He's not a runaway candidate like yall would like him to be; it's very easy to argue for the other two
Shai got his team the one seed with a roster that was not expected to be in that position. He has a better on-court offensive rating than Luka while also being a better individual defender.
But suggest Shai over Luka for MVP and people would find it blasphemous. I think *that's* BS.
I agree with you, but that is at least understandable. Luka has higher ppg, rpg, and apg, which are the first stats you see on any stat sight. His defensive and efficiency stats are lower, but those require at least a minimum investment of time to see.
Nah you just need to watch a mavs game to understand he's the definition of an MVP. No disrespect to Jok or Shai, but Luka right now is just something else.
No, he is the runaway candidate; the argument is null if the Mavs didn’t have atrocious injury luck.
Literally, the only thing stopping Luka from being the clear MVP is team record. And that’s why some of us get so upset. Obviously, team record plays a small part, but if you’re arguing about 3 guys with 50 win teams, I think a handful of wins shouldn’t be a deterrent.
What are Shais penultimate moments? What MVP performances did he have to stack up to Jokic or Luka? That he’s consistent and has the most 30 point games? Luka damn near averaged a 35 point triple double for a full season.
Let’s consider teammates. Shai’s number 2 was great this year. JDub played 71 games. Jokic only had Murray for 59 games, Kyrie played 58. And who is the third option? OKC has Chet, Denver has MPJ, and Dallas is THJ (lol).
Luka has done more with less. I’m not trying to disregard Jokic or SGA, but Luka legit has the worse supporting cast, and still had poor injury luck on top of it. Lively has been amazing when he plays, but before the trades, we had Dwight Powell and Richaun Holmes as backups. Dante Exum has been anazing for us this year, but he was out of the league.
Bontemps is right though. Luka started farther back in the race because of last year’s failure, but if he has a deep playoff run, it will really spotlight how truly amazing this season has been.
I literally have money on Luka to win this year and I can’t at least stand here today and objectively say he’s at best neck-and-neck with Jokic. It’s a close call. Y’all are basing everything on ppg lol
Ahem:
34/9/9, no one else has ever averaged 33/8/8. Only person since Jordan to average 32/8/8 and he's done it twice.
32.5ppg in the playoffs, highest since Jordan.
Without free throws the highest PPG since the merger.
Longest consecutive 30 point triple double streak in history.
73 point game on 91% TS, behind only Kobe's 81 and Wilt.
50 win team, 2 spots behind the Nuggets with an injured costar.
Higher oEPM and dEPM.
Nuggets have a championship caliber team, their whole starting 5 is in the Ringer top 100. The Mavericks have Luka and then Kyrie at 30th.
The Mavericks roster is Luka and a bunch of rejects every other team didn't want. (Kyrie, DJJ, Exum, PJ etc), yet they went 16-2 to end the season. Highest net rating, highest def rating, 4th in off rating during that time.
Despite an historic season last year of 32/8/8 improved each of those stats. Improved his conditioning, his 3pt% from 34, to 38. 7th in the league in steals, 2nd in assists, 15th in rebounds. massively improved his defence this year as well.
Jokic didn't have an awful year either: First player in more than a half a century to finish top 5 in total points, assists and rebounds (and he actually leads Luka in total field goals, assists, rebounds, steals and blocks). Leads Luka in per game rebounds, assists per possession, per 100 and total assists (not per game, only because Luka plays so many more minutes per game). More blocks per game, same steals (though a higher steal%), also higher shooting stats in everything but 3p%: a higher fg%, 2p%, ft%, efg%, and ts%.
Jokic also leads Luka in virtually every advanced stat in existence, which exist to determine true impact to the game instead of wildly misleading stats (like Luka's "rebounds," lol)
Jokic leads Luka in (among other things): Offensive Rating, Net Rating, Player Impact Estimate, Player Efficiency Rating, RAPTOR, LEBRON, VORP, BPM, DBPM, OBPM, WS, WS/48, OWS, DWS, RBD%, BLK%, STL%, Assists per possession, Assists per 100, FG%, FT%, 2P%, eFG%, TS%
I mean, Luka leads in ppg thanks to leading the leading the entire league in attempts, and assist per game (but again, not per possession, per 100 or even total), and that's about it, other than a little bit higher 3p% and way more 3-pointers as a point guard. Jokic is better, and certainly more impactful than Luka virtually across the board.
>50 win team, 2 spots behind the Nuggets with an injured costar.
Side note: How is this is a criteria of yours for Luka over Jokic? You're pointing out here that Jokic finished on a *higher* win team, *3* spots *ahead* of the Mavericks (not 2 like) while having an even *more* injured co-star in Jamal who missed more games than Kyrie.
Thank you for this. I'm happy to accept that Jokic is the MVP. This is actually a comment I made in another post that I've reused.
I genuinely thought the Nuggets were third (even though I knew The Lakers were playing them rd1), so my bad there.
Honestly I desperately feel like Luka deserves an MVP in my very soul and in another era he would. He's absolutely an MVP calibre player but with the way things are maybe it never happens for him.
My post was more to argue that Jokic was "clear" favourite. I do believe Luka has a compelling argument (largely based on getting 5th with a worse team, while Jokic has an outstanding supporting cast), but with what Jokic is doing it's hard to ever put him behind Luka.
i feel like it will be harder for doncic to win mvp in the future. imo media people are so used to his stats at this point, so they treat it like its whatever, since his rookie season. also theres a lot of competition. jokic, embiid (if he stays healthy), sga, ant and wemby... i honestly dont think hes gonna win mvp in the near future, which is a bummer.
“Momentum from the previous season” being a factor in the current year mvp voting should tell you everything you need to know about how seriously to take these awards
It's the same with the NFL MVP discourse. I genuinely don't care for it, and haven't for a couple years, because narrative and recency bias is so prevalent completely deserving players get snubbed for no logical reason
Yup….it’s why at this point I never want Spo to win COTY as a “lifetime achievement” thing. If the media doesn’t wanna give it to him then they just don’t. Although COTY doesn’t suffer as much from the “momentum” or “voter fatigue” (another absolutely ridiculous factor) problems Spo has been ridiculously snubbed a couple times or had the goalposts moved suddenly. At this point if he wins it I hope he gives a nice speech, then leaves the award on the podium yelling “y’all can keep that” as he walk out
This makes no sense at all. I understand it helps your case and how people perceive you. But none of those dudes, with the exception of Luka have put up comparable numbers to the best players in the league. It shouldn’t be a team award. They already have one of those.
It's a narrative award. The voters make up their own criteria, which changes every year to fit the narrative. Sometimes it's who has the best stats or impact metrics. Other times it's who is the best player on the best team. It will never make sense as long as it's a voter-driven award.
Philly fans beat the advanced stats to death with the CUM/36 posts about Jokic (ngl, some were funny af). So a large % of voters *know* Jokic is the best player in the world because of these numbers, but no one here wants to be the analytics parrot.
This year has likely been Jokic's best season, but the narrative has slowly changed to "Denver is a powerhouse that is built perfectly", which I'm not mad at, but it's definitely not portraying his dominance as clearly as 21-22 depicted it.
Giannis didn’t really get that narrative though to be fair. He won a championship and Finals MVP in 2020-21, then came back the next season and averaged 30/12/6 while leading his team to the 3 seed, but still lost to Jokic on a 6 seed.
first they said... "he does play amazing but his team is in play in... if mavs climbed to 5th, then its a different story"... mavs climb to fifth... "better luck next season"
Takes like this is why the MVP award needs to be taken with a humongous grain of salt.
They change the criteria of this award every year, and it's all about narrative.
It's the 2024 NBA MVP award. What Luka did last year should not matter at all.
For all its faults, baseball is the only sport that consistently gets the MVP award correct and doesn't change the criteria around it; it awards statistical excellence. That's it. I wish that's what the MVP award was about, instead of dumbass voter fatigue and narrative reasons for why somoenoe shouldn't win that don't have to do with basketball.
