The MVP Conversation

It seems like there’s a lot more conversation surrounding this year’s awards, particularly when it comes to the Most Valuable Player award, than in the last couple of seasons.

Granted, there’s a possibility that we’ll witness something that hasn’t happened since 1986. Nikola Jokic might win three straight MVPs and, of course, that’s caused a lot of commotion.

How can a player who’s a defensive liability, has achieved nothing in the playoffs and will achieve this feat but all-time greats like Michael Jordan and LeBron James haven’t?!?

Now, that’s obviously not my view on this BUT a lot of people actually think that. And all of this got me thinking about all of this debate, as I’ve been trying to decide who the MVP is.

There are too many questions from all sorts of angles to even know where to start — from the overall process behind it, what criteria is used in the first place, what should or shouldn’t matter, and to what extent.

Let’s start with the first point.

The Process Behind Voting

After the results come in we are able to see who the voters were and their exact picks for each award. That’s great. That’s a good start, but there should be more transparency across the board.

There are exceptions to this where voters will write out their ballots as an in-depth article and give their reasoning for it. And also there are a number of voters that have consistently been putting out whatever content — whether it’s podcasts, articles, or show — that clearly show they follow the league and watch games. Although, I’d still say that’s less than what you’d like.

However, when checking the voters from last years, there are a lot of people that I haven’t even heard of and that’s one of the issues.

The next issue would be regarding how they go about voting. Before even going into whether the voter’s criteria makes logical sense, there should be transparency as to what the criteria is in the first place. And preferably, that should be released prior to the season.

There isn’t(in most cases) a right or wrong answer when it comes that, but players, teams, fans, should see what the voters actually care about. If I’m a player, I’d want to know why I may lose out on over 100 million dollars — that’s also a whole other issue being with these awards.

How can there be such a system where voters can vote however they like with no explanation, no accountability, and somehow cost a player a huge contract?

Obviously, making the voter’s criteria public isn’t a solution that will fix everything but it’s a pretty good step forward.

Another similar point to making the criteria public is have them say how many games they watched of each team or player. I want to know if it’s someone that practically covers one team and only watches the key matchups or if it’s someone that genuinely watches games(I can’t say I’m 100% certain that some voters watch games).

Ideally, what this all should accomplish is making the whole process more objective, more consistent, and keep voters accountable.

If all voters did such a thing, everyone would be able to see and learn how others view the game. Everyone values certain parts differently. Everyone also have different backgrounds, whether they’ve been a player, coach, or just media in general. Everyone would be able to learn from each different point of view.

Anyone, whether they’re other voters, fans, coaches, or players would be able to see what goes into it and be able to criticise it and hopefully, that would continue to improve it. There’s no way to improve something if you don’t what’s wrong with it.

The Criteria

Now, that we got that out of the way. This is an even harder question because there’s no right or wrong answer.

Who’s there to decide what should matter more or less in these conversations?

There are some aspects that can easily be argued for or against, but those are typically some extreme views going one direction or another. Everything else, though, seems more about your preference and more about you specifically — your criteria can change whether you’ve been a player at whatever level(the level also does matter a lot too), a coach, a non-sport person. It will also change depending on your age, what era you grew up with, whether you understand and like analytics, and countless of other questions.

Because there are so many variables that can’t even be fully fleshed out here, there is genuinely no right or wrong answer. And for that reason, everything should be considered one way or another. There shouldn’t anything dismissed or having some strict restrictions.

But there are a few thins where I completely disagree with that certainly does matter(many voters have said that they consider such things) which includes playoff performance, historical context, comparison to past winners, and team success.

The playoff conversation shouldn’t even be a conversation. A player’s playoff performance has absolutely no effect on what they did in the season. Whether the player wins a ring, gets bounced in the first or drops in every statistic, it still wouldn’t mean they’re any less valuable in the season.

The MVP is rarely given to the best player in the league, so there shouldn’t be any question as to how can someone win these awards but not elevate their game where it matters the most. I’d agree in a case of who’s the better player that the playoffs should 100% matter. That’s where elite players separate themselves from great ones.

This also wouldn’t be an issue if the award was only looked at the through the lens of this one season. Nothing else should matter. It doesn’t matter who won in the previous seasons. It doesn’t matter that some legends didn’t win three in a row or that certain players will have more than others. That’s not the current player’s fault, so they shouldn’t be punished for that.

A related point to this has been a comparison to themselves too. There’s been arguments that Giannis Antetokounmpo shouldn’t be able to win because it was a down year for him. And again that shouldn’t be an issue if the focus is just one particular season. What difference does it make if a player had a historic season but the following year had a mere great season, but would still be better than almost candidates? The MVP race is between other players and not themselves.

Finally, a rather controversial one seems to be team success. I do think impact on winning is important and it should matter in these conversations, but I see that as a bit different than simply a team’s record or seed.

There’s so much nuance in this discussion that I don’t think it should be as simple as saying a player shouldn’t make an All-NBA team because his team is a low seed. Because basketball is a team sport, there’s so many reasons and factors to why that team hasn’t been good and a lot of it may be outside of said player’s control.

The first obvious one is what happens when a player goes to sit. A player literally cannot do anything about his team getting blown out in the minutes he’s off. And if the team is that awful without them, that will obviously make it more likely that they’ll lose.

So, the first step would be to look at the team’s minutes with the player on. But that’s still not a perfect method and requires more context to it.

A lot of people will argue that a player simply put up good numbers but they weren’t impactful. If they were impactful, they clearly would’ve won, right? That’s still not as simple.

To help with that, I would look at what the player’s role or responsibility is and where they should have the most impact on. In a way, I’d want to isolate what they should be doing and see how that translated to the team.

What if a player is the best defensive big of his generation and his team would be the best defense with him on? What if he checks every single box of what he’s meant to do — he anchors the rim, he covers for everyone, he can play in different schemes, and lock up the best players — but the team is still losing with him on because the team have no offensive weapons?

Would people still say that player doesn’t impact the game?

And that’s a case for a lot of players on either ends. There are many players that have such impact on the offensive end but simply don’t have a good surrounding cast. Take what both Luka Doncic and Damian Lillard have done. There is no denial that they have a clear positive impact on the offensive end and aren’t putting up empty stats.

For those reasons, I can’t see myself seeing a player like Jrue Holiday or De’Aaron Fox ahead of someone like Doncic. Don’t think there’s any stat, impact metric, or simply the eye test that would say they have higher individual impact than him.

So, instead of looking at team success in the simplest terms of record or seeding, a better way is to look at their individual impact on offense and defense.

Now, although this was aimed at the MVP talk, this obviously would apply to almost all of the individual awards — there would be some differences in certain awards. But it’s clear that there needs to be changes to both the voting process and the actual criteria that’s commonly used. There are issues with both.