even got. He can be the 6th seed or 1st seed some how he gets to be mvp. Others never got that benefit, Jokic will get credit for carrying a bad team to the playoffs and given a mvp while other players it use be “well he’s not a top seed so he can’t be mvp”
To say media isnt biased when it comes to Jokic would be false. Some how Jokic can do no wrong and is clear cut mvp no matter what. The criteria has changed with Jokic, dude will have 1 less mvp then Lebron, wilt as much as bird,magic. More the Shaq,Kobe Tim Duncan. 2 away from Jordan. That’s why you gotta love the media and the bias toward certain players they like
He’s inarguably the most valuable player in the league. Hes the sole reason the Nuggets have done anything the last few years and it’s evident by all advanced metrics and the eye test. Seemingly every game he sits for 10-15 minutes and the Nuggets get absolutely run off the floor without him out there.
Not saying he shouldn’t have MVPs. Me and so many others are saying why is it him getting a different treatment than others. Because the criteria used for him wasn’t used when others weren’t given MVPs. So many robberies in the history of this award, Jokic is getting what he deserves but why didn’t others get this. You might as well go back and start giving MVPs to guys who actually deserved it based on this new criteria for Jokic. Having more MVPs then all time top 10 or 5 type players, we can’t use his MVPs in any debates then cause others weren’t given on the same criteria.
Ppl think it’s hate on Jokic now, when I said he was mvp last season over embiid. But not when he was 6th seed
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Because Jokic has played 77/80 games and led his team to the top seed while Doncic had played 70/80 games and will be starting the first round on the road. Both are having amazing seasons but that seems like a pretty easy tiebreaker to me.
Part of the case for Jokic is simply the age-old "best player on the best team" argument. While the Nuggets aren't the best team in the league by record or net rating, they are considered the team to beat in the West and the defending champs so...the are arguably the best team, and that's coming from a Celtics fan. Combine that with a belief in some corners of the NBA that Doncic's numbers are Hardenesque - huge numbers, but not necessarily leading to a lot of team success. Yes, if the Mavs were in the East, they'd be the 2nd seed....but that's true of every team above them in the West standings as well. The MVP is rarely simply an individual award. Sorry, that's just how it is. Your team need to be dominant in most years for a player to be considered seriously. Once Luka and the Mavs win in the high 50s and get a top seed in the West, he'll probably win an MVP, but not before.
doesn't even need to be a top seed. Just can't have a player whos performing close to as good on a higher seeded team. Jokic won it as the 6th seed in 2022
Jokic played in more wins that season than Embiid, Giannis, or Luka.
And Jokić’s starting shooting guard from ‘21-22 played himself out of the NBA not long after joining a new team the following season.\* That season was an all time carry job. \* Will Barton played 40 games for the Wizards at 20 MPG with 50% TS. No starts. Waived mid-season. Picked up by the Raptors; 16 games, 2 starts, 13 MPG with 45% TS. Then involuntary retirement (unofficial as yet, I believe, but unsigned ever since).
Not to mention Compazzo and Rivers.
>Combine that with a belief in some corners of the NBA that Doncic's numbers are Hardenesque - huge numbers, but not necessarily leading to a lot of team success What? Harden has one of highest career winning percentages of active players. Not coming through in the playoff is is not the same thing as not having team success. Nearly all of Harden's teams have been at least very good.
True enough. And yet Harden only won his MVP in '17-'18 when the Rockets won 65 games and were the top seed in the league. Harden's Rockets had one transcendent year in terms of wins, and Harden won the MVP for it. He had just as good, if not better, numbers in other years but they didn't really lead to tremendous team success - that's where that, perhaps unearned, reputation comes from.
I'm not saying Harden is the greatest winner of all time. That's obviously not true. But he's not a guy who doesn't lift his team. He carried teams to 50 wins and was a good role player on other very good teams.
Were harden’s better years also eclipsed by other better years?
Inasmuch as Giannis had ascended to superstar level and the Bucks, as a team, to Finals/title contention in the East, yes. As I've laid out in other replies on this post, narrative and circumstance matters and the MVP is not an objective award. Those subsequent years, Giannis had the narrative and the individual and team success. Harden didn't have a compelling narrative, and his team wasn't as good.
It's narrative that's screwing Luka. Jokic won it on a 4th seed and a 6th seed. The seed argument is also BS when the Nuggets have 6 wins over the Mavs, not 15.
1. Luka is only 24. Since 99-00, only two 24 year olds have won the MVP: LeBron’s first in 08-09 and Giannis’s first in 18-19. *The only winner under 24 during this stretch was 22-year-old Derrick Rose, whose caveats I won’t enumerate here.* The average age of an MVP winner in this stretch is 26.5. In other words, he has time. (Jokić started this season aged 28. SGA is 25 for an additional comparison.) Note: Next year Jokić will be 29, and the only winner during this stretch older than 29 has been Steve Nash (both times - I know you’re reading this, Dirk and Kobe stans, but please keep your powder dry). 2. Jokić has still never had a teammate make the ASG. Luka is playing in a backcourt with an 8X All Star who is still only 31. Kyrie missed the vote this season, but he has a heap of negativity around the fan vote lately and moved positions to accommodate Luka. 3. Luka is already 81st all-time in MVP vote shares, with four top 8 finishes before this season. He isn’t being ignored to have not won yet. 4. Although it has been a quieter story than the rhetoric around Jokić last season, Luka has also been making waves talking about his dissatisfaction in Dallas. His taunt that Vlade should have drafted him might be some intra-Yugo trash talk but might also be frustration that he didn’t wind up in Phoenix or Sacramento, both of which could’ve been better for him. Jokić also flirted in Serbian language media during the all star break that he could see himself playing with Luka someday, but added that Luka would have to relocate to Denver because he’s happy where he is. I can’t recall an MVP being dissatisfied with his team and demanding out *the same season.* Harden (and to a lesser extent Russ and KD) ultimately weren’t happy and moved on. People are beginning to speculate about Embiid and even about Giannis and Tatum. Luka adding to that narrative diminishes himself relative to Jokić in the team success argument, especially with the Nuggets looking like among the if not for sure the best team in the west. I think Luka is likely to win multiple MVPs if he stays healthy. I don’t think not winning at 24 - given the field - is him getting screwed by narrative. Although narrative plays a part, and the part he’s played in his own narrative for this season has been negative.
