Harden MVP watch 2018

that Westbrook MVP award is looking more and more embarrassing by the week

they were doing all that reaching and using so much flawed logic to argue why Russ should win it over Harden...now they just look stupid

 

What should the criteria be?

 

The Lebron narrative can always be "He's the best player every year, and I'm tired of others winning based upon narrative."

 

The unwritten criteria for the past 30 years had been top 3 seed, 50+ wins.

 

That sounds reasonable as a starting point. But many players would qualify by that criteria. What else?

 

Conveniently leaves off last year.

 

It actually doesn't mean "many players would qualify."

No need to pretend there isn't a well known criteria around top seeds and a clear best player on those top teams, using simple stats. To do so is simply to fall for this Reinvention of history by the media to claim narrative always has a big role...well, no, it never did once before to the level of last year.

It means only 4 would qualify at most. That criteria presented in that reminder of who won before is best player on one of the best teams, going only 4 teams deep. The tie-breakers are stats.

That is why many voted for Kawaii...because they wanted to reinforce that best player on a top team, and Houston was a 3rd seed. Now the argument for Harden while maintaining that historic criteria is Houston actually did indeed have the 3rd best record in the NBA (by 2 games), so shouldn't be penalized for being in the tougher conference. Harden would have been on a #1 Seed had Houston been in the East. So, since his offensive stats were very much superior to Kawhliflowers, then it works.

 

So best individual season among players on a 50+ win team with a 3 seed or higher?

Fair enough. But if one player had mildly more impressive statistics than another player who is on a far superior team, who gets the MVP? There’s still a lot of room for subjectivity and feel, which I’m ok with.

 

no. 2nd seed or higher. I'm tossing out that first MJ MVP as not part of the historic criteria. So, lowest was actually 54 wins, and note how Lebron got beat by Nash that year the same way Jordan should have been beaten by Bird or Magic in '88. Jordan won on BS narrative to get a new player into the MVP mix. Also, I could argue that Nash should have actually lost to Nowitzki, as Dallas really was the #2 seed, under today's rules for seeding...but instead were #4 seed, because Spurs won the division.

So, top 2 seed quickly narrows the choices. Any subjectivity after that is why we vote. Like I say, it comes down to at most 4 players. And it doesn't mean all votes have to be for those types of players, just your #1 vote does.

This isn't my criteria. I'm trying to explain that list above. Would you explain it any other way? Would you say narrative played a big role over Wins?

 

@durvasa final note, so, that means the lowest win total should have actually been 56, if Dallas got that #2 seed under today's rules.

 

Jordan led the NBA in WS every year from 87-96, not counting the two years he retired, that MVP was well deserved.

 

Do you believe Westbrook still wins without averaging a tri-dub?

 

Zero chance.

 

Yeah, if you want to award based on WS with no regard to Wins. I mean, Harden still wins last year and 2015 based on WS plus Wins. Why couldn't MJ win as much in '88 as Harden did? It disregards Bird's 2nd in WSs, 57 wins and #1 seed with 30 ppg / 9 rb / 6 apg, arguably his best statistical year EVER, while carrying a hurt McHale. And many believe Magic was even better that year, with 62 wins.

imo, MJ did not deserve that first MVP over Bird and Magic's stats and wins, with his measly 50 wins. He won on awesome stats, but with too much narrative to compensate for his lack of wins...just like Westbrook did.

 

Before they razed the platform and removed all the episodes from the internet, there were many ESPN voters on their TrueHoop podcast that openly admitted that 9.99 and they wouldn’t have voted for him.

This was going on during the post all star break when it looked like he might slip in one of the categories.

During this time, the Kawhi narrative started up as the “logical” alternative if Westbrook didn’t get it. Once it became evident that he would be able to make 10 threshold the ESPN Kawhi talk died down other than a few.

 

The Kawhi Talk happened in March when he beasted the Rockets both offensively and defensively 4th Q -- the game he blocked Harden late.

My point was that his MVP wasn't narrative-based. It was more stat-based over wins, but wins still played a factor.

Does anyone believe Westbrook still wins with a .500 record?

 

Boston (Russell) was also 11 and 17 games better than Wilt and Oscar, respectively... and also the #1 seed.

I think Harden had best argument last year, but he wasn't screwed over.

He needs to win this year, though.

 

fwiw: I don't think the seeding holds up back in the 60s when there were only 9 teams. Wilt won 49 games and Oscar 43, as 2nd seeds. Still makes your point that WB didn't win enough no matter what his stats were.

However, in the era of the ABA, Kareem won an MVP with a losing record while failing to make the playoffs. So, since the league was so small in the 60s and the ABA era was an abomination, most consider the classic criteria of Seeding/Wins plus Stats to be just the early 80s and beyond.

 

the criteria for Russ was to average a triple double and just make the playoffs

it would’ve been close if OKC was just .500 because then that would’ve meant that some of those Westbrook heroics in the 4th/game winners that helped his narrative a lot wouldn’t have happened