This “contrarian” stuff is weak and lazy as hell. No. I agree with what other posters write all the time. I suppose I just don’t worry as much as others about expressing a POV that happens to be unpopular in this community but is pretty commonplace outside of it. That’s not “contrarian” by any sane definition of that term. Also, plenty of people here thought Giannis had the best case for MVP just last week. That all changes with one game? No. With all of Harden’s heroics, the Rockets are barely on pace to scratch 50 wins. That does not add up to an MVP season, given what Giannis is doing with the Bucks this year. None of this dismisses what Harden has done. He’s cemented his status as one of the all-time greats historically. Lots of players have put up incredible, dominating years and haven’t won MVP. It’s not that big a deal.
You mean, since that time when Wilt also didn’t win MVP because his team didn’t have a great record? Huh? His individual numbers took a major leap and his team is on pace to win about 20 more games. Team success — particularly relative to prior year and preseason expectations — matters a lot. Plus, the Bucks did not even add any significant talent.
Lol, the Rockets are 5th in the West and only a few games out of 3rd while dealing with heavy injury issues all thanks to Harden. Did Russ not just win MVP for doing something historic 2 years ago? Yes or No? His individual numbers took a major leap? Giannis in 17-18: 27, 10, and 5 Giannis in 18-19: 27, 13, and 6 the way you’ve been talking, you’d swear Giannis was averaging 22, 8, and 3 last season... They’re on pace to win 20 more games because of Coach Bud, or are u gonna try and sit here and tell me that it was Giannis who took the Bucks from 15th to 2nd in ppg, 10th to 3rd in offensive efficiency, 25th to 2nd in 3 pointers attempted, 27th to 2nd in 3 pointers made, 13th to 6th in apg, and 18th to 1st in defensive efficiency with no significant changes made to the roster. That’s all Coach Bud changing the offensive and defensive philosophy. That is why he’s gonna win COY... Harden is the one who’s individual numbers took a major leap.
Did Russ deserve to win MVP because he did something historic — yes or no? Did Wilt or Jordan win MVP when they went on these crazy scoring seasons — carrying their respective teams? Yes or no? You are of course ignoring the fact that he’s doing that playing less minutes per game. His efficiency, in terms of per usage and per minute played, is off the charts this year. Look at this: PER: 27.3 to 30 BPM: 5.8 to 10.3 Those are huge leaps. There are plenty of NBA seasons where players have posted 27.3 PER or 5.8 BPM. A 30 PER and a 10.3 BPM is super rare. And was the Rockets leap the last two seasons due to coach MDA? He won COY. Plenty of people were discrediting Harden and giving most of the credit to he coaching change. Again, you keep validating the worst pro-Westbrook and anti-Harden arguments from previous years. If the only stat you care about is PPG (which seems to be the case), then I can see how you may reach that conclusion.
BTW, @Reeko, I’m not trying to totally dismiss Harden’s case. I’ve argued for months that for him to have a chance to win MVP the Rockets need to be over 50 wins, and probably would need to be closer to 55 than 50. If the Bucks weren’t on pace to cross 60 wins and were instead on a more pedestrian 55 win pace, the win total bar for the Rockets would be lower. The strongest MVP case almost always goes to a solo player who puts up elite numbers on an elite team. That’s Giannis this year. That was Harden last year. The year before that, the only players putting up elite numbers on an elite team was Durant and perhaps Kawhi and Curry. But Durant and Kawhi missed too much time, and Kawhi’s numbers were on the low elite end. Curry didn’t deserve it given the superstar help he had beside him and also his numbers being low side of elite. You could make the argument that Harden is having a better individual year, but despite that MVP goes to Giannis because MVP isn’t purely an individual award. It rewards players who are individually elite in the context of an elite overall team. That’s the historical pattern, and voters (IMO) should respect that. One more thing to add. Giannis is playing just 33 mpg. If that drops and/or he misses a number of games down the stretch, that should ding his MVP chances, providing an opening for Harden or George.
Racism is a historical pattern too. "History" is not a compelling standard. It's a criterion of last resort. Even when looking at history, shouldn't we weight recent history more heavily? Isn't 2017 more relevant than 1967?
Sure, weight recent history higher, but don’t cherry pick 2017. It would be reasonable to look at the pattern over, say, the last 10 or 20 years, and cast a vote accordingly. So, for example, here are a list of players in last 10 seasons who had higher than 14 win shares and 28 PER. https://www.basketball-reference.co...=14&c2stat=per&c2comp=gt&c2val=28&order_by=ws Both Harden and Giannis should cross those thresholds this year. If you look at the players on that list who didn’t win MVP, none of them had a team record that was close to the best record in the league.
