Not the same thing, but it’s also interesting looking back that so many predictions out there had the Spurs as a Play In team at best, WITH Wemby.

when did MVP become such a whiny bitchfest to prove your team sucks? it used to be a point of emphasis to be the best player on the best team

I think it gets brought up too much. The team records without their star player are all small sample sizes without context, like how good were their opponents while the MVP candidate was out. Plus this is not how MVP has been determined historically. Who cares if the team can’t play as well without the star player? This would also impact heliocentric offenses more

Oh please, people say this about Luka teams ²⁴⁄₇. They’re 6-6 w/o him which is 8th seed in the west.

The Spurs were projected to be lower in the standings than the Lakers but now Wemby has too much help😂😂😂

Its brought up multiple times ever single year. There is no criteria for MVP.

Lakers 6-6 without Luka. It means they can win without him. It’s just that, they are worse with him yet they win because his scoring “carries” them.

Where would OKC be without SGA? The W/L record doesn’t tell the story when they’ve been beating up trash/similarly injured teams.

MVP by way of dogshit roster. Like an employee of the month award at Dollar General.

team with a non existent bench is bad when star player doesn’t play, more at 11

They basically were that for a few years before that Luka trade

Kinda looks like they’d be a 42 win team actually

Austin Reaves is an excellent player and would serve as the team’s starting point guard and carry the team to wins, like he did when Luka was out

i mean agreed there. kawhi should be a lot higher in mvp convos than he is rn.

There are 2 big reason Kawhi isn’t talked about enough. First, most people dodn’t expect him to play 65 games, and right now he needs to play ⁷⁄₈ of the final games for the Clippers to hit that threshold. Second, the Clippers overall record. That 6-21 start to the season basically took him out of the conversation. It was suoer controversial for Jokic and Westbrook to win as 6 seeds, the Clippers being in the playin is too much for him to overcome. 

But the dude is quietly balling out this year, and the only person I’ve heard acknowledge it is Bill Simmons. 

Well yeah bruh they the 8th seed

At the end of the day it’s a popularity contest. Play-in team is not sexy, and he still has the aspirations stuff hanging over him. When the race is close, team wins is an easy tie breaker. I agree he should be higher. The team just has issues to sort out at the beginning of the season

You’re just not gonna win MVP on a shit team

He has a sneaky stronger argument than one would think

If his team didn’t shit themselves for 30 games at the start of the season he would absolutely be in talks… but hey ig all 82 games matter

Kawhi is the actual MVP this season, if we are going by the true definition

I agree and I love watching him play. Unbelievable handle, drives to the basket and plays two ways. Definitely deserving this season.

Thank you for being a rational lakers fan. I think it’s pretty obvious that SGA is the mvp. I also think Luka has a legit case for second, but I don’t think anyone should be mad about any of the other three getting second

So players in bad situations who overperform every season are just fucked? So the MVP should go to the GM?

disagree. if we’re going by that metric and definition, wemby should be the clear favorite.

Defense isn’t usually that big of a factor in the conversation because there’s rarely that big of a difference in the comparison. between two players with  average defense and slightly better defense, defense isn’t a major factor, but when the comparison is potentially one of the greatest defenders the league has ever seen vs below average defense, it is.

Wemby’s defensive capabilities aren’t just a side note in his overall game, they’re a major part of his overall value, (which is what the award is intended to assess) and must be factored into the conversation.

Defense has always mattered. It’s part of the reason Shai and Embiid won over Jokic. It’s more in the conversation now because Wemby is involved.

Defense matters when it is between sga and luka, but not so much when it is now wemby vs the field.

Somehow giannis’ defense didnt matter that much last year either, jokic got 2nd over giannis. No first place votes iirc

On/off is very flawed, but if you want a number for why people would have Wemby ahead is that’s the Spurs have a +17 net rating when he’s on the court, and a -1 when he’s off. It’s cool that Spurs are 10-5 without Wemby, but that record in a small sample of games massively undersells how transformative he’s been.

