MVP race, who do you got?

t_mac1 · Mar 7, 2015

jman7373 said: ↑

Just wondering, who do you think gets the two backcourt spots on the All NBA 1st Team?

Because isn't it about individual success and not team success?
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Harden or Curry will be left off.

WB automatically gets the other spot.

Amel · Mar 23, 2015

I think if Brook gets them into the playoffs, he wins MVP hands down

His numbers have been through the roof lately. Yes he shoots more, but he has been dishing assists like no one in the NBA right now.

Fyreball · Mar 23, 2015

Amel said: ↑

I think if Brook gets them into the playoffs, he wins MVP hands down

His numbers have been through the roof lately. Yes he shoots more, but he has been dishing assists like no one in the NBA right now.
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All that does is send the message that only the final 30 games of the season matter when it comes to voting. If Westbrook wins MVP, it would be a slap in the face of guys like Harden and Curry, who have been playing at a high level all season.

ksny15 · Mar 23, 2015

The way Harden has been playing he won't get it.

My vote goes to LBJ.

Captain Hook · Mar 23, 2015

I rather see WB win it then Curry. I respect players that are more VALUABLE to there teams and have to carry there teams into contention, but Harden is still my MVP.

Rocket2008 · Mar 24, 2015

Curry easily

Aleron · Mar 24, 2015

what said: ↑

The rockets hardly have THE LEAST. Ya'll think because Dwight ain't playing that poor harden has to go it alone. LOL

Yall have:
Trevor Ariza (underrated sf)
Terrence Jones, averaging 13, 7 and 2 blocks a game.
Beverly, a top 5 perimeter defender.
Josh Smith, a veteran stretch big
Jason Terry
Corey Brewer
Dmo

come on man, poor harden.
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You had us missing the playoffs with Dwight

And Jones has played less games than Dwight....

tksense · Mar 24, 2015

Captain Hook said: ↑

I rather see WB win it then Curry. I respect players that are more VALUABLE to there teams and have to carry there teams into contention, but Harden is still my MVP.
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You're only downplaying the value of Curry. Do you realize warriors are 10 games better than the rox, and blow out teams regularly to the tune of +10 (rox is +3).

Curry is the most efficient offensive player in the league today, and Kerr recognizes this, that's why he asks iggy to come off the bench, Bogut to get less touches in the post, the system of free flowing perimeter offense even rendered david lee redundant, two years removed from all star. Curry is the the reason for the best offense in the league. His presence opens up for everyone. It is not just usage rate and assists, it's his play style which is conducive to wins along with fitting role players (case in point, David lee doesn't fit).

The coach devises the game plan, starting with Curry's ability, and the Warriors started blowing teams away left and right. Without Curry, Kerr will not be able to coach this way. There is not one player who can duplicate Curry's specific role - just like lebron's ability is unique, no one can replace his role in Miami.

The team's scheme will change based on the best player's strength. And no one else in the planet can fill Curry's role and have the same success as Ws today.

conquistador#11 · Mar 24, 2015

Harden without a doubt. If he doesn't play on legend mode, this team has 20 wins. Runner up is Michelangelo.

count_dough-ku · Mar 24, 2015

If the Rockets can win their division(by far, the toughest in the league) and get 2nd place in the West, Harden should get the MVP. Yes, Curry is a great player on the best team in the NBA(recordwise anyway), but the Warriors have been blessed with almost no injuries other than a minor ankle injury to Thompson and a mild knee injury to Bogut(Lee hardly plays, so his injury is meaningless).

Juxtapose that with what Harden's done individually while carrying a far-less talented team that's been missing its superstar center for half the season and its starting PF for even longer than that.

t_mac1 · Mar 24, 2015

Warriors are leading the conference by 7.5 games. How can you NOT give it to Curry? In the tough West, they are blowing everyone out.

YOLO · Mar 24, 2015

t_mac1 said: ↑

Warriors are leading the conference by 7.5 games. How can you NOT give it to Curry? In the tough West, they are blowing everyone out.
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how? well actually there's a pretty strong argument for someone name James Harden.

count_dough-ku · Mar 24, 2015

t_mac1 said: ↑

Warriors are leading the conference by 7.5 games. How can you NOT give it to Curry? In the tough West, they are blowing everyone out.
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The 1st place Sonics finished 5 games ahead of the 2nd place Rockets in 1994, yet Dream was named MVP and not Payton or Kemp. The record itself is not the #1 determine factor in who's MVP.