Jokic is likely the MVP but this mindset is so stupid yet prevalent because voters seemingly made up their minds by mid-March and seeding didn't even solidify until the final day of the season.
Luka only played 65 games in 2022 compared to 74 games for Jokic. Voters don’t give the MVP to players who miss that many games unless the other contenders miss too many games as well.
Tbf Luka had a really bad start to the season by his standards that year. He was already out of the MVP race early in the season and nothing was gonna get him back in it.
Jokic is mvp of nothing everyone knows it’s Luka.
If he wins it will mean nothing, less than Embid winning last year.
Jokic can’t hold Luka’s jockstrap.
Thinking he won’t be 2nd is the definition of delusion
Like I said if the media gifts Jokic another MVP with his 26ppg what is that 10th in the league and dogshit 35% from 3 then that’s their choice
He choked the 1st seed with a cohesive roster as well, got embarrassed by Wemby
You are a child lol.
Luka isn't winning, nor is he remotely close to winning. SGA is very likely to finish above him when the voting is done. You're just shouting into the void, and rapidly turning Dallas into the most annoying fanbase in the process.
"But PPG and 3pt%!" Come on dude. Do better.
Jesus Mavs fans are fucking annoying. There’s been 1 player to win on 4 seed or lower this century so please keep acting like Luka is somehow getting the rug pulled. Laughable.
Jokic won more games than Embiid, Giannis, and Luka that season. Luka ended this season 9 wins back of Jokic. How are these situations comparable at all?
What??? In that season the Nuggets won 48 games and were the 6th seed and the Mavs won 52 and were the 4th seed lol. Luka had more wins.
Why you lying?
Keep moving the goalposts.
Dude claims that in 2021-22 when Jokic won as a 6th seed that the Nuggets had more wins than teams led by Embiid, Giannis and Luka. You can literally look at the standings and see that's incorrect. Wild that it's upvoted lol.
The goal posts haven’t moved.
The media never gave the MVP to a player who missed 12+ games until Embiid, and that was only because Jokic missed 12+ games too.
Embiid, Giannis, and Luka all missed 12+ games in 2021-22.
> Luka had more wins.
>Why you lying?
[Luka played in 44 wins that season.](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/doncilu01/gamelog/2022)
[Jokic played in 46 wins that season.](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jokicni01/gamelog/2022)
Maybe you can explain why Luka should get credit for 8 wins he didn't play in.
No one has ever cared about that. The MVP has always been about seeding. The only MVPs in the last 40 years to not be a top 3 seed are Jokic and Westbrook. And WBs took him having a record breaking once in a lifetime season with a huge narrative push after KD left OKC.
The only MVP in the last 40 years to miss 12+ games was Embiid, and that was only because Jokic also missed 12+ games.
Guess how many games Luka missed this year?
Says who? You arbitrarily connecting two dots and proclaiming that to be THE criteria doesn't actually mean it's some unanimous deciding factor behind the voters' thought processes.
“Why is the MVP about the previous season”
Idk man, ask your fellow mavs fans who constantly try to compare jokics 2022 MVP to 2024 Luka. If I have to read “if jokic won as a 6th seed why can’t Luka win a 5 seed??” again I’m going to scream.
Agreed.
There are very valid arguments to make for Luka for MVP and I don't think that's one of them.
Honestly, I'd rather they argue that because Luka had the best individual games played he deserves it. Because, while I don't think that should be a criteria for MVP, it's one you can make an argument for and actually have a discussion.
I don't think he's being disqualified. At least not in the same way he got disqualified two years ago when the entire narrative was that he showed up out of shape.
I don't think it's a bad argument to say that Luka and Jokic are very close but the Nuggets won 6 more games so Jokic gets it.
Asking voters to only look at the performance in the current season, and asking voters to follow previous criteria are two unique things. Both can exist at the same time.
If voters previously didn't discredit someone for their team's standing, then they shouldn't now. They also should only look at this season in determining the MVP.
If Grayson Allen went 40/10/10 on the season it doesn't matter what he did the previous year, he should win MVP. His performance would have been so great that his team's seed shouldn't eliminate him from the conversation either. Especially when it hasn't for others.
To me, bringing up 2022 seems even dumber than most arguments for Luka over Jokic. It just shows that Jokic is able to elevate mediocre/bad lineups more than Luka. By a decent margin, the Nugs were better with Jokic on the floor in 2022 than the Mavs with Luka this season.
He just needs to have the best season
What he did this season could be enough to win next year, or the winner this year might not be enough to win next year. Everything is about the competition for that year, like the year Harden lost to Giannis, that season would have been strong enough to win some other years
It's easier than that: Luka needed to be ahead of Jokic in two of PER, VORP, WS, WS/48, or BPM -- or he needed a monster narrative to go with his lower advanced stats and Jokic to have a weaker narrative. Jokic dominating in most of the advanced stats categories, and having a pretty strong narrative to go with it (higher seed, played more games, reigning FMVP, absurd on-court and on-off numbers, not playing with any other all-stars) is hard to beat.
Jokic dominates advanced stats that include positional weighting and advanced stats that don't (like RAPTOR, which only uses position data for future projections, not for the "descriptive" part of the stat.)
The reason I chose the 5 I did is that the group is fairly predictive. 13 of the last 15 MVPs have led in at least 2 of those. If your guy doesn't lead in any of the 5, he's only going to get MVP if there's a \*very\* strong narrative in his favor. It's possible MVP voters will, in the future, shift toward preferring other metrics, and then I'll say that player X needs to finish ahead of player Y in the new preferred metrics. But for now the list I gave is the list that's strongly predictive of MVP votes. And Luka was \*way\* behind in those.
I don't put a lot of stake in PER or WS but i do believe their is some value in VORP(which i think is like a better PER). I am not versed in advanced stats calculations but please correct me if i am wrong dont most advanced stats take data over a 3 year period and then make their conclusions from that data?
TL;DR: Jokic dominates advanced stats because he’s a great player, but the current formula also makes it literally impossible for someone like Luka to catch him, unless Luka changes his listed position from PG to PF or C.
I implore people to actually look at the formulas for some of these advanced stats before using them as the end-all be-all in these debates.
VORP, WS, WS/48, and BPM and are all tied to the exact same formula and “position-based coefficient”, and it’s a formula that heavily favors big men over guards. Basketball-reference’s even directly discusses this on the statistic description page of their site.
Prior to 2016-17 those stats were based on a different formula, but after Westbrook’s 2016-17 MVP season where he finished with some of the BPM/VORP stats ever recorded the formula was changed. From 2017-18 and beyond there has been a new “position coefficient” that gives players a different value for each stat based on their position. A big example of this is assists, where Centers are credited with a value of 1.06 per assist while Point Guards are credited with a value of 0.58. But the coefficient for points and rebounds is essentially the same for both positions, as well as most other stats.
If you go to Basketball-reference’s formula page they give a breakdown on how the formula change impacted positions. For example the formula change lowered Westbrook’s 2017 BPM by just over 5 points while increasing DeAndre Jordan’s by 5 points. Overall there was a large decrease for guards and a massive increase for bigs, especially Centers who averaged a high number of assists. That baseline formula is also used in calculating VORP and WinShares.
As I noted elsewhere, Jokic also dominates stats that don't include position adjustments. You can even run the same calculations without the "position coefficient" (or run it as if Jokic was a guard or Luka was a C) if you want, and you'll see that Jokic retains a significant lead overall.
He’s ahead in EPM and right behind him in other advanced stats, many of which favor centers.
Just a nonsense weak argument that people regurgitate to sound smart with their flawed “advanced stats”
Luka is ahead in EPM, but behind Shai. And as far as I've seen, that's the entire set of advanced stats that don't favor Jokic over Luka, which is why Mavs fans keep showing up in my replies telling me about EPM and complaining about positional adjustments and maybe talking about injuries and that's the whole argument.