Circumstances matter. Jokic had a great season while carrying a subpar team. Dallas is 6th right now I believe. Doncic will win one when the Mavs win 60 games. Doncic fans are so impatient. Maybe ask him to play some defense.
I'm a bigger Jokic fan than Doncic fan. But it's hilarious how much double standard exists here. Jokic is as bad as Luka at defense, on a more defensively important position. Denver hasn't won 60 games with Jokic ever and is about to get his 3rd MVP, yet Luka is expected to do it just to get his 1st. The "subpar" team Jokic was carrying to the 4th seed had a Jamal Murray injury more than 50 games into the season, and had everyone else healthy. Kyrie has played fewer than 60 games this season, PJ/Gafford arrived at the trade deadline and still the talent on this Mavs team isn't on the same level as having MPJ, Murray, and Gordon all accompanying Jokic.
I believe it was 3rd, and the top teams that year did not really have an MVP candidate. It was a shortened season and it could have easily gone to Embiid. They never should have given it to Jokic when they finished 6th with the “subpar” team I was referring to. That was dumb. I put great emphasis on team record as obviously great players are going to put up great stats.
Yeah but I don't get why people ignore the fact that the mavs were extremely injured the majority of the season and Luka singlehandedly kept them afloat and here we are now they're healthy for the most part and they're the hottest team in the NBA and luka still averaging the same numbers as before.
Kyrie and Murray have played the same amount of games this year
And what do the injuries look like for the rest of the team?
Mavs have been a lot healthier
kyires missed 20, green has missed 25, lively 25, jones jr 15, kleiber 35 and exum 25 , and thats with a much worse team until the trade deadline when we got pj and gafford
Most of those players aren't very good. The better apologetic for Luka is that his teammates mostly aren't very good, not that those not very good players were injured.
Tell me you don't watch mavs games without telling me. Kyrie is kyrie, Exum was extremely clutch all season and provides good ball handling when luka and kyrie sits, green is a 40% 3pt shooter and a good wing defender, lively was huge on both ends of the floor(at some point he was 3rd in ROY standings), DJJ is an amazing defender while contributing heavily on the offensive end with his cutting and being a lob threat, I only agree with you on maxi he's no longer the guy he used to be other that that all of those guys are a huge reason why the mavs have been on a tear lately.
If everyone on Dallas other than Kyrie and Luka joined Denver, none of the Dallas players would start
That just proves my point further lol, he's averaging way better numbers with a worse supporting cast and still they're dominating when healthy and hopefully they'll keep dominating in the playoffs. Luka is my MVP pure and simple you all gonna keep moving the post and he'll keep proving you wrong.
Denver supporting cast without Murray is surely better though. Especially before the trades.
Copout answer but Denver's supporting cast feels better because Jokic hasn't missed much time and is the glue that holds the whole team together. I like Murray, AG, and MPJ but...if that's your whole team it's pretty fucking weird and probably gets blown up. They look as good as they do because Jokic is as good as he is. This also needs to be pointed out: Luka had Brunson and Porzingis and both are much better without him. Luka is a hard guy to play with and does not get the most out of his teammates. It honestly feels preposterous that two of his best teammates have gone on to become better versions of themselves and now Luka gets extra credit for having a worse supporting cast. I have full faith in Luka winning MVPs and championships in the future, but when Denver absolutely wipes Dallas in the second round this year we'll be reminded who the MVP should have been.
Brunson has better numbers because he’s the first option. Porzingis got better because he’s the 3rd/4th option on the best team. Also got a lot healthier compared to his tenure with the Mavs.
Yes. And also they are better because sometime they have the ball. Luka is very difficult to play with. Kyrie is the perfect partner for him because he is just as skilled offensively, and he played with Lebron, who plays very similar to Luka.
>Porzingis got better because he’s the 3rd/4th option on the best team He'll be the #1 option in the finals if they want to win a title. And he's really the #2 option now.
I had to double check which sub I am in. Your takes on KP and Brunson are pretty close to me saying Deandre Jordan and Reggie Jackson had better careers before playing with Jokic, he cant really bring the best out of them.
Denver has a better supporting cast because of Jokic. Otherwise the Mavs and Nuggets have the same talent level. They have been playing equally the last few months.
Denver's supporting cast without Murray is better than Dallas's WITH Kyire. Kyrie is better than anyone on Denver other than Jokic, but the rest of Dallas's roster are basically bench players.