But it's still true that historical patterns do not justify anything. If people were dumb in the past, should we continue to be dumb now? If we use the historical standard of winningest teams, voting for MVP is not really necessary. Why do they vote?
Harden is the MVP and it's not even close. Look at the adversity that Harden has had to work through this year. I remember when CP3 when down and all of the sports experts that hate us were quick to predict the demise of the Rockets. Harden responded by going on his historic streak while battling injuries of his own and took us from a below 500 team to a point where we are now 12 games above 500. What he has done this year has never been done before. The Greek freak is basically having the same year as he had last year and if those who are criticizing Harden are honest with themselves, he, the Greek freak, has had a more talented and healthier supporting cast to work with.
You can create similar lists with different stats for any MVP candidate. Also, everyone whined like crazy about the reason Westbrook got his MVP, and now those same people want it to apply to Harden. That's called being as hypocritical as the media you hate so much. Giannis is literally the best defensive player in the world and that alone is more valuable/impactful than a whole bunch of the listed stats. Harden's claim to this thing is that he is by far the best scorer in the world right now. The counter is that Giannis is also an elite scorer. The counter to that is there are a couple of players right now who are as good as Giannis defensively, while no one is close to Harden offensively since 1988. Harden has a great case for winning it. He can lock it up these last 20 or so games by clinching 3rd seed and shifting part of his dominance to assists and rebounds - i.e. he needs to rack up some triple doubles, which is incidentally what the team needs right now too.
People can disagree on the criteria or weight things differently. Its subjective. I just think the best arguments for MVP account for the historical pattern of how MVP is rewarded. Otherwise, you end up having voters rationalizing votes for their favorite players based on cherry-picked stats.
Well I did what you suggested and looked at the past ten years: Winningest Team --> MVP 18 HOU -->Harden 17 GSW-->Westbrook 16 GSW-->Curry 15 GSW-->Curry 14 SAS-->KD 13 MIA-->LBJ 12 CHI/SAS-->LBJ 11 CHI-->DRose 10 CLE-->LBJ 09 CLE-->LBJ 70% of the time, the MVP was from the winningest team, in the past ten years. 30% not. I assert that James Harden's extraordinary performance warrants him being included in that 30% category.
This is my question; if Harden had single-handily carried his team from 14th to 5th in the standings while breaking record after record WHILE WEARING A LAKERS JERSEY, who would the media be declaring the MVP? I'm not all in on the media conspiracy against the Rockets. I generally think that's silly. But I do believe that if Harden were doing this for the Lakers or the Knicks this would be a very different narrative. They'd never stop talking about what Harden is doing. We'd all be sick of hearing about Harden.
I assert that being included in that 30% when there is another player who is putting up MVP numbers (using the WS>14 and PER>28 thresholds) on an elite team is a tough sell. In last 10 years, Giannis would be the only player meeting those thresholds on an elite team who lost MVP to a player who didn’t also meet those thresholds on an elite team. Would be interesting to count how many times that has happened in league history. I suspect there would be very few such cases, if any.
Now you've added criteria: WS and PER. What is the special significance of WS>14 and PER>28? You still don't address the issue that a historical pattern is not a justification. If people voted badly in the past, should we continue the tradition? I will look up your new stats after lunch!
I watched Giannis score 16 points while being guarded by Kuzma for most of the game and his team still won. Media legit hates Harden.
I’ve added criteria that would be met by players having hyper elite individual seasons. You can choose the stats and thresholds you think better capture that. 28 PER is historically a very higher bar (from memory, Bird, Magic, and Hakeem never met it), but it’s been more attainable in recent decade. You can reduce down if you like. The point is you can’t just look at team wins or individual stats. When a player is elite at both, their MVP argument is boosted historically, with few if any exceptions. Win shares better accounts for elite play in an elite team context, and overall contributions (total minutes played matters). PER is more individual stats centered, and is a per possession metric that doesn’t account for number of minutes played. I think the combination is useful to look at. The primary argument for Harden over Westbrook two years ago, which I found most compelling and which Morey convincingly invoked on national TV, was based on historical precedent. You disagreed with that argument?
Harden has more win shares (30.45) than Giannis (30.0). So Giannis doesn't win on win shares. PER? Giannis is higher than Harden. But does PER correlate to MVP? 80% in the past ten years. Better correlation than win shares or winningest team. MVP=PER leader+winningest team? 2018: yes 17: no 16: yes 15: no 14: no 13: yes 12: no 11: no 10: yes 09: yes Leading PER and having the winningest team gives you a 50% chance of being MVP, in the past ten years. Not compelling enough. I don't remember if I disagreed then. But you know what I think of historical patterns (including racism etc.). Anyway, looks like Morey lost that argument.