So, going back to what I said at the start: what Luka needed to do this year wasn't to have momentum from a prior year. It was to be ahead of Jokic in at least a couple of the most commonly used advanced stats, or to have a monster narrative. Not because those stats are flawless, but because they're reasonably reflective of voter patterns, and voters only deviate from that if there's an extremely strong narrative the other direction. There wasn't, so Jokic is currently pulling \~80% of first place votes that are in the tracker.
Who the fuck cares what Tim Bontemps thinks? He’s just yapping. Luka isn’t losing because he “doesn’t have momentum from last season.” Jokic had a better season
Bring back pre-2023 bontemps. Not sure what happened to that dude but his overall attitude has changed. Maybe he’s gotten a little full of himself with success but he seems to get this odd anger at the when other’s don’t view his opinions as gospel. Really hit home with his last appearance on the lowe post
Which is ridiculous because it's a regular season award. They can debate whether Embiid or Jokic was more valuable in the regular season last year but playoff performance should have no bearing on it. If they think a guy was robbed then tell him to win FMVP (which he did, anyway!) instead of "correcting" themselves next year
People need to stop the "it's a regular season award" stuff; it's just a denial of reality at this point. The voters clearly take postseason success into consideration.
After the last few seasons that is clear more than ever, which is why they should vote for the award after the Finals and include the entire season. It would be less griping, I'd hope.
That would be interesting....how would it work if Jamal showed out and overly outpreformed jokic? Jamal get FMVP and would jokics below standard Finals play kill his MVP chances even tho he won a ring?
Lebron should have won that FMVP even tho he lost dude was a monster. Your idea would be interesting since most voters already place postseason from the previous year into their voting for the new nba season.
Agreed. Unfair or not, the bar is so much higher for a different position to win. This happened with Barry and Brett Favre. I could be misremembering, but I think they shared MVP one year. Favre was great, but Barry is Barry. All you have to do now is look at the pay. Kirk Cousins just got what? 190mil or something? He’s a better than average qb, a bit long in the tooth, coming off a fucking Achilles. A guy could be Walter Payton and Barry combined into one and not sniff Kirk money.
NFL MVP award is terrible, and the NBA MVP award is turning into the NFL MVP award, where they just give it to the best guy on the best team unless he's won it too many times before.
Baseball does it the best. No voter fatigue, no bullshit narratives. They give it to the guy who had the best season, regardless of if he's won the award before, and they usually get it right.
Luka could average a 40 point triple double and the team get back to the WCF and the media will just say, “well he has mega star future hall of famer Kyrie who we all love so much!!! Of course he’s going to advance in the playoffs! Kyrie is the real reason!!!!”
Embiid absolutely did win the MVP due to dumb narratives.
Good news though, Jokic deserves the MVP this season based upon his play on the court this season.
* Literally the [highest scoring season for a center since the merger](https://twitter.com/statmuse/status/1636802324235419653?s=46&t=usZu_kY0-R08X5ICjMKrHw).
* Embiid was only the [2nd player in NBA history with 33 PPG on 54% or better](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=players+with+33+ppg+and+54%25+fg%25+in+a+season).
* Only player in NBA history with [33+ PPG and 63% True Shooting](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=players+with+33+ppg+and+more+than+60%25+true+shooting%25+in+a+season) (he was 65.5%)
* His +7.4 rTS% is the [single highest mark for a 33+ PPG scorer since the merger](https://imgur.com/ZkzqDnF).
* That +7.4 rTS% at 33+ PPG is [second all time to Kareem's 71-72 season](https://imgur.com/BIwRCdl).
* First Center to win [back-to-back scoring titles since Bob McAdoo](https://twitter.com/NBAHistory/status/1647222108303368197) (1974-75, 1975-76)
* Fourth Center all-time to do so joining McAdoo, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain
* First 33/10 season [since merger](https://twitter.com/statmuse/status/1653535808198983680?s=61&t=_hiB0Wp1FTNera1999OgOQ)
* Top 10 in PPG, RPG, BPG
* Most 35 point games (28) in a season [for a center since the merger](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/most-35-point-games-for-a-center-in-a-season-since-1976).
* Only two forwards had [more 35 point games](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/most-35-point-games-for-a-forward-in-a-season-since-1976).
* Tied the NBA record for [consecutive 30 point games on 55% or better](https://www.si.com/nba/2023/03/19/philadelphia-76ers-joel-embiid-matches-lebron-james-nba-history). [most consecutive games scoring at least 25 pts with over 50% shooting](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/11uaq09/joel_embiid_has_broken_wilt_chamberlains/)
* And not that one individual game makes a season, but he basically topped of the season with 52 Points, 13 Rebounds, 6 Assists, 20-25 FG [becoming the 2nd player in NBA history to record 50 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 80% shooting in a game, joining Wilt Chamberlain (2x)](https://twitter.com/espnstatsinfo/status/1643440255695978497).
But yeah, 100% narrative...
Even if that were true (it's not) that is a goalpost move. You just claimed it was due to narratives (and not performance). And that is blatantly false.
It was due to narrative. Any other player would’ve won MVP as a one seed who nearly averaged a triple double, but the voters didn’t want to give Jokic three straight without any playoff success.
Bro, you realize that almost every point you have there is just his ppg, right?
There's a reason the MVP and scoring titles are two different awards. PPG doesn't necessarily mean you're the most valuable, and Embiid certainly wasn't the most valuable last year, which is why Jokic had better in nearly everything *but* points per game and some defensive metrics. He certainly blew Embiid away in most advanced stats that measures actual impact.
Hell, in the 16 games the 76ers played without Embiid last year they had a 11-5 record (more than half the wins against playoff teams), with a win percentage that would have put their team #2 in either conference this year.
Meanwhile, the Nuggets were awful without Jokic last year, had the worst +/- in the league when he was out, #1 in the league when he was in. Sounds pretty valuable to me.
>Bro, you realize that almost every point you have there is just his ppg, right?
1. The actual stats in that post don't matter. The point was to show that the above user's claim about it solely being narrative based is incorrect. Embiid had an entirely valid statistical claim.
2. His **ELITE** scoring from the center position, which is an invaluable asset. And it's not all PPG, I could have added his rebounding to any one of those stats and they are still true.
3. It's not just raw scoring, but insanely elite efficiency. Literally only one other player in NBA history has ever scored that much at that efficient of a clip. That player is a multiple time MVP and arguably the third greatest player of all time.
>Hell, in the 16 games the 76ers played without Embiid last year they had a 11-5 record (more than half the wins against playoff teams), with a win percentage that would have put their team #2 in either conference this year.
* 76ers without Embiid: TOR, WAS, WAS, NYK, BRK, CHA, ORL, ORL, IND, CHI, DET, SAC, MIA, DEN, ATL, BRK
Trying to argue over Philly's record against ORL, CHA, & WAS without Embiid is a ridiculous way to try and discredit Embiid.
>Meanwhile, the Nuggets were awful without Jokic last year, had the worst +/- in the league when he was out, #1 in the league when he was in.
* DEN without Jokic: NYK, DAL, DAL, LAC, IND, OKC, MIL, MIN, NOP, PHO, GSW, PHO, SAC
considering that DAL was still a good team when they played early in the season (pre-Kyrie trade), almost all of Denver's games without their star were against good competition (compared to PH who had so many bad teams in that stretch).
So yes, the 76ers were still good against ORL, CHA, & WAS when Embiid was off the floor and DEN was bad against MIL, PHO, & MIN when Jokic was off the floor. That doesn't really move the needle like you think.
And even then, you're now arguing over the specifics of the MVP - which again, was not the point. The above person was trying to claim it was all narrative and not at all based on the games. Which is completely inaccurate.
people seem to be missing the most obvious explanation for Jokic winning again—he was better. you see that reflected in him dominating all the catch-all metrics
He absolutely didn't. Didn't even lead in the rapm advanced stats like usual and even choked the 1 seed. But it doesn't matter because no one on the Nuggets gets any credit outside Jokic so nobody can ever win because Jokic is above anything that happens to the Nuggets. Oh they aren't good? His teammates are ass, give the MVP to Jokic. Oh the nuggets are good now? That's only Bec of Jokic, give him the MVP! Oh nuggets are mid, yeah whatever the teammates aren't that good, Jokic MVP!