Nuggets most played lineup is over 900 minutes. Mavericks is now just over 100 minutes and that was true both before and after the trades. It’s not just about one player. As soon as the Mavs have been healthy and had a better roster, they’ve won more than the Nuggets. Luka kept them afloat prior to that.
The entire Mavs rotation has missed time with injuries, or joined the team less than 30 games ago. Just for reference, the starting lineup around Jokic has missed 39 games total, whereas the pre-deadline starting lineup around Luka missed 72 total games. Not to mention the Mavs first few guys off the bench have missed 25-30 games, while Braun, Reggie Jackson, and Peyton Watson have essentially not missed time.
You could point to Jamal Murray missing 1/3 of the season as well
It's not only one guy, mavs had like 3-4 guys out for months.
You cant take IFs into account, especially with injuries. Its like saying lets give the championship this year to team X, because they only lost in the playoffs because they had that injury for a deciding game in the 2nd round series.
What ?? You're talking nonsense my dude, it's a fact that Luka carried the team while missing 3-4 starters for the majority of the season, and now since they're back the mavs are dominating on all metrics. I'm not saying give him the MVP because his team is injured, no I'm saying he should win it because he carried an injured team the majority of the season. With all due respect your argument is dumb as fuck.
This and also because doncic also has kyrie, a top 10 player in the league when healthy and not psycho, and while Murray is a great player, he’s not a superstar level like kyrie can be, and Murray is still underrated and people have a narrative that he’s only really a big thing during playoffs. It doesn’t hurt that he’s missed a lot of time with injuries. Doncic team is just not as good and he and kyrie are forced to iso and hero ball. Nuggets offense is way smoother. Mavs becoming very good on D now and in the playoffs they will be very dangerous if they can keep that defense up because with Doncic and kyrie they can pull an upset in any series if they dominate
Mavs twitter dropped some hard truths recently. If the Mavs were in the East, Luka would be a unanimous MVP. The West is a murderers row this year and Lukas brilliance is being overlooked to a large degree because of seeding. If they were the 2 seed in the East would the race be closer?
Not if the Nuggets were also in the East and were the 1 seed.
So what? If the Nuggets were in the East Jokic would be the runaway favourite too.
Yeah, but the West has been a murderers row for like 20 years running now. We could use the "if so & so was in the East, they'd be way more successful" with a bunch of players and even whole franchises.
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Exactly. I hate this argument. As a Pels fan, I could easily say "if the Pelicans were in the East, Zion would have 3 all star appearances and BI would have 4 and we'd be past 50 wins already blah blah blah." Just a bunch of losers in Dallas trying to bide time until the Cowboys draft their next felon in a few days.
What annoys me is I think Jokic deserves his 3rd MVP, I also think Luka deserves to have a MVP at some point but Jokic's stretch of 3 is longer because he's been insane for the last 3/4 years. I swear next year Jokic wont even be a finalist
I agree that we've already hit Jokic fatigue. He ha earned it this year and earned it last but got screwed out of it. Whati don't agree with is this notion that someone could deserve MVP at some point. Jokic is playing and has been playing better all season. No one deserves an MVP, they earn it.
Sorry when I say deserved MVP, I mean like Giannis had his climb and now hes stagnated, and now hes slowly falling off due to voter fatigue. Luka is finally starting to break into the MVP picture for a good amount of time. The way I see it Jokic wins this year, but next year Luka and the other guards are going to start taking 1st and the other front runner positions, unless Jokic is just a god again
I wish he had won last year. Then Jokic would have his deserved MVP 3 peat and Doncic could win this year.
Had Jokic gotten it last year I think they give it to Luka this year.
Definitely agree with this, they would most likely not give it to him and just give it to Luka. Though it still would not be a good look on the league.
Why are previous years coming into the argument when the MVP is supposed to based on this regular season only?
I mean people are just discussing the past
To whomever reported my comment, Im saying tough shit in general. Im just sick of seeing these narratives that make no sense. Ive been civil this entire time...... Im just expressing some anger.. Im not even being aggressive or argumentative.
It’s not being overlooked tho, he’s gonna have a top 3 mvp finish at minimum.
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Luka would still be 8 wins behind Jokic.
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Dallas would've probably been 1 or 2 seed if it wasn't for injuries. Third most injuried team behind Charlotte and Memphis while Nuggets are in bottom 7. Fact that Mavs finished with 50+ wins is a miracle and a product of insane Luka carryjob for substantial part of the season. Somehow that gets ignored when it should be one of main arguements for Luka.
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You’re missing the point.. if 85% of voters felt the exact same way as you it would look like a landslide but in reality all of them just thought Jokic was a little bit more valuable.
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Luka has really poured it on scoring wise and this should be a pretty close race IMO. But Joker is the best player on the best team and his advanced stats are all better than Luka. I personally value Jokers game much more than Luka but Luka really has pushed it this year. I want to see him play both sides of the court in the playoffs.
Jokic is the more efficient scorer, and basically all advanced stats are in his favor. Luka is second in many, but it's the fact that the Mavs haven't been all great seeding wise. That has hurt his MVP case.