J.R. · Mar 24, 2015

Westbrook vs. Curry

Haberstroh: With a little under a month to go, the MVP race is heating up. Anthony Davis is a monster. LeBron James and the Cavs are rolling since he took a two-week sabbatical in Miami. James Harden has the Rockets with the fourth-best record in the NBA. Chris Paul is his normal, elite Chris Paul self.

But the two players who interest me most are Russell Westbrook and Stephen Curry. They're so deadly at the point guard position and yet so wildly different in style. Westbrook is a wrecking ball; Curry is a ninja. And their respective teams are in different spots so it's hard to peg their value.

I'm staring at Westbrook's 29.6 PER, which is second-highest in the league and considerably better than Curry's 27.5 figure. Only three other guards have ever put up a PER this high -- Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade, both in 2008-09, and some guy named Michael Jordan. Not to put all the eggs in the PER basket, but I'll use it as a launch pad into a larger, juicier debate:

Is Westbrook actually better than Curry?

Doolittle: First, we have to acknowledge that questions like this can be nebulous. That is, what do we mean by better? Who would win in an empty gym playing one-on-one? (Westbrook.) Who has had the better career? (Probably Westbrook, but debatable.) Who would you draft if we were picking the league from scratch today? (Now we're talking.) But I think what we mean by "better" in this context is who is better, right now, in an NBA context?

PER is a good enough thumbnail when looking at player value, but I'm not high on how it handles defense, which is but one reason I favor WARP. (That's wins above replacement, developed by our stat-Jedi colleague Kevin Pelton.) Whereas PER is strictly a per-possession measurement, WARP is a combination of quality and quantity, and not only is it expressed in the ultimate currency (wins), it's built to correlate with W's -- the only stat that really matters. Curry is on pace to lead the league in WARP (20.9 to 16.3 prorated for the full season), though the per-possession component of the metric has them neck-and-neck: .796 win percentage for Curry to .780 for Westbrook.

The closeness of these bottom-line figures means two things: We're splitting hairs of greatness here, and at this point in time, these players are really close. So to pick one, we'll have to dig a little deeper into tangential questions about whose production actually means more to his team. Any way you can think of to do that?

Haberstroh: Wait, so you mean we can't just say "they're both freaking amazing and let's enjoy it?" Fiiiine. To me, the key here is looking at the full picture. We have both covered Westbrook's dominance. I laid out the case that he's the most offensively dominant player ever. You pointed out that it hasn't translated into similar dominance on the scoreboard.

But people (not you!) need to stop citing Westbrook's field goal percentage when appraising Westbrook's value. This is 2015 -- why are we evaluating players like it's 1955? Yeah, his field goal percentage looks bad (42.7 percent) but considering he gets to the line so much (12.9 free-throw attempts per game in his last 10 games), his overall shot efficiency -- 53.7 true-shooting percentage -- is on par with Tony Parker (54.3) and Zach Randolph (53.7) and Ryan Anderson (53.5). No one's whining that they're unhealthy scorers and Westbrook is creating offense at almost twice the level they are. Coaches would kill for that blend of shot creation and efficiency.

And yes, Westbrook's shot efficiency is above the league average of 53.4 percent. This isn't Allen Iverson in 2001-02 when he put up 31.2 points per game on a putrid 48.9 true-shooting. But even with Westbrook's triple-double brilliance and ball-dominance, I kind of think he's hawking for steals rather than playing sound team defense. Real plus-minus paints Westbrook as a defensive liability (minus-0.56) and I tend to agree that he's gambling way more now. Curry, on the other hand, has been awesome on that end this season, which has helped to give him the overall edge in RPM (Curry's plus-8.9 vs. Westbrook's plus-6.5). Is it crazy to think that Curry's defense helps put him over the top here?

