Jokic Should Have Won MVP
Bart Young. Getty Images.When Shai was named MVP, I tweeted out something pretty innocent.
Pretty basic, right? Jokic is coming off one of the best seasons in NBA history, so it's pretty crazy for him to lose MVP. Well, go check out the replies and quote tweets. You would think I was advocating for Brian Cardinal over Michael Jordan! So nowI'm dug in and i decided to go do a little analysis of Shai vs Joker's respective seasons.
Firstly, lets just establish what the MVP should be because there is seemingly no consensus. If you go read interviews with journos, they all have their own process. One common reply you'll see from Shai people is that they think it should be the best player on the team with the best record. Well, we know that's seemingly not the case just by looking at the last few winners. To me, I think you need a few factors.
1. You have to be statistically great. Bitch about nerds all you want but you HAVE to put up numbers.
2. Obviously you gotta be leading a playoff team unless you are averaging like, Wilt stats.
3. You have to be efficiently dominant. This is basically the anti-Russell Westbrook argument. If product A and product B are exactly the same but A is half the price, I'm buying A.
All this said, you can judge however you want. Here are the anonymous numbers, although I'm sure you can guess whose who.
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Some other arguments you could make are based on value. If Shai was taken off the Thunder, are they a playoff team. Yes. Not a 68 win team by any stretch of the imagination, but that's a talented enough roster. Take Jokic off the Nuggets, though, and where are they? Lottery pick? There hasn't been a single player in Denver across Jokic's entire tenure that was an all-star, all-nba, all-defense, or a leader in any major statistical category.
So what it comes down to is Joker, the first player to ever finish top 3 in points, rebounds and assists, vs Shai with slightly more points and better defense. It would obviously be boring for Jokic to win again but I find it impossible to look at these two seasons and walk away saying Shai was a more valuable. Again, the 4th highest PER in LEAGUE HISTORY. It doesn't get much more valuable than that!