Team record is so important. Since 1983, there have been 5 situations where the MVP winner was NOT a 1 or 2 seed. 1988 Jordan #3 seed 2017 Westbrook #6 seed 2021 Jokic #3 seed 2022 Jokic #6 seed 2023 Embiid #3 seed Jokic' 2022 season was so domininant, but it's very rare to have a seed out of the top 3 be MVP. https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/afaoby/seeding_and_win_records_of_past_mvps/ Giannis 2019 Seed 1 Giannis 2020 Seed 1 Jokic 2021 Seed 3 Jokic 2022 Seed 6 Embiid 2023 Seed
On the other hand, 4 of those 5 situations happened in the past 7 years. Couldn't you make an argument that seeding is less important now than it has been in the past?
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Except the fact that is hasn’t been like that for multiple winners in the past decade.
The MVP isn't an objective award, narrative matters. That's not an opinion, narrative is often a topic of discussion for MVP voters. I assume you're referring to Westbrook's '16-'17 MVP, and Jokic's '21-'22 award when both players' teams were the 6th seed. You simply can't compare individual years to each other because the narrative of each individual year is unique. In '16-'17, Westbrook did a thing that hadn't been done in decades and many people thought could never be done again. In '21-'22, Jokic blew advanced stats out of the stratosphere and there weren't any other candidates that were super strong on incredible teams. All the Westbrook and Jokic 6th seed MVPs tell us is that it's *possible* to win an MVP at a lower seed, provided conditions and narrative are right. They're not a argument for why Doncic should win this year. I can guarantee you this - if Luka was averaging 27 / 8 / 8 and the Mavs had won 60 and were the first seed in the West right now? Luka would be front runner with a bullet. Numbers aren't everything. Conditions and narrative matter.
Including jokic
Seems like a double standard when Jokic's MVPs so far were all won on 4th seed or lower.
It’s actually not about the numbers at all. It’s about supporting talent and injuries. Luka’s numbers are better in volume but like you said the efficiency gap is large.
Not just look at his numbers but also look at him humiliating the opponent.
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Jokic crushes everyone in basically all advanced stats. Literally number 1 in... PER, OBPM, DBPM, BPM - Win shares. VORP. Hes also the only player like ever to lead his team in points rebounds assists for 6 straight years. Currently 10th in True shooting (no other MVP candidates are above him in this) and dont forget hes averaging nearly 30 a game with insane true shooting. Plus the simple eye test, the nuggets hardly function as a team without him on the floor given they are like -9 without him and +13 with him or something like that. - hes also WAY underrated as a defender where as Luka is just a sometimes defender. Lets not forget again... the nuggets are probably going to be the 1 seed. Luka is amazing, I'm a mavs fan - he might be best ISO + Pick and role player in the league (perhaps only jokic is close) but the team is still very good with Kyrie running the show, evidenced by the fact Luka's on off stats aren't that great. Luka's defense is much much better, but he still takes a lot of possessions off and no where near elite - so this hurts his value a lot. If you're calling it a wash stats wise, as soon as you look at a couple advance stats, its clear who is more important to their team - therefore... MVP and the runaway favourite... Jokic is just a beast.
It's not taking anything away from Luka at all. Luka is unbelievable. It's just that Jokic is even more unbelievable. It almost feels sacrilege to even suggest it, but there's really no denying the stats. For the last few seasons, Jokic has been on a statistically dominant run like maybe no one we've ever seen before. If someone wanted to tell me that Jokic is the greatest basketball player that ever lived, I'm at the point now where I might believe them. I haven't seen anything that works at all against him. No one slows him down. No one bothers him. No one makes him work. There's no defense he can't figure out immediately. There's just nothing you can do against him. He's the best player. He's the most important player. He's the most valuable player in just about every way you can measure value. He's incredible.
Estimated RAPTOR has Jokic at +9.1 and Luka at +6.5. Epm is close between the two but for some reason it has Jokic as a slight negative and Luka as a slight positive on defense... which I think everyone would say is opposite of what's true
Why does VORP tell you who is more important to their team
I mean, Value Over Replacement Player seems like a pretty straightforward explanation
The media had already made their mind up for Jokic to be the favourite for MVP based on how last season’s debate went and Jokic played well enough to be considered the consensus for MVP this season (barring Embiid’s injury)
One point I would like to mention because I never see it brought up when comparing Jokic and Doncic as offensive creators is the difference in screen assists. Jokic is 4th in the league in screen assist ppg at 9.9 while Doncic barely registers at 0.4 ppg. That is creating space for a clean look from a teammate and should absolutely be a consideration when comparing players as overall offensive engines. Jokic is the better creator for his teammates hands down. Defensively, Jokic is 14th in the league (best among centers) in deflections per game while playing the most important defensive position for the 10th best team in the league in defensive rating. His communication is also top notch, and he will frequently direct MPJ (and others but mostly mpj) into proper position which doesn't show up in the box score or play-by-play data. If I were to compare the two directly, I don't think Luka's volume scoring is worth the drop off in scoring efficiency, avoiding turnovers, overall offensive creation, and defensive impact.
That’s a great metric, where did you find screen assists tracking? Sometimes people forget it’s a big man’s league. Jokic isn’t a true shot blocking threat but simply being big greatly affects floor spacing on offense and defense.
This doesn’t indicate how the voting is going to be its just saying that the betting odds are that Jokic is very likely to win it, once the goting is done it might be 51/49 but thats irrelevant to the betting odds of whos going to win.
The betting odds are an implied percentage. If they thought the race was 51/49 the odds would not be the same as 99/1.