Doolittle: Westbrook reminds me of Nick Bottom from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" -- he truly believes he can play every role at the same time, and that especially hurts him on defense where it's crucial for players to stay within the team's scheme. That's what Curry does so well on both ends; he creates within the framework of what Golden State does as a team. Thus the higher RPM, and the Warriors' league-best record. That's why I'd rather have Curry as my point guard. However, it's close, and these guys are so different. Not just different, but different in historic ways, which leads us to a fascinating question you posed...

Which skill is better: Westbrook's athleticism or Curry's shooting?

Haberstroh: Exhibit A:

I could just leave that here and call it a day, but I'll go ahead and bring some numbers to the table. Westbrook is destroying rims everywhere despite standing just 6-foot-3. Do you know how hard it is to do that?

I'll show you. He has more dunks this season (39) than Josh Smith (35) and 7-footer Robin Lopez (30). According to NBA StatsCube, Westbrook has thrown down 297 dunks in his career, which translates to 0.85 dunks every 48 minutes. The average 6-3 player in the database dunks 0.03 times every 48 minutes. Do the math and you find Westbrook dunks 28 times more often than an NBA player at his height should. He's averaging the most dunks per game for anyone under 6-foot-4 since 1997 (when the database begins). Statistically speaking, if all we knew was his dunk rate, we'd think he was 6-9, not 6-3.

That right there is freak athleticism. But it's not just dunks. He's averaging 10.8 rebounds per 100 possessions this season, which is the second-highest rate on record for anyone under 6-4 (the great Fat Lever is the gold standard here). I mean, Westbrook's currently rebounding at a higher rate than Juwan Howard's career rate (10.6). But let's be honest: we can point to all these numbers, but to really get the Westbrook experience, you just have to watch. Just look at that GIF.

Doolittle: What fascinates me about this question is that you can make legit analytical arguments to back up what our eyeballs tell. When you're talking about historical context, too often that's not the case. For me, I'll take Curry's shooting. It's not just his accuracy, but his accuracy combined with the ability to create. A glance at the all-time leaderboard in effective field goal percentage tells us a lot. The only players ahead of Curry were either specialists like Kyle Korver and Steve Kerr, or were big men who bolstered their percentages with a healthy dose of dunks. There's also another Pelton metric -- called Shoot -- that combines 3-point accuracy, 3-point volume and free throw shooting. The only guy ahead of Curry is Steve Novak, who has created basically zero shots for himself during his NBA career.

So you can make a good argument that Curry is the best shooter ever. For Westbrook's athleticism to rate as high, then we'd have to call him the best NBA athlete ever. And for sure -- there haven't been many better. I have a metric for this, too -- ATH rating -- which looks at things like size-adjusted rebounding, steals, blocks and foul drawing in an effort to quantify how players apply their athletic skills on the court. The all-time leader in career ATH is not Westbrook. It's Michael Jordan. Westbrook is fifth. So out of the scores and scores of NBA players to come along over the years, statistically Curry's dominant trait probably rates at the top. Westbrook is in about the 99.9th percentile. That's what I mean when I say we're debating shades of greatness here.

Haberstroh: As far as best shooters ever, I probably still have Steve Nash on the top of my list. He made 42.8 percent from 3-point land and he created more of those off the dribble than Curry did. I looked it up: 46.9 percent of Nash's three-pointers were unassisted (he created them) whereas Curry's career rate is at 37.8 percent.

I don't have any kids but I'd imagine this is how tough it'd be to pick a favorite kid. Between Nash, Curry, Ray Allen, Kerr and Korver, I don't know who I'd settle on as the best shooter ever. But to me, the effort to identify Westbrook's athletic peers yields a shorter list. I'm going with Westbrook and his athleticism. But I probably would rather have Curry's shooting skill ... which brings me to the next question.

Whose game will age better, Westbrook or Curry?

Doolittle: Generally speaking, the more athletic a player is, the better his game tends to age, and that's true over all sports.

The skilled performer -- Curry -- never really loses his skill in the way a Westbrook-like athlete can decline physically, but skills players degrade physically as well, and they have a smaller athletic margin in which to showcase their skill.

