[The Athletic] The Athletic’s NBA MVP Poll: A clash of the titans at the top

And individual defense. And team success.

 

I agree with the vote for the most part - Houston has been flat in comparison to both Milwaukee and LA's play this season. All players are putting up phenomenal numbers but you gotta give the edge to the guys who are technically on course to win 70 games. I have my doubts that Lebron or AD can keep this up throughout the season and I have a sneaking suspicion that the Lakers and especially the Bucks(had only played 3 teams with winning record in their 18 game streak before losing to Dallas) have benefitted from relatively weak opponents to start the year but they certainly shouldn't be penalized for the league's strategy to save all the marquee games for the last two months of the season - let's just see how their play is rounding out the season.

That being said, its becoming increasingly clear that "controlling the narrative" is a new requirement for winning an MVP(see last year's MVP race) and by that measure Giannis is way ahead because lazy sports writers are already mistakenly calling the Bucks a "historic" team to get a few extra clicks. The whole "don't call me an MVP until I win it" thing is his statement for this year...and it's working with sports writers. Unfortunately whether we like it or not, Giannis is much much better at shaping narratives that you can then ride to easy MVP victories. FWIW, Lebron also has a narrative this year - this is his "I'm not old yet, I'm still the GOAT" statement year. As much as I love Harden, he doesn't really do any of this - he seems to approach every game/every season pretty much the same when the media is looking for (as an example), Harden to roast San Antonio a few nights ago as revenge for the league screwing him the last time they played. Instead, Houston got blown out for the first half and Harden had a pretty mediocre game(by his standards) while the team squeaked by with a win against a team we should have been able to control somewhat easily.

The fact is sports writers largely control who wins the MVP and if you make their job easier, they are more inclined to vote for you. Once again, I love Harden but his 'greatest sin' in the 24 hour news loop is he is NOT an easy guy to categorize and put in a box. That is part of what makes him a transformative player but it's also why sports writers/personalities struggle to characterize him in any sort of meaningful way. It's like everyone is collectively going "I don't know what in the hell is going on in his head - **** it, I'll just write about Giannis or Lebron instead". It's easy money for them - the story writes itself, people click the links and watch the highlights because they know what they are going to get, its familiar. For Harden's sake, his only real path to forcing writers to talk about him, is by winning multiple titles - otherwise Harden and his style of play will continue to be dismissed as a gimmick by the media and be an "also ran" for the rest of his career. It's ring or nothing for James Harden.

 

I suppose, Luca Doncic and James Harden are very close to breaking the current record as well. It has to make you wonder about how the game has changed that 3 players are very close to being 1-3 all time, all in the same year.

James Harden also leads the league in WS and VOR and is poised to have the highest scoring average in the modern NBA history.

FWIW I do not put a tremendous amount of stock in PER, WS or VOR..... especially on the defensive end. For example most of the metrics have Anthony Davis as the second best defensive player in the league (which he isn't) or have players like Brook Lopez and Donte DeVecenzio and JaVale McGee near the top.

When the Rockets were a better defensive team magically James Harden appeared in the top ten of some of the measures on defense.... Even Curry did and he is a terrible defender.

Defense is very much a team/system dependent thing and it exposes or covers up many transgressions.

While Giannis is a very good player and defender, I take defensive statistics with a few grains of salt.

 

If harden can maintain this scoring pace and the refs continue to not send him to the line he may win over some voters. Best case is probably still 3rd though.

 

He’s definitely thriving in both areas. I just don’t think individual defense is something the media has ever consistently used as a defense of the MVP. Westbrook and Rose come to mind.

Team success is a part of it of course. I wish VORP was weighed more heavily though.

 

OK, but Giannis’s high PER is not because it is overrating his defensive contributions. PER generally undervalues the defense of good defensive players.

 

Shaq has never had those type of numbers?

Or Harden or Westbrook?

He is averaging 32 points and 12 rebounds in 35 minutes how is that historic?

 

If you search basketball reference for all players to average 36 points, 14 rebounds and 6 assists per 36 minutes it only yields 1 result.

Giannis this year.

Now I’m sure you could come up with other parameters that could make a select number of players lo be the only one to ever do it, but it does kinda show how crazy his per minute numbers have been so far this year.

Edit. Just ran Harden’s per 36 numbers for this season and not surprisingly he is the only player to average 37/5/7 per 36.

Both doing things that have never been done.

 

No on all three, your numbers are way off, and in any case only looking at points and rebounds doesn’t convey the full picture of his box score profile.

 

Harden should be MVP. Not even close.

 

We all know this is meaningless at this point. Harden is never going to win another MVP. And, honestly, as @Nook explained much better on the first page of this thread, it's a crap award in all sports.

But since this is The Athletic, I'll just point out that The Athletic had 7 out of the 30 MLB MVP votes last season (which is too high a percentage of votes for any outlet, IMO), and 6/7 of them went for Mike "played 'enough' games on a sub-.500 team" Trout. I know we sort of like them around here, but they don't have great voting taste in these sorts of matters.

 

Different voters for different sports. MLB doesn’t have a set tradition for always voting for the best player on the best team if that player has a dominant season. I don’t think Trout should have won this past season, but I at least respect the writers for being willing to vote for the player and not for the team.

NBA writers have almost always taken the easy way out by taking a dominant player from the best team in the league. Only way they’ve considered someone else is if there wasn’t a truly dominant player on the top team. It’s beyond lazy, but NBA writers (and NBA pundits overall) aren’t exactly the deepest thinkers.

I do wish they’d come up with an Offensive POY Award. Doesn’t make much sense to have a DPOY award and not an OPOY award. Kind of feel the same way about baseball, especially when the writers decide to pick a pitcher as MVP.