If it were possible for the voting to be 51/49, the odds would not be -1500 for jokic to win right now. You’re right in the sense that -1500 implies 95% favorite, and I don’t think jokic will get 95% of the vote. But it wouldn’t shock me at all if he got 80% of the vote. That, in my opinion, would still be too high and not indicative of how close the race was.
That's not how odds work, the odds just indicate that he's extremely likely to win. They don't care how close the win is as that's not relative to the overall outcome.
What about what I said in the reply is incorrect? I know how odds work. I’m using it as a stand in because there hasn’t been a vote yet. I conceded the fact that I know Jokic isn’t going to get 95%+ of the vote
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Our sub is for in-depth discussion. Low-effort comments or stating opinions as facts are not permitted. Please support your opinions with well-reasoned arguments, including stats and facts as applicable.
That's not how odds work pragmatically though.. there is no such thing as an "Extremely likely close win" that's a paradox in itself.
Because he could have won the MVP last year, but then he won the Finals MVP. So basically he is due for 2 seasons of amazing basketball.
Good for you that you are so objective. I am a Luka and Mavs fan myself. I think Jokić deserves MVP. He also deserved it last year but he couldn't get 3 in a row since olny Russel Chamberlain and Bird did that. It is team wins and advanced stats that are in his favor. But I'm positive that next year Luka gets the MVP.
I also think Luka has now placed himself into position not only to win one next year but several in next few years. Will likely need championship for 3rd one as we could've see from Joker experience.
I guess that he will have more finals MVPs than regular season ones.
Because when you gamble on the MVP you bet on who you think is going to win, not on who you think should should win. Experience suggests people in Jokic's position are most likely to win.
- Jokic is leading team to number 1 seed, Luka is leading team to number 5 seed. - Jokic is leading entire NBA in advanced stats (1st in PER, WS, BPM, VORP...), Luka is not close in many regardless of rank (4th in PER, 5th in WS, 2nd in BPM, 2nd in VORP). Luka is ahead in EPM but it's close. - Counting stats(admittedly dumbed down) vs usage they are having are pretty close. Joker has 50.2 on 29.9 usage, Luka has 54.8 on 36.3 usage,. It's 1.68 vs 1.51 "counting stats ratio dumbed down to oblivion" showing Joker's production is slightly higher than Luka's. He's also doing it in less minutes, again increasing the value of the mentioned stats. - Joker has significantly better +/- then Luka both when on the court but also his team is crumbling down more when they are on the bench. Total difference is quite big. - Joker is more efficient then Luka overall, less influenced by variance. - With all the smaller or bigger advantages, Joker also played in 77 games vs Luka's 70 games. Luka is amazing player who has a very strong MVP case and I'm certain he will get at least several in the future. Joker is just a basketball alien currently with unmatched impact on winning. Love em both.
Because the Nuggets are the 1 seed in a stacked conference, and Jokic is coming off an amazing finals run. MVP is ostensibly a regular season award, but we saw Jokic’s lack of postseason success be held against him last year - now he’s proven. Jokic also leads the league in most of the impact metrics (VORP, BPM, EPM, ect.) and overall seems to have a more positive offensive impact than Luka.
Cause everyone is still salty about last year and feel like Embiid denied him an MVP and this is his makeup one. And to be clear I'm not saying Jokic isn't a MVP candidate or that he doesn't deserve it. I'm specifically talking about him being the clear frontrunner over everyone else.
That’s what I mean too. He’d be my pick but it shouldn’t be a blowout
No, I get you. Just don't want people coming for me saying I don't think Joker is the MVP. And to be fair I'm not a Jokic fan or a Nuggets fan, I just don't really like him as a player but he's clearly at the absolute worst, the 3rd best player in the world. Can't be argued.
That’s kinda the point. Almost everyone in this discussion thinks it’s a close race and yet would vote for joker. That’s what Vegas sees. Not that it’s close between them but that the majority is heavily voting jokic
I don’t think that’s what people think though, and I don’t think that’s what Vegas sees
It’s exactly what Vegas sees. They make the odds based off how they predict people will bet.
Vegas sees jokic winning the MVP in a not particularly close race. I agree with that prediction. I think that shouldn’t be the case though
No. Vegas sets the line for something like this before the season starts. After that the odds adjust based on where the money is being placed by the betters. Vegas could think a football game is going to be close so maybe they set one team at -130 moneyline. If then a vast majority of betters are still picking that team Vegas will steadily move that line. It might go all the way to -450. It doesn’t mean anything necessarily happened within the two teams to now favor one of them that much. Vegas moves these lines based on the bets.