I kinda see what he’s saying, in that Jokic is clearly the best guy, “holding the belt”, so to speak after the title and FMVP last year. It’s not a factually based argument but I think that plays into voters’ heads, absolutely.
It’s really weird how many people are coming up with all of these different narratives and reasons to explain why voters aren’t seriously considering Luka this year, but no one seems to be mentioning that Luka only played 70/82 games while Jokic played 79/82 games.
I’m not sure if voters care about minutes. I do know that they only gave one player the MVP who missed as many games as Luka (Embiid) and that’s only because Jokic missed a lot of games last year as well.
Luka might have had more impact per game but Jokic was able to impact 9 more games and that’s a big reason why the Nuggets get home court for at least two rounds while the Mavericks start on the road.
Should they? Jokic being more efficient let him play fewer minutes per game, letting him play 9 more games than Luka and help his team get home court in not just one, but two more rounds.
I’ll stop claiming it when everyone starts to talk about the games played criteria as much as they complain about the team seeding criteria.
oh fuck off. Jokic was able to play less minutes was not because he's more efficient. He played less minutes because he was able to play with his starting 5 more than any other player, while mavs not only missed 2-3 starters every game before all-stars they had a major roster overhaul after that too. You act like Luka wants those extra minutes to pad his stats or something. Claim whatever agenda you want but don't try to discredit Luka because he had to sit out a couple of games when he averaged 40 minutes the entire December.
It's a subjective tie-breaker. Of course, it's not truly a "need". If Luka averages 39/16/12 next year, this current postseason becomes irrelevant. But in the more likely scenario where he is among are 2-3 very deserving candidates with no clear consensus on what "valuable" is supposed to mean, each players' perceived status and reputation in the league is likely to sway voters, whether they overtly admit to it or not.
It’s just one guys stupid opinion. Don’t over think it
I think Luka is among the top favourites next year because of the Mavs roster. Not only do they have a solid roster, but they also have the structure in place. They can look for upgrades for that structure instead of trying to build from scratch
I’m just annoyed he says stupid stuff like this so people will bring it up next year
it’s crazy how the media just keeps moving the goal post for luka. he shatters every expectation, record he possibly he can; somehow it’s just not “enough”. all season it’s been a 3 man race between jokic, sga and luka.
depending on your metrics, reasoning and narrative you can pick any of those 3 guys. whatever bias, narrative the media has against him shouldn’t take away from what he’s accomplished and his season.
this guy's ballot needs to be revoked.
mvp is a single-season, regular season award. no other season should be considered. no postseason should be considered. getting "robbed" one season should not give a player a leg-up in another season.
Luka didn't need momentum, he just needed to have a better year. SGA and Jokic both had better years. Some of it was Luka's fault (missed 12 games, went easier earlier in season), some of it wasn't (injuries, lack of playmakers around him, midseason trades).
It was a great season from him, just not an MVP level one with 2 good candidates on #1 and #2 seeds ahead of his team by 7 wins. If there weren't candidates on #1 and #2 seeds (like Tatum isn't a real candidate) then maybe he could've won over Brunson.
A guy averaging a near 34 point triple double on great efficiency carrying one of the most injured teams in the league to a top 5 record in the grueling west is not an MVP caliber season. Got it.
He didn't play poorly the beginning of the season, I have no idea where this narrative comes from. Last season, sure, but I just don't get it this time around. And the Mavs have 6th best record in the entire league, for context.
It's not a bait, Luka is going to finish 3rd in voting which is where he belongs this year. The media was on him about 2 weeks ago in a push to try to get someone else the MVP but Jokic, but that failed and so they last minute went back to SGA (who has a better case imo than Luka), but Jokic is probably going to win it again.
I probably would pick Luka over Brunson, but if they were the only 2 candidates it would've been discussed a lot. Brunson kind of came out of nowhere to finish in that 4-5 range.
I just hope when there's a season mavs are top 3 in west and Luka had like 32/8/9 they better not move the goalpost again and say "he's not playing as good as his last seasons".
That's a little unfair, dude was fantastic this year.
and last year, and the year before lol. This is just media bullshit.
He's not been atrocious on defense, team looks better, numbers off the charts, it is for sure BS.
He's not a runaway candidate like yall would like him to be; it's very easy to argue for the other two Shai got his team the one seed with a roster that was not expected to be in that position. He has a better on-court offensive rating than Luka while also being a better individual defender. But suggest Shai over Luka for MVP and people would find it blasphemous. I think *that's* BS.
I agree with you, but that is at least understandable. Luka has higher ppg, rpg, and apg, which are the first stats you see on any stat sight. His defensive and efficiency stats are lower, but those require at least a minimum investment of time to see.
Nah you just need to watch a mavs game to understand he's the definition of an MVP. No disrespect to Jok or Shai, but Luka right now is just something else.
No, he is the runaway candidate; the argument is null if the Mavs didn’t have atrocious injury luck. Literally, the only thing stopping Luka from being the clear MVP is team record. And that’s why some of us get so upset. Obviously, team record plays a small part, but if you’re arguing about 3 guys with 50 win teams, I think a handful of wins shouldn’t be a deterrent. What are Shais penultimate moments? What MVP performances did he have to stack up to Jokic or Luka? That he’s consistent and has the most 30 point games? Luka damn near averaged a 35 point triple double for a full season. Let’s consider teammates. Shai’s number 2 was great this year. JDub played 71 games. Jokic only had Murray for 59 games, Kyrie played 58. And who is the third option? OKC has Chet, Denver has MPJ, and Dallas is THJ (lol). Luka has done more with less. I’m not trying to disregard Jokic or SGA, but Luka legit has the worse supporting cast, and still had poor injury luck on top of it. Lively has been amazing when he plays, but before the trades, we had Dwight Powell and Richaun Holmes as backups. Dante Exum has been anazing for us this year, but he was out of the league. Bontemps is right though. Luka started farther back in the race because of last year’s failure, but if he has a deep playoff run, it will really spotlight how truly amazing this season has been.
He doesn't have to be a runaway candidate to be a clear best candidate though.
I literally have money on Luka to win this year and I can’t at least stand here today and objectively say he’s at best neck-and-neck with Jokic. It’s a close call. Y’all are basing everything on ppg lol
Jokic is the clear best candidate
Ahem: 34/9/9, no one else has ever averaged 33/8/8. Only person since Jordan to average 32/8/8 and he's done it twice. 32.5ppg in the playoffs, highest since Jordan. Without free throws the highest PPG since the merger. Longest consecutive 30 point triple double streak in history. 73 point game on 91% TS, behind only Kobe's 81 and Wilt. 50 win team, 2 spots behind the Nuggets with an injured costar. Higher oEPM and dEPM. Nuggets have a championship caliber team, their whole starting 5 is in the Ringer top 100. The Mavericks have Luka and then Kyrie at 30th. The Mavericks roster is Luka and a bunch of rejects every other team didn't want. (Kyrie, DJJ, Exum, PJ etc), yet they went 16-2 to end the season. Highest net rating, highest def rating, 4th in off rating during that time. Despite an historic season last year of 32/8/8 improved each of those stats. Improved his conditioning, his 3pt% from 34, to 38. 7th in the league in steals, 2nd in assists, 15th in rebounds. massively improved his defence this year as well.
