I think Oscar's triple doubles were more bogus than Westbrook's honestly. Basketball was just completely gross for a handful of years. Same era where Wilt had 50-25. In 1965-1966 there were 68 total rebounds per game compared to 43 today and 28 in the mid 90s (makes Rodman more impressive). Tons of guys were averaging over 15 rebounds per game cause there were just so many going around. You think they play fast now? There were 102 FGA per game back then compared to 88 now and 78 on the 90s. And the real kicker, in the early 60s average FG% was 43% and below compared to 48% now. It was rebound-bring the ball down-one pass-shoot all game, every game for over half a decade. It's like every team was the 2005 Suns but they all sucked. There's no period of statistical inflation like the early 60s. Jokic is 100x more impressive than Big O.
Sure, i know. Same with the 70's. Especially ABA. Stars of the 70s NBA and ABA took big dips after the merger for a reason. Doesn't mean they wouldn't have been good, but someone like Kareem for example would have been Tim Duncan good instead of playing a decade with inflated stats. Wilt still would have been dominant. Bill Russell would still be an elite defender who can push the ball up on offense. There's a reason people leave a lot of them out of all time lists, because their era was so video game inflated that you just cant cross compare. It's getting that bad again. I've compare today to 70s ABA in the past already. I love Joker. He's going to be a detriment/liability when playoff basketball tends to slow down although last season it started to show it's barely slowing down there anymore either so maybe this is Jokers year. That said, a young Arvydas Sabonis would be a better player today and the Point Center is not anything new especially among the Euro bigs of the past. It's just a perfect era for one to take advantage of the style and get crazy stats and those crazy stats =MVPs now. I think even a peak Brad Miller can get you 15/12/8apg in this era tbh..
Should they give the mvp to someone completely undeserving because denver might not win the title? That's such a weird way to look at it
Change your outlook. View every season as a singular event. That said, I think voters will view it like you do and vote for any star on a contending team before Jokic. Embiid or Tatum will get the MVP.
That's just such a weird mentality. Let's vote for someone completely undeserving because......i don't think he deserves 3 in a row? What if he had gotten robbed last year or the year before? Then should he get it this year? I've said from the preseason that he will be far and away the most deserving candidate, and currently should easily be the unanimous MVP. However, i do think he will end up getting robbed
Honestly . . . I watched the MVP credentials change from year to year to the point I don't consider it much of an award beyond a popularity show Rocket River
It’s actually been much better lately. Jokic would never have won it 10-15 years ago when you had nonsense like iverson and kobe winning. We’ll see this year though, like i said they could easily give it to someone not at all deserving
Probably better than even one straight for Westbrook or Rose. There's a very solid case for Jokic 3 straight seasons even if his team fails in the playoffs. Swap Embiid for Jokic and the 76ers are the best team in the league and the Nuggets might not make the playoffs. Jokic is that much better than him. That's why you can't judge individual players by team success.
This graphic right here is the immediate debate winner when someone says “Bird and Magic didn’t jump from super team to super team to try to win titles”
Jokic won last year as a 6th seed (Embiid had 2 more wins last year) Now people are talking about team wins are why he should win this year. (Won't even talk the Harden Westbrook year) It is almost a 100% offensive stat award as well Rocket River
I just believe that the MVP should ALWAYS, with no exception, be given to the player that brought the most value in that one specific season. Playoffs are irrelevant, everything that isn’t during that exact season is irrelevant to me. Offense/defense is also irrelevant. Just whoever brought the most value. This season, same as last, it’s jokic by a mile. Nobody else is even remotely deserving and it will be embarrassing if he gets robbed
I wouldn't say no one else is even remotely deserving. Embiid and Giannis both have the strongest opposing cases, but both + Tatum are cannibalizing each other. There's no one in the Western Conference to prop up against Jokic. The sound against Jokic is just loud right now because he's had a string of bad games whereas Embiid hasn't. Even with the pro-Embiid stances some people have, I still think Giannis is a clear #2 behind Jokic, with Embiid following Giannis.
To me someone being remotely deserving would mean that you could put together a legitimate credible argument that someone else should win the award. I haven't seen anyone do that yet because the numbers are so overwhelming that it's impossible. In baseball, nobody would try to argue that an 8 war player deserves to be MVP over a 12 war player, but not enough people understand basketball yet so we still get this nonsense.
yep, the nba voters hatred for james harden and there refusal to vote him nba mvp one year after completely screwing out of an all nba team is why we are in the situation we are in today with embiid/jokic. This started with the robbery of james harden in 2017 when basketball reference had harden as the clear mvp with a 39% chunk of the vote using their nba mvp tracker model. Once that robbery happened it set off a chain off events that im not sure the nba can recover from without now oevrhauling the voting system to appease everyone. Maybe we have to consider taking the human element out and just using computers and technology to spit out end of season awards