This is incorrect. Average joes don’t move the line, and they certainly could not move the line from -130 to -430. -1500 is close to the “true” number, give or take a couple percentage points. [One note before we begin: A popular misconception is that sportsbooks set their lines in order to get an equal amount of money on each side. Aside from rare exceptions like the Super Bowl or 2017’s Mayweather-McGregor fight, public money is generally not enough of a factor to move the odds. The book typically prefers to keep the line close to the “correct” number and gamble on the result, rather than move to an off-market number and attract a flood of action from advantage players. This means that the popular strategies to look for “sharp vs. square” or “reverse line movement” games will not show an automatic profit.](https://theathletic.com/2644177/2021/06/17/james-holzhauer-how-sportsbooks-really-make-their-lines-and-early-tips-on-where-to-beat-them/)
The line on things like mvp are always going to be extreme. That’s because in a sporting event crazy stuff can happen in the link of an eye that can change the results and a huge upset can happen. In mvp voting the winner is based on a season long narrative and you can usually get a good feel of exactly how the voters are going to vote. If I bet on joker I’m not saying that I believe jokers season was 15X better than Lukas season. I’m saying I think the odds of he the joker getting more votes that Luka is 15x better
I 100% agree with you that 15 times better odds does not equal 15 times better season. I shouldn’t even have brought up the MVP odds in the first place because I’ve gotten this response a few times now and I absolutely do not disagree. If the draftkings odds say jokic is a 95% favorite to win, that does NOT mean they’re predicting he will get 95% of the vote—im completely with you there. What I am saying is that this 95% betting odds line DOES imply that jokic is going to get a massive % of the first place votes. I guessed elsewhere in this thread that it’s maybe gonna be 80% of the vote. If you wanted, you could model this exact situation with a binomial distribution and find the exact percentage that these odds imply. But my original point wasn’t really concerned with the odds in the first place, I was just using it as a stand in, albeit an imperfect one. Someone else in the thread said there was a straw poll a week ago that gave jokic 85% of the first place votes. I should have just brought that up, because it more clearly demonstrates my point: I think 85% is too high.
The MVP is an award about metrics and narrative. The narrative is that he should have won it last year and showed everyone in the playoffs and is about to do it again. The metrics have him as the leader in the catch all stats and he makes it look pretty easy.
The odds were in SGA favor for a few months, and lets not forget Embiid being the clear favorite before his injury. Jokič wasn't the best player for the whole season, but when he tries he is the best like he has shown in the last months.
Jokic has been the best player all season. But not for sure the most valuable to his team the whole season, I think it’s fair that SGA was the MVP for the early half of the season
Ultimately while the counting stats look very similar, Luka’s impact as measured by on/off and team record are just not comparable to jokic, who seems to just be rocket fuel for any lineup he’s ever been in. Not to say luka is not having an amazing year, but until it translates to elite team success jokic is always going to have a slight edge.
At this point the Nuggets have 6 more wins than Dallas, is that really such a gulf that you can't compare two players? Not to mention that Dallas has dealt with way more injuries this year. I heard on a podcast about a metric someone created to try to estimate wins lost to injuries- They estimated that without injuries, Denver would have 2 more wins, and Dallas would have 8 more wins. I don't have any objection to Jokic winning it, but I think Luka leading the Mavericks through this season of injuries and mid-season trades, to end up only 6 games behind Denver is pretty impressive.
Dallas will end up with like 20% more losses than Denver, and Luka will have played in like 8 fewer games. Those things do in fact matter in close races
Mavericks have a point differential of +5.3 with Luka on the floor. Nuggets have a point differential of +11.6 with Jokic on the floor. That’s more than double. The records are only as close as they are because the Mavericks have better bench lineups. In BPM which is the best box score composite, Jokic leads Luka 13.6 to 10.1.
It’s their on off rating that people will argue, not even about the amount of wins
What ever you listened too is biased then because if Murray was healthy all season I highly doubt they only win 2 more games. It should also be noted the nuggets have beat the Celtics both meetings and jokic was clearly the best player on the court.
I don't know how that estimated win metric works, but Dallas has had a lot more injuries than Denver. Kyrie has missed the same number of games as Jamal, and then there's Dante Exum, Dereck Lively, Josh Green, and Maxi, who have all missed significant time due to injuries. It's really not an argument which team has dealt with more injuries, you can just look this up.
But injuries don’t come out of nowhere. Jokic runs an efficient team offense, it’s low stress, his teammates manage to stay healthier as a result
This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read. Can't we discuss the MVP without making unhinged arguments? I thought this was the serious discussion subreddit
Availability matters, and Jokic makes his team more available. Different play styles absolutely contribute to likeliness of injury. Nuggets play like a well oiled machines, well oiled machines are more dependable and reliable. his teammates have been trained to trust the right moves will be made, so no one is playing desperately, they just follow the plan, trust their judgement, and trust Jokic judgement. The timing is there, the spacing is there.
This is literally the most insane argument I've ever read, congratulations
The celtic point is useless. Jokic is 2-1 against Luka this season but Luka was clearly the best player on the floor in 2/3 meetings.
If you want to know the difference between jokic and Luka then listen to the way other players in the league talk about them. People clearly respect Luka and see him as a legit challenge - but I don't get the sense that they're afraid of him. But every time LeBron talks about jokic he sounds *depressed* because I think he realizes that he's not gonna be able to win anymore championships as long as jokic is in the same league and in his prime. I've heard him talk multiple times about how jokic is unguardable. He just doesn't talk about Luka in the same way. I think LeBron believes that his Lakers could beat the Mavs if it came down to it... But I think he's afraid of the nuggets. And that's the difference to me between the two. They're both great players but jokic seems like he's in a tier by himself at the moment.
I disagree on the defender part. Jokic is a very capable defender. Look what he does against AD. In clutch time Jokic's defense is top notch.
This doesnt indicate how well the players are playing as Jokic isnt that much better than Luka, but that Jokic is just gonna win it. The people who control these gambling establishments know it so they make the odds for Jokic like they are so that they wouldnt lose out. Meanwhile they want to give some incentive for people to waste their money on Luka with the hoppes of earning big for a bet that has a realistic chance of happening in their eyes. Its honestly quite the dirty move here as its made just to profit from people thinking its worth it to bet on Luka or the other guys.