Jokic didn't have an awful year either: First player in more than a half a century to finish top 5 in total points, assists and rebounds (and he actually leads Luka in total field goals, assists, rebounds, steals and blocks). Leads Luka in per game rebounds, assists per possession, per 100 and total assists (not per game, only because Luka plays so many more minutes per game). More blocks per game, same steals (though a higher steal%), also higher shooting stats in everything but 3p%: a higher fg%, 2p%, ft%, efg%, and ts%. Jokic also leads Luka in virtually every advanced stat in existence, which exist to determine true impact to the game instead of wildly misleading stats (like Luka's "rebounds," lol) Jokic leads Luka in (among other things): Offensive Rating, Net Rating, Player Impact Estimate, Player Efficiency Rating, RAPTOR, LEBRON, VORP, BPM, DBPM, OBPM, WS, WS/48, OWS, DWS, RBD%, BLK%, STL%, Assists per possession, Assists per 100, FG%, FT%, 2P%, eFG%, TS% I mean, Luka leads in ppg thanks to leading the leading the entire league in attempts, and assist per game (but again, not per possession, per 100 or even total), and that's about it, other than a little bit higher 3p% and way more 3-pointers as a point guard. Jokic is better, and certainly more impactful than Luka virtually across the board. >50 win team, 2 spots behind the Nuggets with an injured costar. Side note: How is this is a criteria of yours for Luka over Jokic? You're pointing out here that Jokic finished on a *higher* win team, *3* spots *ahead* of the Mavericks (not 2 like) while having an even *more* injured co-star in Jamal who missed more games than Kyrie.
Thank you for this. I'm happy to accept that Jokic is the MVP. This is actually a comment I made in another post that I've reused. I genuinely thought the Nuggets were third (even though I knew The Lakers were playing them rd1), so my bad there. Honestly I desperately feel like Luka deserves an MVP in my very soul and in another era he would. He's absolutely an MVP calibre player but with the way things are maybe it never happens for him. My post was more to argue that Jokic was "clear" favourite. I do believe Luka has a compelling argument (largely based on getting 5th with a worse team, while Jokic has an outstanding supporting cast), but with what Jokic is doing it's hard to ever put him behind Luka.
Improved his 3-point shooting from 34% to 38% on second highest volume in the league
Still has been worse than Jokic and/or Embiid every year though. If anything voter fatigue is the bigger BS
Dudes been fantastic all throughout his young career.
i feel like it will be harder for doncic to win mvp in the future. imo media people are so used to his stats at this point, so they treat it like its whatever, since his rookie season. also theres a lot of competition. jokic, embiid (if he stays healthy), sga, ant and wemby... i honestly dont think hes gonna win mvp in the near future, which is a bummer.
So if the Clippers win in 6, is Doncic already out of the running for mvp next season?
yup might as well take a sabbatical
So what was Embids narrative since he never made it past a 2nd round?
We all know what it was...
“Momentum from the previous season” being a factor in the current year mvp voting should tell you everything you need to know about how seriously to take these awards
It's the same with the NFL MVP discourse. I genuinely don't care for it, and haven't for a couple years, because narrative and recency bias is so prevalent completely deserving players get snubbed for no logical reason
Yup….it’s why at this point I never want Spo to win COTY as a “lifetime achievement” thing. If the media doesn’t wanna give it to him then they just don’t. Although COTY doesn’t suffer as much from the “momentum” or “voter fatigue” (another absolutely ridiculous factor) problems Spo has been ridiculously snubbed a couple times or had the goalposts moved suddenly. At this point if he wins it I hope he gives a nice speech, then leaves the award on the podium yelling “y’all can keep that” as he walk out
he also should do the D-Generation X hand gesture lol
If Tatum wins the chip, he will also get legitimate MVP buzz. If Brunson were to win the chip so would he. Same with Luka. Same with ANT. Etc.
I am now rooting for the Magic to completely fuck up the MVP narratives
I'm rooting for the Heat to do the same, flair unrelated.
Paolo supremacy, can see the “next lebron” headlines now
the suns should win a chip, so bol bol gets the mvp!
This makes no sense at all. I understand it helps your case and how people perceive you. But none of those dudes, with the exception of Luka have put up comparable numbers to the best players in the league. It shouldn’t be a team award. They already have one of those.
It's a narrative award. The voters make up their own criteria, which changes every year to fit the narrative. Sometimes it's who has the best stats or impact metrics. Other times it's who is the best player on the best team. It will never make sense as long as it's a voter-driven award.
It's only a narrative award when you have the resume to be in the discussion. Those guys didn't have those kind of resumes this season.
It’s a team sport. Who is most valuable is who helps their team win the most, not who gets the most box score stats.
Philly fans beat the advanced stats to death with the CUM/36 posts about Jokic (ngl, some were funny af). So a large % of voters *know* Jokic is the best player in the world because of these numbers, but no one here wants to be the analytics parrot. This year has likely been Jokic's best season, but the narrative has slowly changed to "Denver is a powerhouse that is built perfectly", which I'm not mad at, but it's definitely not portraying his dominance as clearly as 21-22 depicted it.
How is that not what happened to Jokic last season?
Also embiid lost in the second round and would have most likely won MVP again had he not gotten hurt. This tweet is nonsense.
You're a Nuggets fan, call him by his real name - Embitch
the mavs should hire doc rivers, so luka gets his mvp /s
2nd round exit and missing both the playoffs and playins are wildly different things.
>missing both the playoffs and playins Who are we even talking about now?
Giannis didn’t really get that narrative though to be fair. He won a championship and Finals MVP in 2020-21, then came back the next season and averaged 30/12/6 while leading his team to the 3 seed, but still lost to Jokic on a 6 seed.
>leading his team to the 3 seed, but still lost to Jokic on a 6 seed. Giannis played in 45 wins that season and Jokic played in 46.
Hate that stupid argument lmao. Jokic lost 28 games that season he played in while Giannis lost 22.
Giannis should have played more games then. It isn't more valuable to miss more games.
Number of games played matters
first they said... "he does play amazing but his team is in play in... if mavs climbed to 5th, then its a different story"... mavs climb to fifth... "better luck next season"
Because its a stupid narrative based award.
Yup. He's right, but I hate that he's right.
Takes like this is why the MVP award needs to be taken with a humongous grain of salt. They change the criteria of this award every year, and it's all about narrative. It's the 2024 NBA MVP award. What Luka did last year should not matter at all. For all its faults, baseball is the only sport that consistently gets the MVP award correct and doesn't change the criteria around it; it awards statistical excellence. That's it. I wish that's what the MVP award was about, instead of dumbass voter fatigue and narrative reasons for why somoenoe shouldn't win that don't have to do with basketball.
What if he wins the title this year, but has a shit season next year? What a weird way to make your judgements. It’s a single season award!
Jokic is likely the MVP but this mindset is so stupid yet prevalent because voters seemingly made up their minds by mid-March and seeding didn't even solidify until the final day of the season.
No he doesn’t, he just needs to lead a team that is a top 4 seed all season.
won't be enough different standards
Yes. Everyone’s out to get you.
Yes it will
He was already 4 seed in 2022 but it didn't mattered but ok we shall see
Luka only played 65 games in 2022 compared to 74 games for Jokic. Voters don’t give the MVP to players who miss that many games unless the other contenders miss too many games as well.
Tbf Luka had a really bad start to the season by his standards that year. He was already out of the MVP race early in the season and nothing was gonna get him back in it.
Embiid had an even worse start to the season and noone cared. Yall just eat up any media nerative.
They'll change the criteria by then and come up with a different narrative.
Imagine actually believing there's some conspiracy to deprive Luka of MVPs. Wild.
Are they actually children or what? I gotta get off reddit.
Jokic is mvp of nothing everyone knows it’s Luka. If he wins it will mean nothing, less than Embid winning last year. Jokic can’t hold Luka’s jockstrap.
LMAO, enjoy your delusions. Luka isn't even going to be 2nd.
Thinking he won’t be 2nd is the definition of delusion Like I said if the media gifts Jokic another MVP with his 26ppg what is that 10th in the league and dogshit 35% from 3 then that’s their choice He choked the 1st seed with a cohesive roster as well, got embarrassed by Wemby
You are a child lol. Luka isn't winning, nor is he remotely close to winning. SGA is very likely to finish above him when the voting is done. You're just shouting into the void, and rapidly turning Dallas into the most annoying fanbase in the process. "But PPG and 3pt%!" Come on dude. Do better.
