[SI]Daryl Morey: MVP Criteria Is 'Shifting Away From Winning'

By far, you mean by 2, right? Also, Houston's offense wasn't dominant, it was historic. Again, you're being coy here, if it's team dominance you're talking about you are referencing winning and record. You're making great individual case by case arguments here, but what you're talking about lacks an overall theme, an overall metric. It's not very unifying. Ultimately, your last two posts weight why Harden should have been a heavy favorite against WB.

 

Either split the awards into "Best Player" and "Most Valuable Player To One's Team" (or whatever you want to call them), or, yeah, just scrap them.

And Harden IS the poster boy for the unclear, duplicitous nature of the award. The fact that it's his GM pointing out the problems is really irrelevant.

Actually, reading the article and just thinking about how stupid it's all gotten, I'd be fine with just scrapping them.

 

What do you think "best stats on best team" means?

 

by "everyone outside of Houston," do you mean only fans that don't routinely follow basketball? It's pretty obvious to everyone that actually watched NBA ball that Russell was a story line for casual fans to grab onto, despite not being remotely close to the most valuable player in the league, this year or otherwise.

But hey, I'm okay with the definition of MVP being extremely loose. We can change it to fit the story lines of the NBA depending on who fans are more interested in watching, increasing viewer numbers.

As far as the actual basketball argument for Westbrook MVP? Lmao.

 

You mean the guy who posted one of the greatest individual statistical seasons of all time?

Isn't he the same guy who recruited the best pure PG of this generation to play his position? The same position for which he earned First Team All NBA?

Yeah, the hell with winning. He only cares about promoting his brand.

#hottake

 

morey calling out the legitimacy of the league by highlighting how they move the goalposts to fit their marketing strategies. while at the same time tad brown's down the hallway trying to convince prospective buyers it's not the WWE on hardwood

 

I had no idea they let media vote for championships now.

 

I thought Harden was ahead of Westbrook until last 10 games as well. I thought it was his to lose. But I have to say Westbrook had a series of good games towards the end while Harden didn't have the same strong finish.

 

Harden was injured but the last 10 games should be no different to the other games. Westbrook had some shocking games and a losing month of basketball

 

I'm about to get triggered and I'm at 0% confidence in James Harden..

 

Don't go to McD's drive-thru. I hear they will try to upsize you on their new Triple Double value meal.

 

I'm pretty sure you're making fun of me, hp. I'm going to like your post anyway because I can't help myself.

 

What are you talking about? The Rockets finished 8 games ahead of the Thunders. There's nothing subjective about that...the Rockets were a better team just like the Warriors were a better team in 2015 even though Harden had superior statistics on a lesser team.

 

"Just like"? Really, nothing subjective in claiming they are perfectly analogous?

You're basically saying: 55 wins is to 47 wins as 67 wins is to 56 wins. That's totally a subjective thing, and in my view its hogwash. 67 wins is a historic win total. Only a handful of teams in the history of our league have reached that mark. Meanwhile, a handful of teams will win 55 games every year. And going from 51 wins to 67 wins as GSW did that year is a major evolution that, frankly, is far more significant as a story than the Rockets rebounding back to 55 wins after a horrible 41 win season.

This whole argument about moving goalposts and voters needing to vote one way because of who they chose in a prior year is just a consequence of people applying dumb, binary logic. There's nothing objectively wrong in choosing Curry over Harden in 2015 and choosing Westbrook over Harden in 2017, unless you expect voters to just apply some rigid, simplistic formula that automatically spits out the MVP winner.

 

A triple double is "applying some rigid, simplistic formula" though. Make no mistake, that is the only reason WB won,,,not any other formula...and the rebounds were manufactured by the team and WB, because ppl like simplistic stats/formulas like Triple Doubles.

 

It can work both ways. If winning is the only criteria for MVP then Kawhi Leonard or even Kevin Durant would have won.

 

If Harden wants to use winning as a criteria, get the #1 seed or even the #2 seed. #3 seed isn't really that impressive.

 

the truth is harden has been shafted by the nba media since hes been outplaying curry the last 3 years. How do you leave harden off all-nba averaging 29/7 and 6 i still cant get over that

 

what about that 6 seed tho

 

Well, people disqualified the most winning team because it was over powered.

It should then have gone to Kawhi. Spurs were the only other 60+ win team.