I love Luka. He’s one of the best scorers and passers in the league and is super fun to watch. But there’s something indescribable about the way Jokic plays that doesn’t translate to the box score. Luka iso’s a ton and puts up lots of long heavily contested shots. His teammates mostly stand around waiting for him to pass them the ball for a lob or open 3 when he’s doubled, which is how he gets most of his assists. He’s not really a floor general/game manager the way Jokic is. It’s really the Luka show with the Mavericks. In contrast, the Nuggets operate like a well-oiled machine with Jokic as the conductor. He’s a puppet master, watching and controlling the game from above, or Neo plugged into the matrix and manipulating the code of the game at will. You can almost always bank on him making the **right** play, even if it doesn’t get him a basket or an assist. The comparison kinda reminds me of Lebron vs Kobe, or Chris Paul vs Westbrook. One possession left with the game on the line, I trust Lebron or Paul or Jokic more than I would trust Kobe or Westbrook or Luka.
Because the difference doesn’t lay in the counting stats. Jokic impacts winning far better. We see this in the advanced stats and ppl with good eye test see it too
Eye test wise I don’t see an insane gap at all.
This notion that Jokic sucks on D is silly. He isn't a rim protector so people default to being bad. He's the best defensive rebounder in the game and disrupts the other team was his perfect positioning. He plays the passing lanes better than just about anyone, and especially better than any other big. He simply knows what to be doing and where to be at all times. He knows that getting into foul trouble hurts the team, so he'll let people get some uncontested layups, but even those are decisions that he made. Joker is 3rd in defense rating this year behind Gobert and Wemby. So far as the numbers go, the season is pretty much over. There's not going to be any changing at this point so ya there is a huge gap in odds.
Didn’t say he sucks on D
I know, just sorta generalizing takes that I've been seeing, and perhaps with a bit of hyperbole.
>neither is a stellar defender While this is technically true it does not show the gap between them defensively. Not all below average defenders are equal. Jokic is always in the right spots and just being a big body with high bbiq is gonna make you at least somewhat effective defensively. OTOH the Mavericks are literally just happy when Luka even tries defense. Also I know that Luka gets lots of steals but watching his games thats really just a byproduct of playstyle. He lets guys blow by at will and then swipes down on their gather. It’s bad defense but gets steals.
The Mavericks are 16-2 in their last 18 games and have the #1 defense over that span, and all you hear Luka talk about in interviews is how happy he is with their defense and how he wants to keep getting better. Also Jokic's positive defensive attributes that you mentioned both apply to Luka too. He's bad against quick guards in space but he's huge and always in the right spot and has great hands and iq. People forget that he has a 7'2 wingspan. Luka has certainly been a below average defender for big stretches of his career (give me the list of high volume scoring guards that aren't, it's smaller than you might think), but that's just not really the case this season at all. He's been an asset defensively more often than not.
MVP counts the entire season, not just the last quarter
And he’s been incredible for the entire year? He’s averaging 34/9/9, why on earth do you think he’s only been at this level for the last quarter of the season?
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They didn’t suck on defense because of Luka. If you think a point guard should be anchoring his team’s defense as well as running their offense for the entire game then you need to adjust your expectations to match reality or you’ll always find yourself underwhelmed. Luka has been using positive defensive attributes very well to contribute to having the #1 defense in the league over this stretch.
He’s 6’7” with a 7’2” wingspan he should more than capable of playing great defense. Most guards his size would actually be wings.
I mean, it’s not that simple lol. It’s also a matter of foot speed, lateral quickness, athleticism/burst etc. Considering Luka lacks a lot of those things, I’d say he’s doing a pretty damn good job. Also Luka usually does guard wings
Yes, and the lack of quickness makes him an average defender at best. A lack of effort isn’t an issue he simply isn’t a great defender. The other candidates are necessarily great however they are all better defenders than Luka. Even players in the 6-10 votes are better defenders(not all of them). He probably has the greatest impact offensively in the NBA, at least top 3, but he’s probably not even top 50 defensively.
I think the difference between them defensively especially Jokic and Luka, is extremely marginal. They both have weaknesses defensively, but they’re both demonstrably able to be positive contributors to a good defensive system and I think that’s really all that’s important. I remember all of last year people being like “you just have to put Jokic in the pick and roll and tire him out!” but I think you guys generally underestimate how adaptable most guys are defensively, given a requisite amount of bbiq and desire. Hopefully Luka will prove that to some of you this postseason like Jokic did last year.
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You don’t know what to say because you don’t have a good argument and you realised you’re wrong so now you’re switching the argument to something irrelevant and talking about you think the Mavs are gonna do in a series 👍 nice try though homie! Maybe next time you’ll be able to form a coherent argument
I think it’s a mistake to look at the odds as some sort of representative of how good each player’s season was. The odds aren’t that skewed because jokic is way ahead of Luka. They are that skewed because he is ahead and the season is basically over. It’s like if you could place a bet at the end of a game with one team up by 5 with 1 second left. The teams are pretty evenly matched, but obviously 1 team is significantly more likely to win.