I worry a lot about Westbrook's helter-skelter style, however, and his injuries are already starting to mount up. And while he has plenty of athletic buffer, his skills -- especially shooting -- may not be refined enough to survive a significant loss of quickness and/or explosion. Think Derrick Rose, who is still a very good NBA player, but no longer one of the best. (Not saying he can't get it back, but ...) In the end, I think Curry will last longer, because at the very least he'll be an elite shooter and can play off the ball when he's 45 and Westbrook is long since retired.

Haberstroh: I share the same worries about Westbrook's ability to age gracefully. Behind one door, we have Wade's evolution as a star playmaker without a 3-point shot. Behind the other door, we have athletic guards like Steve Francis and Iverson who dunked all over everybody and then quickly vanished from the league.

But Westbrook's passing has quietly gotten so much better that it's making those who whine about his "impure" point guard skills look silly. Only a few players create more points via their assists, but most of that occurs from his ability to collapse the defense. That won't be there if he's not blowing past everybody. If he can't collapse the defense and get to the line, I'm not sure he's equipped to maintain his star status.

Meanwhile, I don't have any such worries about Curry. I'm expecting Nash-like longevity. That handle combined with that shooting? That'll last. Nash was an All-Star at 37 and I could totally see that for Curry. And then some.
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SeekingAlpha · Mar 24, 2015

count_dough-ku said: ↑

The 1st place Sonics finished 5 games ahead of the 2nd place Rockets in 1994, yet Dream was named MVP and not Payton or Kemp. The record itself is not the #1 determine factor in who's MVP.
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True but Curry has been elevated higher than Klay or any other GS player on the superstar tier, thus he won't get voted out by a teammate. Golden State also will most likely go down as one of the top 10 best teams in terms of win %. It's hard not to put the leader of a historically great team as the MVP.

People make way too much out of the award though. Dirk led the Mavs to a historically great NBA record in 06/07, won the MVP, and then proceeded to lose in the first round to the 8th seeded Warriors.

It would actually be hilarious if somehow the Mavs dropped to 8th and got revenge back.

tksense · Mar 24, 2015

SeekingAlpha said: ↑

True but Curry has been elevated higher than Klay or any other GS player on the superstar tier, thus he won't get voted out by a teammate. Golden State also will most likely go down as one of the top 10 best teams in terms of win %. It's hard not to put the leader of a historically great team as the MVP.

People make way too much out of the award though. Dirk led the Mavs to a historically great NBA record in 06/07, won the MVP, and then proceeded to lose in the first round to the 8th seeded Warriors.

It would actually be hilarious if somehow the Mavs dropped to 8th and got revenge back.
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They need to hire mark jackson tho, and the mav players need to buy into his philosophy. Hand down man down. Lol

marky :) · Mar 24, 2015

I don't know if Harden will beat out Curry for MVP and even though I'll be disappointed I won't be outraged. However, if Harden doesn't at least come in 2nd in the votes then that would be an outrage.

Pizza_Da_Hut · Mar 24, 2015

I'm hoping Silver turns heel and picks Harden as his MVP. Then we can have an organization vs the rest storyline. Silver is McMahon, Harden is HHH, and Dwight is Stephanie McMahon.

Fyreball · Mar 24, 2015

Rocket2008 said: ↑

Curry easily
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Are you serious, or are you just doing a really bad job at trolling? Unless of course you were BORN in 2008, in which case all is forgiven.

t_mac1 · Mar 24, 2015

count_dough-ku said: ↑

The 1st place Sonics finished 5 games ahead of the 2nd place Rockets in 1994, yet Dream was named MVP and not Payton or Kemp. The record itself is not the #1 determine factor in who's MVP.
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It is when the 2 players are statistically similar. And Warriors are 10 games ahead of the Rockets right now. That's colossal.

Forums

MVP race, who do you got?

Who will be the MVP?

Harden

Curry

Westbrook

Lebron

Someone else

t_mac1 Member

Amel Member

Fyreball Member

ksny15 Member

Captain Hook Member

Rocket2008 Member

Aleron Member

tksense Member

conquistador#11 Member

count_dough-ku Member

t_mac1 Member

YOLO Member

count_dough-ku Member

J.R. Member

SeekingAlpha Member

tksense Member

marky :) Member

Pizza_Da_Hut I put on pants for this?

Fyreball Member

t_mac1 Member

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