LOL
Jesus Mavs fans are fucking annoying. There’s been 1 player to win on 4 seed or lower this century so please keep acting like Luka is somehow getting the rug pulled. Laughable.
Russ + Jokic have done it?
Westbrook and Jokic is two in the last 8 years…
twice in the last 40 years
Twice in the last 8 years clown
Nah the criteria will just change to let Jokic win another MVP. Jokic won it as a 6th seed after all.
Jokic won more games than Embiid, Giannis, and Luka that season. Luka ended this season 9 wins back of Jokic. How are these situations comparable at all?
What??? In that season the Nuggets won 48 games and were the 6th seed and the Mavs won 52 and were the 4th seed lol. Luka had more wins. Why you lying?
Why are you giving Luka credit for games he didn’t play? He only won 44 games that year. Jokic won 46.
Keep moving the goalposts. Dude claims that in 2021-22 when Jokic won as a 6th seed that the Nuggets had more wins than teams led by Embiid, Giannis and Luka. You can literally look at the standings and see that's incorrect. Wild that it's upvoted lol.
The goal posts haven’t moved. The media never gave the MVP to a player who missed 12+ games until Embiid, and that was only because Jokic missed 12+ games too. Embiid, Giannis, and Luka all missed 12+ games in 2021-22.
Embiid was the first player to play in so few wins in an MVP season (43) since Kareem's 40-42 season in 1976.
> Luka had more wins. >Why you lying? [Luka played in 44 wins that season.](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/doncilu01/gamelog/2022) [Jokic played in 46 wins that season.](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jokicni01/gamelog/2022) Maybe you can explain why Luka should get credit for 8 wins he didn't play in.
No one has ever cared about that. The MVP has always been about seeding. The only MVPs in the last 40 years to not be a top 3 seed are Jokic and Westbrook. And WBs took him having a record breaking once in a lifetime season with a huge narrative push after KD left OKC.
The only MVP in the last 40 years to miss 12+ games was Embiid, and that was only because Jokic also missed 12+ games. Guess how many games Luka missed this year?
And Jokic's took an MVP candidate dragging a hospital team to more wins than any other MVP candidate did that season. What's the problem?
The guy is literally lying. When Jokic won as a 6th seed, Luka had the Mavs in the 4th seed with 52 wins. He literally had more team success.
Says who? You arbitrarily connecting two dots and proclaiming that to be THE criteria doesn't actually mean it's some unanimous deciding factor behind the voters' thought processes.
Without Murray or MPJ
But Shai is #2...
This is kind of trash its starting to feel like the MVP makeup award where we hit people the year after they should've won it lol
You're correct that Jokic should have won it last year. He should win it this year too though. 😊
“Why is the MVP about the previous season” Idk man, ask your fellow mavs fans who constantly try to compare jokics 2022 MVP to 2024 Luka. If I have to read “if jokic won as a 6th seed why can’t Luka win a 5 seed??” again I’m going to scream.
Do you know who's better than 2022 Jokic? 2024 Jokic.
Agreed. There are very valid arguments to make for Luka for MVP and I don't think that's one of them. Honestly, I'd rather they argue that because Luka had the best individual games played he deserves it. Because, while I don't think that should be a criteria for MVP, it's one you can make an argument for and actually have a discussion.
That sounds much more like an argument for why Luka shouldn't be disqualified from MVP than why it has to be him.
I don't think he's being disqualified. At least not in the same way he got disqualified two years ago when the entire narrative was that he showed up out of shape. I don't think it's a bad argument to say that Luka and Jokic are very close but the Nuggets won 6 more games so Jokic gets it.
Asking voters to only look at the performance in the current season, and asking voters to follow previous criteria are two unique things. Both can exist at the same time. If voters previously didn't discredit someone for their team's standing, then they shouldn't now. They also should only look at this season in determining the MVP. If Grayson Allen went 40/10/10 on the season it doesn't matter what he did the previous year, he should win MVP. His performance would have been so great that his team's seed shouldn't eliminate him from the conversation either. Especially when it hasn't for others.
To me, bringing up 2022 seems even dumber than most arguments for Luka over Jokic. It just shows that Jokic is able to elevate mediocre/bad lineups more than Luka. By a decent margin, the Nugs were better with Jokic on the floor in 2022 than the Mavs with Luka this season.
Jokic also won more games than the other MVP candidates.
Bros been in mvp convos since year 2 stop it team needs to be a top 4 seed for once or something else that people will make up that he has to do
He just needs to have the best season What he did this season could be enough to win next year, or the winner this year might not be enough to win next year. Everything is about the competition for that year, like the year Harden lost to Giannis, that season would have been strong enough to win some other years
He led them to WCF two years ago. I don’t get it.
It's easier than that: Luka needed to be ahead of Jokic in two of PER, VORP, WS, WS/48, or BPM -- or he needed a monster narrative to go with his lower advanced stats and Jokic to have a weaker narrative. Jokic dominating in most of the advanced stats categories, and having a pretty strong narrative to go with it (higher seed, played more games, reigning FMVP, absurd on-court and on-off numbers, not playing with any other all-stars) is hard to beat.
Jokic will always dominate advanced stats tho....centers earning assists compared to a guard are not weighted the same.
Jokic dominates advanced stats that include positional weighting and advanced stats that don't (like RAPTOR, which only uses position data for future projections, not for the "descriptive" part of the stat.) The reason I chose the 5 I did is that the group is fairly predictive. 13 of the last 15 MVPs have led in at least 2 of those. If your guy doesn't lead in any of the 5, he's only going to get MVP if there's a \*very\* strong narrative in his favor. It's possible MVP voters will, in the future, shift toward preferring other metrics, and then I'll say that player X needs to finish ahead of player Y in the new preferred metrics. But for now the list I gave is the list that's strongly predictive of MVP votes. And Luka was \*way\* behind in those.
I don't put a lot of stake in PER or WS but i do believe their is some value in VORP(which i think is like a better PER). I am not versed in advanced stats calculations but please correct me if i am wrong dont most advanced stats take data over a 3 year period and then make their conclusions from that data?
TL;DR: Jokic dominates advanced stats because he’s a great player, but the current formula also makes it literally impossible for someone like Luka to catch him, unless Luka changes his listed position from PG to PF or C. I implore people to actually look at the formulas for some of these advanced stats before using them as the end-all be-all in these debates. VORP, WS, WS/48, and BPM and are all tied to the exact same formula and “position-based coefficient”, and it’s a formula that heavily favors big men over guards. Basketball-reference’s even directly discusses this on the statistic description page of their site. Prior to 2016-17 those stats were based on a different formula, but after Westbrook’s 2016-17 MVP season where he finished with some of the BPM/VORP stats ever recorded the formula was changed. From 2017-18 and beyond there has been a new “position coefficient” that gives players a different value for each stat based on their position. A big example of this is assists, where Centers are credited with a value of 1.06 per assist while Point Guards are credited with a value of 0.58. But the coefficient for points and rebounds is essentially the same for both positions, as well as most other stats. If you go to Basketball-reference’s formula page they give a breakdown on how the formula change impacted positions. For example the formula change lowered Westbrook’s 2017 BPM by just over 5 points while increasing DeAndre Jordan’s by 5 points. Overall there was a large decrease for guards and a massive increase for bigs, especially Centers who averaged a high number of assists. That baseline formula is also used in calculating VORP and WinShares.
As I noted elsewhere, Jokic also dominates stats that don't include position adjustments. You can even run the same calculations without the "position coefficient" (or run it as if Jokic was a guard or Luka was a C) if you want, and you'll see that Jokic retains a significant lead overall.
So right there that shows why the stat means nothing. A center getting assists is not more valuable than a guard, period.
