I agree with stephon below. Its Jokic, pretty much for sure. Luka is right behind. But Jokic is hard to argue against. There has never been as complete a player I dont think. I mean Bird and MJ come close. Magic. But not anyone else I can think of. I have to give it to Jokic.
Shai is a great player, a no doubt 1st team all-NBA, but I’m not sure why he’s in the MVP discussion. Statistically he doesn’t stack up. I guess a summary of what I see—Look at Shai’s season, and you make the case that he’s one of the top five players in the NBA this year; look at Luka or Jokic and you get into a discussion of whether they’re among the top 5-10 players to ever play…
I think it's essential for people to have different reasons to vote for MVP, otherwise we might as well just let an algorithm look at the stats every year and assign it based on something like win shares.
For me, Shai would be a worthy winner because he's the main reason OKC has the best record in the league one year after being a #10 seed. Alternatively you could say Jokic is clearly the best player in the world and that would make sense too. I would love to see Luka win it but I'm not sure I can come up with a narrative- or stats-based case for him over Jokic.
But there’s the problem, isn’t it. Boston has the best record in the league—6 games up on OKC—so I guess it’s Tatum that should be in the conversation, not Shai. And you could argue that OKC’s leap is as much about Holmgren and JW.
For me, another quick test. Put Jokic on OKC and Shai on Denver—I don’t think there’s much question about which team gets better and which gets worse.
Same test for swapping Shai and Luka puts Shai in third place for me, all due respect. I think it’s a two-man race between Luka and Jokic that, much as I wish it weren’t true, Jokic deserves to win. He’s in a league of his own right now.
My bad for the conference/league typo! But I'd say playing in the West evens out Boston's record advantage. I also don't think Tatum carries his team anywhere near as much as Shai does, but sure, "best player on team with best record" is always going to be a reasonable case.
As for the Jokic/Shai comparison, I don't disagree, but that's a function of Jokic being a one-in-a-zillion player you build your entire team around. Which is a totally valid reason to vote for him for MVP, but I don't think it's impossible for someone to have a more individually impressive season without meeting that standard.
If MVP just means "best basketball player in the world" it's obviously Jokic and we should all go home. This is why I prefer it when there's real subjective debate on who voters like best, rather than acting like anyone who doesn't settle on the consensus is out of pocket.
I certainly cannot speak for every voter and there are surely new voters who have begun casting ballots now since I last did it in 2016-17. But I think many voters employ the same general standards I always used ... which was trying to determine which player had the best overall SEASON. Best Player in the World is not what this is about or, yes, we could just vote and hand that trophy out on Opening Night.
Rockets fan here, LD should have been T’d up for that underhand 20 footer. 😂 (whistles ‘sweet Georgia brown’)
Regarding the tightness of the MVP race, I say "how about that?!?!"
Loved that show SO much ...
I agree with stephon below. Its Jokic, pretty much for sure. Luka is right behind. But Jokic is hard to argue against. There has never been as complete a player I dont think. I mean Bird and MJ come close. Magic. But not anyone else I can think of. I have to give it to Jokic.
Shai is a great player, a no doubt 1st team all-NBA, but I’m not sure why he’s in the MVP discussion. Statistically he doesn’t stack up. I guess a summary of what I see—Look at Shai’s season, and you make the case that he’s one of the top five players in the NBA this year; look at Luka or Jokic and you get into a discussion of whether they’re among the top 5-10 players to ever play…
I think it's essential for people to have different reasons to vote for MVP, otherwise we might as well just let an algorithm look at the stats every year and assign it based on something like win shares.
For me, Shai would be a worthy winner because he's the main reason OKC has the best record in the league one year after being a #10 seed. Alternatively you could say Jokic is clearly the best player in the world and that would make sense too. I would love to see Luka win it but I'm not sure I can come up with a narrative- or stats-based case for him over Jokic.
But there’s the problem, isn’t it. Boston has the best record in the league—6 games up on OKC—so I guess it’s Tatum that should be in the conversation, not Shai. And you could argue that OKC’s leap is as much about Holmgren and JW.
For me, another quick test. Put Jokic on OKC and Shai on Denver—I don’t think there’s much question about which team gets better and which gets worse.
Same test for swapping Shai and Luka puts Shai in third place for me, all due respect. I think it’s a two-man race between Luka and Jokic that, much as I wish it weren’t true, Jokic deserves to win. He’s in a league of his own right now.
My bad for the conference/league typo! But I'd say playing in the West evens out Boston's record advantage. I also don't think Tatum carries his team anywhere near as much as Shai does, but sure, "best player on team with best record" is always going to be a reasonable case.
As for the Jokic/Shai comparison, I don't disagree, but that's a function of Jokic being a one-in-a-zillion player you build your entire team around. Which is a totally valid reason to vote for him for MVP, but I don't think it's impossible for someone to have a more individually impressive season without meeting that standard.
If MVP just means "best basketball player in the world" it's obviously Jokic and we should all go home. This is why I prefer it when there's real subjective debate on who voters like best, rather than acting like anyone who doesn't settle on the consensus is out of pocket.
I certainly cannot speak for every voter and there are surely new voters who have begun casting ballots now since I last did it in 2016-17. But I think many voters employ the same general standards I always used ... which was trying to determine which player had the best overall SEASON. Best Player in the World is not what this is about or, yes, we could just vote and hand that trophy out on Opening Night.