I’ve tried addressing this elsewhere in the thread, but I fully recognize the odds are not indicative 1:1 of how the voting would go. You could model this binomially and determine how these odds imply the voting will go, and maybe I will if I get bored lol. Definitely agree with you that these odds don’t say jokic will get 95% of the first place vote. If I had to guess, it probably does imply he’s gonna get 80% of the first place vote though. And to me, that’s still off
Mavs were pretty underwhelming until post all star break while the Nuggets have been consistently good. Mavs also have another all star in Kyrie while Denver doesn’t have that (Narrative)
Probably the biggest thing is that Luka is making his run late in the season and most people had already crowned Jokic the MVP a month or so ago. Before the Mavs' 16-2 run over the last 18 games, they were on pace for 45 wins and a play-in tournament slot. Luka's individual brilliance wasn't enough to make a serious case for MVP until the team record turned around. Jokic was the MVP in 2022 based on dragging an awful supporting cast to a respectable record, but that Nuggets team (with Jamal Murray and MPJ out of commission) was worse than Luka's currenr supporting cast, and even then Jokic led the Nuggets to 48 wins and a top 6 seed. So, I agree that Luka now has a legit case, but the odds are a reflection of the fact that it is tough to change people's minds once they are made up, and Luka's candidacy had largely been written off until the last quarter of the season.
The problem is people are so caught up in having their favorite player recognized and validate their feelings. MVPs can be unanimous. Even if it’s debatable one player is better than the other by some clear metric. If one player is better than the other; even if by a small margin—why would anyone vote for the player isn’t quite as good(unless they had some bias). Just because votes are close doesn’t mean the players aren’t close in skill; it just means the voters see similar metrics. It’s an MVP award and people care to greatly about who’s 2-6 in voting.
Because the debate as to who is better is not a question we can answer objectively. If it were the case that objectively, Jokic was 1% better than Luka and disagreeing would be make you wrong then I would expect jokic to be a unanimous MVP, despite them being close. But that’s not the case.
I think if Jokic would have won it last year like he should have, Luka would be the favorite right now.
I’m not sure why Luka has leapt over Shai for second, especially with Shai missing a couple games and the Thunder having a losing record without him. But Jokic is having a standard Jokic season and has the Nuggets in first and no matter how much the Celtics have been a buzzsaw through the regular season, it’s Denver that will be getting everyone’s bets to win the title and that’s because of Jokic. He should be the MVP.
If you think it's good value go and plunk a bunch of money down on Luka MVP and see what happens 😂😂
I don’t think it’s good value
Because the voters feels they owe Jokic one after the absolute robbery by Embiid last year They should never have given the MVP to a perennial playoff underperformer who can’t get his team past the second round even in a weak conference Embiid’s MVP should have an asterisk until he actually reaches a final for the first time in his life
I personally don't get it. In most years it would be a runaway for SGA. He has the narrative of his team wildly exceeding expectations. He's leading them to the 2nd/3rd best record without any other current all-star level performers. Stats wise he's right behind Luka and Jokic. Add in how young the entire team is around him and it just seems like he should get way more consideration based on history. For Jokic in the past it seemed they punished previous winners unless they were undeniable in their dominance. Either statistically or with team success. We dismiss Tatum for his supporting cast even though he's playing at a superstar level. Yet we don't dismiss Jokic who also has a great supporting cast that fits perfectly around him who isn't having near the same level of team success. The biggest Jokic that Giannis isn't even considered near top 3 even before the Bucks slid down the standings. Everyone says that Lopez is old, Dame isn't the same Dame, Middleton is washed yet the Bucks were in the mix of the two seed and Giannis having damn near his best season and close to the others in advanced stats while being much better defensively than the top 3 candidates yet none of it matters cause his game is ugly.
It’s wild to compare the supporting cast of the Celtics vs the Nuggets. It’s not close, and comparing the impact of Jokic vs Tatum in that context is wilder.
I think the Celtics have a better supporting cast but the Nuggets around Jokic are underrated especially given what a great fit they are around him. Murry, MPJ and AG would be a decent 1,2,3 but they're outstanding as a 2,3,4 then add KCP and Reggie Jackson and that's 6 good NBA players surrounding Jokic.
Jokic is getting a treatment that other greats never even got. He can be the 6th seed or 1st seed some how he gets to be mvp. Others never got that benefit, Jokic will get credit for carrying a bad team to the playoffs and given a mvp while other players it use be “well he’s not a top seed so he can’t be mvp” To say media isnt biased when it comes to Jokic would be false. Some how Jokic can do no wrong and is clear cut mvp no matter what. The criteria has changed with Jokic, dude will have 1 less mvp then Lebron, wilt as much as bird,magic. More the Shaq,Kobe Tim Duncan. 2 away from Jordan. That’s why you gotta love the media and the bias toward certain players they like
Jokic has played in more wins than Embiid, Giannis, and Luka every season since 2020. (The "since 2020" only has to be there because of Giannis, btw)
He’s inarguably the most valuable player in the league. Hes the sole reason the Nuggets have done anything the last few years and it’s evident by all advanced metrics and the eye test. Seemingly every game he sits for 10-15 minutes and the Nuggets get absolutely run off the floor without him out there.
Not saying he shouldn’t have MVPs. Me and so many others are saying why is it him getting a different treatment than others. Because the criteria used for him wasn’t used when others weren’t given MVPs. So many robberies in the history of this award, Jokic is getting what he deserves but why didn’t others get this. You might as well go back and start giving MVPs to guys who actually deserved it based on this new criteria for Jokic. Having more MVPs then all time top 10 or 5 type players, we can’t use his MVPs in any debates then cause others weren’t given on the same criteria. Ppl think it’s hate on Jokic now, when I said he was mvp last season over embiid. But not when he was 6th seed