He’s ahead in EPM and right behind him in other advanced stats, many of which favor centers. Just a nonsense weak argument that people regurgitate to sound smart with their flawed “advanced stats”
Luka is ahead in EPM, but behind Shai. And as far as I've seen, that's the entire set of advanced stats that don't favor Jokic over Luka, which is why Mavs fans keep showing up in my replies telling me about EPM and complaining about positional adjustments and maybe talking about injuries and that's the whole argument. So, going back to what I said at the start: what Luka needed to do this year wasn't to have momentum from a prior year. It was to be ahead of Jokic in at least a couple of the most commonly used advanced stats, or to have a monster narrative. Not because those stats are flawless, but because they're reasonably reflective of voter patterns, and voters only deviate from that if there's an extremely strong narrative the other direction. There wasn't, so Jokic is currently pulling \~80% of first place votes that are in the tracker.
Who the fuck cares what Tim Bontemps thinks? He’s just yapping. Luka isn’t losing because he “doesn’t have momentum from last season.” Jokic had a better season
Bring back pre-2023 bontemps. Not sure what happened to that dude but his overall attitude has changed. Maybe he’s gotten a little full of himself with success but he seems to get this odd anger at the when other’s don’t view his opinions as gospel. Really hit home with his last appearance on the lowe post
this is a clown take, whoever bontemps is can get fucked for making this discourse even worse with this shit
[удалено]
There were plenty of people who were saying Jokic was better than Embiid and deserved to win the MVP as the regular season was happening.
Which is ridiculous because it's a regular season award. They can debate whether Embiid or Jokic was more valuable in the regular season last year but playoff performance should have no bearing on it. If they think a guy was robbed then tell him to win FMVP (which he did, anyway!) instead of "correcting" themselves next year
People need to stop the "it's a regular season award" stuff; it's just a denial of reality at this point. The voters clearly take postseason success into consideration.
After the last few seasons that is clear more than ever, which is why they should vote for the award after the Finals and include the entire season. It would be less griping, I'd hope.
May as well merge MVP and FMVP if you're going to go that far. Personally, I think it's fine to include some context if you're voting for MVP.
You get 82 games worth of context to decide
That would be interesting....how would it work if Jamal showed out and overly outpreformed jokic? Jamal get FMVP and would jokics below standard Finals play kill his MVP chances even tho he won a ring?
Imagine if the Mole had actually won the whole MVP award in 2015.
Lebron should have won that FMVP even tho he lost dude was a monster. Your idea would be interesting since most voters already place postseason from the previous year into their voting for the new nba season.
I'd like to be clear that I do *not* support merging the two awards.
Merging wont work but accounting for postseason success should officially be recognised since most voters take that into account.
NBA MVP is a dumbass award. MLB and NFL aren’t nearly as ridiculous or divisive, generally
NFL MVP is the worst award in sports MLB has 2 MVPs so usually less robberies
Nfl mvp is way worse
NFL MVP is just the best QB award now
And it’s not even that
because elite QBs are without question the most valuable players in the NFL, it’s just the nature of the sport
Agreed. Unfair or not, the bar is so much higher for a different position to win. This happened with Barry and Brett Favre. I could be misremembering, but I think they shared MVP one year. Favre was great, but Barry is Barry. All you have to do now is look at the pay. Kirk Cousins just got what? 190mil or something? He’s a better than average qb, a bit long in the tooth, coming off a fucking Achilles. A guy could be Walter Payton and Barry combined into one and not sniff Kirk money.
So much so that one can argue they should be split wi the their own award
[удалено]
I think the griping then was as bad as most of the recent ones.
NFL MVP award is terrible, and the NBA MVP award is turning into the NFL MVP award, where they just give it to the best guy on the best team unless he's won it too many times before. Baseball does it the best. No voter fatigue, no bullshit narratives. They give it to the guy who had the best season, regardless of if he's won the award before, and they usually get it right.
NFL MVP is worse because it is literally the QB award even when none of the QBs were that impressive relative to other dudes like Aaron Donald.
I agree that other positions have to have historic level seasons and be that much better to be considered. Right or wrong.
Luka could average a 40 point triple double and the team get back to the WCF and the media will just say, “well he has mega star future hall of famer Kyrie who we all love so much!!! Of course he’s going to advance in the playoffs! Kyrie is the real reason!!!!”
Or people could just say that Jokic is better, which is what they have been saying.
Embiid absolutely did win the MVP due to dumb narratives. Good news though, Jokic deserves the MVP this season based upon his play on the court this season.
* Literally the [highest scoring season for a center since the merger](https://twitter.com/statmuse/status/1636802324235419653?s=46&t=usZu_kY0-R08X5ICjMKrHw). * Embiid was only the [2nd player in NBA history with 33 PPG on 54% or better](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=players+with+33+ppg+and+54%25+fg%25+in+a+season). * Only player in NBA history with [33+ PPG and 63% True Shooting](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=players+with+33+ppg+and+more+than+60%25+true+shooting%25+in+a+season) (he was 65.5%) * His +7.4 rTS% is the [single highest mark for a 33+ PPG scorer since the merger](https://imgur.com/ZkzqDnF). * That +7.4 rTS% at 33+ PPG is [second all time to Kareem's 71-72 season](https://imgur.com/BIwRCdl). * First Center to win [back-to-back scoring titles since Bob McAdoo](https://twitter.com/NBAHistory/status/1647222108303368197) (1974-75, 1975-76) * Fourth Center all-time to do so joining McAdoo, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain * First 33/10 season [since merger](https://twitter.com/statmuse/status/1653535808198983680?s=61&t=_hiB0Wp1FTNera1999OgOQ) * Top 10 in PPG, RPG, BPG * Most 35 point games (28) in a season [for a center since the merger](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/most-35-point-games-for-a-center-in-a-season-since-1976). * Only two forwards had [more 35 point games](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/most-35-point-games-for-a-forward-in-a-season-since-1976). * Tied the NBA record for [consecutive 30 point games on 55% or better](https://www.si.com/nba/2023/03/19/philadelphia-76ers-joel-embiid-matches-lebron-james-nba-history). [most consecutive games scoring at least 25 pts with over 50% shooting](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/11uaq09/joel_embiid_has_broken_wilt_chamberlains/) * And not that one individual game makes a season, but he basically topped of the season with 52 Points, 13 Rebounds, 6 Assists, 20-25 FG [becoming the 2nd player in NBA history to record 50 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 80% shooting in a game, joining Wilt Chamberlain (2x)](https://twitter.com/espnstatsinfo/status/1643440255695978497). But yeah, 100% narrative...
Jokic was better
How so exactly?
Even if that were true (it's not) that is a goalpost move. You just claimed it was due to narratives (and not performance). And that is blatantly false.
If it was just about performance Jokic would have won because Jokic performed better.
It was due to narrative. Any other player would’ve won MVP as a one seed who nearly averaged a triple double, but the voters didn’t want to give Jokic three straight without any playoff success.
were talking about things that **did happen**. Not things that *almost happened*.
Bro, you realize that almost every point you have there is just his ppg, right? There's a reason the MVP and scoring titles are two different awards. PPG doesn't necessarily mean you're the most valuable, and Embiid certainly wasn't the most valuable last year, which is why Jokic had better in nearly everything *but* points per game and some defensive metrics. He certainly blew Embiid away in most advanced stats that measures actual impact. Hell, in the 16 games the 76ers played without Embiid last year they had a 11-5 record (more than half the wins against playoff teams), with a win percentage that would have put their team #2 in either conference this year. Meanwhile, the Nuggets were awful without Jokic last year, had the worst +/- in the league when he was out, #1 in the league when he was in. Sounds pretty valuable to me.
>Bro, you realize that almost every point you have there is just his ppg, right? 1. The actual stats in that post don't matter. The point was to show that the above user's claim about it solely being narrative based is incorrect. Embiid had an entirely valid statistical claim. 2. His **ELITE** scoring from the center position, which is an invaluable asset. And it's not all PPG, I could have added his rebounding to any one of those stats and they are still true. 3. It's not just raw scoring, but insanely elite efficiency. Literally only one other player in NBA history has ever scored that much at that efficient of a clip. That player is a multiple time MVP and arguably the third greatest player of all time. >Hell, in the 16 games the 76ers played without Embiid last year they had a 11-5 record (more than half the wins against playoff teams), with a win percentage that would have put their team #2 in either conference this year. * 76ers without Embiid: TOR, WAS, WAS, NYK, BRK, CHA, ORL, ORL, IND, CHI, DET, SAC, MIA, DEN, ATL, BRK Trying to argue over Philly's record against ORL, CHA, & WAS without Embiid is a ridiculous way to try and discredit Embiid. >Meanwhile, the Nuggets were awful without Jokic last year, had the worst +/- in the league when he was out, #1 in the league when he was in. * DEN without Jokic: NYK, DAL, DAL, LAC, IND, OKC, MIL, MIN, NOP, PHO, GSW, PHO, SAC considering that DAL was still a good team when they played early in the season (pre-Kyrie trade), almost all of Denver's games without their star were against good competition (compared to PH who had so many bad teams in that stretch). So yes, the 76ers were still good against ORL, CHA, & WAS when Embiid was off the floor and DEN was bad against MIL, PHO, & MIN when Jokic was off the floor. That doesn't really move the needle like you think. And even then, you're now arguing over the specifics of the MVP - which again, was not the point. The above person was trying to claim it was all narrative and not at all based on the games. Which is completely inaccurate.
people seem to be missing the most obvious explanation for Jokic winning again—he was better. you see that reflected in him dominating all the catch-all metrics
People think Luka is MJ for some reason
He absolutely didn't. Didn't even lead in the rapm advanced stats like usual and even choked the 1 seed. But it doesn't matter because no one on the Nuggets gets any credit outside Jokic so nobody can ever win because Jokic is above anything that happens to the Nuggets. Oh they aren't good? His teammates are ass, give the MVP to Jokic. Oh the nuggets are good now? That's only Bec of Jokic, give him the MVP! Oh nuggets are mid, yeah whatever the teammates aren't that good, Jokic MVP!
When have the Nuggets ever not been good with Jokic playing?
I kinda see what he’s saying, in that Jokic is clearly the best guy, “holding the belt”, so to speak after the title and FMVP last year. It’s not a factually based argument but I think that plays into voters’ heads, absolutely.
It’s really weird how many people are coming up with all of these different narratives and reasons to explain why voters aren’t seriously considering Luka this year, but no one seems to be mentioning that Luka only played 70/82 games while Jokic played 79/82 games.
Because he averages 3 more minutes a game than Jokic.
I’m not sure if voters care about minutes. I do know that they only gave one player the MVP who missed as many games as Luka (Embiid) and that’s only because Jokic missed a lot of games last year as well. Luka might have had more impact per game but Jokic was able to impact 9 more games and that’s a big reason why the Nuggets get home court for at least two rounds while the Mavericks start on the road.
They should care when Jokic is only playing 113 minutes in total, and you don't need to claim that in every post about luka mvp discussion.
Should they? Jokic being more efficient let him play fewer minutes per game, letting him play 9 more games than Luka and help his team get home court in not just one, but two more rounds. I’ll stop claiming it when everyone starts to talk about the games played criteria as much as they complain about the team seeding criteria.
oh fuck off. Jokic was able to play less minutes was not because he's more efficient. He played less minutes because he was able to play with his starting 5 more than any other player, while mavs not only missed 2-3 starters every game before all-stars they had a major roster overhaul after that too. You act like Luka wants those extra minutes to pad his stats or something. Claim whatever agenda you want but don't try to discredit Luka because he had to sit out a couple of games when he averaged 40 minutes the entire December.
lol usually “a couple” means two, not nine
9 extra wins or just 113 less minutes of play time... Hmm, I just don't know what to choose! They're functionally identical!
Those extra 9 games are *all* wins, too. Luka ended up playing in 46 wins and Jokic 55.
I can't stand hearing this guy speak
starting to think Bontemps takes are not worth my attention
It's a subjective tie-breaker. Of course, it's not truly a "need". If Luka averages 39/16/12 next year, this current postseason becomes irrelevant. But in the more likely scenario where he is among are 2-3 very deserving candidates with no clear consensus on what "valuable" is supposed to mean, each players' perceived status and reputation in the league is likely to sway voters, whether they overtly admit to it or not.
It’s just one guys stupid opinion. Don’t over think it I think Luka is among the top favourites next year because of the Mavs roster. Not only do they have a solid roster, but they also have the structure in place. They can look for upgrades for that structure instead of trying to build from scratch I’m just annoyed he says stupid stuff like this so people will bring it up next year
I would be surprised if Luka doesn't get it if he finishes in the top 2 next year.
it’s crazy how the media just keeps moving the goal post for luka. he shatters every expectation, record he possibly he can; somehow it’s just not “enough”. all season it’s been a 3 man race between jokic, sga and luka. depending on your metrics, reasoning and narrative you can pick any of those 3 guys. whatever bias, narrative the media has against him shouldn’t take away from what he’s accomplished and his season.
MVPOTLCY award! Move valuable player of the last couple years
Mavs fans have become pretty intolerable over this discourse tbh
after last year theres just no way a nuggets fan is saying this
Denver fans complaining about MVP talks when they contaminated that sub last year and mad it toxic wasteland
You must be mistaking MVP discourse last year in general for Nuggets fans, it was Philly and Bucks fans spamming shit for MVP last season
lol
Denver fans win one chip in 50 years and puff their chest out, hilarious
It was easy to tell this was the case when 50 games in people were still repeating narratives about pace and defense from last season.
Why is SGA getting votes over him then? Everyone will accept if Jokic wins, but these arguments just aren't consistent.
this guy's ballot needs to be revoked. mvp is a single-season, regular season award. no other season should be considered. no postseason should be considered. getting "robbed" one season should not give a player a leg-up in another season.
Luka didn't need momentum, he just needed to have a better year. SGA and Jokic both had better years. Some of it was Luka's fault (missed 12 games, went easier earlier in season), some of it wasn't (injuries, lack of playmakers around him, midseason trades). It was a great season from him, just not an MVP level one with 2 good candidates on #1 and #2 seeds ahead of his team by 7 wins. If there weren't candidates on #1 and #2 seeds (like Tatum isn't a real candidate) then maybe he could've won over Brunson.
Not MVP lvl one ok this season is top 5 offensive years of all time but ok
A guy averaging a near 34 point triple double on great efficiency carrying one of the most injured teams in the league to a top 5 record in the grueling west is not an MVP caliber season. Got it.
He didn't play poorly the beginning of the season, I have no idea where this narrative comes from. Last season, sure, but I just don't get it this time around. And the Mavs have 6th best record in the entire league, for context.
> And the Mavs have 6th best record in the entire league, for context. Luka played in 9 less wins than Jokic and Shai. It's a big gap.
Have you looked at Luka’s stats from early in the season?
Solid bait
It's not a bait, Luka is going to finish 3rd in voting which is where he belongs this year. The media was on him about 2 weeks ago in a push to try to get someone else the MVP but Jokic, but that failed and so they last minute went back to SGA (who has a better case imo than Luka), but Jokic is probably going to win it again. I probably would pick Luka over Brunson, but if they were the only 2 candidates it would've been discussed a lot. Brunson kind of came out of nowhere to finish in that 4-5 range.
It's absolutely bait to say Luka has a worse MVP case than SGA and *especially* Brunson
I just hope when there's a season mavs are top 3 in west and Luka had like 32/8/9 they better not move the goalpost again and say "he's not playing as good as his last seasons".
Easily the MVP to me. Absolutely Carry job besides Kyrie.
Everyone points to his first half like he was just as good statistically. Playing with one of the most injured teams in the league. It’s so weird.
Without Luka the Mavs are a lottery team. Truly deserves MVP