What do you mean he’s “far behind” Wemby? No one has voted yet… There has to be an order, right? Why does 4 have to be “far behind” 2?

That last sentence might be showing your age.

Yes, Jokić won the MVP in 2021-22 on the 6th seed, which is pretty uncommon, but his only real competition that year were Giannis and Embiid, whose teams finished 3rd and 4th respectively in the East with 51 wins each.
Jokić’s Nuggets won 48, but Jokić played the entire season without Jamal Murray, who was his clear-cut second option, and 73 out of 82 games without MPJ who was his third option.

Wanna know how bad that Nuggets team was? The majority of the roster was either out of the league or out of the rotation by the trade deadline of 2022-23. Like… not even just half of it… 10+ dudes easily.

He essentially did a little less (difference of just 3 Ws) with a lot less compared to his competition.

Who else was there in the convo that year? The Heat won the East with 53 wins, which was the 3rd seeded Warriors record in the West.
The 1st and 2nd seed in the west were the Suns (64 Ws) and the Grizzlies (56 Ws), but the difference in production between Jokić, Giannis and Embiid on one side and Booker and Ja (who couldn’t even qualify btw) on the other, would’ve made for a much bigger outlier if one of them won over those three.

That’s not to say that the record argument wasn’t used dishonestly against Luka, either in the years past or this season, but 2021-22 was a significant outlier where no top seeded teams had an MVP worthy player, and three guys who were heads and shoulders above the rest of the competition all finished with records that were in 3Ws of each other.
One of them, that being Jokić, just did a more impressive thing carrying a bunch of “Who Dats” to the playoffs.

Hell, the Warriors, who went on to win the whole thing, did win the series 4-1, but two of their wins were +4 and +5… If that Nuggets squad was actually healthy, and maybe even been incentivized to make some extra moves around the deadline (we were basically sitting ducks for a year and a half), that series could’ve happened in the final round, and looked much differently…

Context matters.
Yes, it has sometimes been skewed to benefit Jokić, but if you actually have any clue how the 2021-22 season played out, you should know it wasn’t one of those times…

Unless, of course, you somehow think that:

• Booker’s 26.⁸⁄₅.0/4.8 on .576 TS%

was remotely close to being in the same tier as:

• Jokić’s 27.¹⁄₁₃.⁸⁄₇.9 on .661 TS%
• Embiid’s 30.⁶⁄₁₁.⁷⁄₄.2 on .616 TS%
• Giannis’ 29.⁹⁄₁₁.⁶⁄₅.8 on .633 TS%

That would be peak revisionism… especially when you take into account that many considered Chris Paul to be the main driving force behind turning the Suns’ around, seeing how prior to the Bubble (where they did perform surorisingly well) they were the laughing stock of the league for years, with their best record in the four years leading to it being the whooping… uhhh… 24Ws.

Unless yoou’re just talking out of your ass, in which case you shouldn’t be talking at all, you’re basically arguing against dishonesty while being extremely dishonest yourself.

Bad look either way.

Defense doesn’t “randomly matter” now. It matters because Victor Wembanyama is having the greatest defensive season of our lifetimes. You can argue that this is the best defense anyone has played since Bill Russell.

And 10 days ago, Wemby was ahead of Luka. That’s just how this stuff works

Why is it hard to understand that Luka did not got worse but Wemby is just performing good. Wemby wasnt in the convo most of the time because people were not sure if he could reach 65 game limit. It wasnt because of his on court impact. We are 23-1 with Wemby playing since Feb.

Also Luka wasnt in the mvp convo until recently either. He has been in the convo after this stretch where Lakers have been winning after they lost 3 consecutive games in a row.

He was not ahead of Wemby 3 days ago. The Lakers media boom overeacting to his win streak wasn’t him being ahead of Wemby. Luka was in Cade conversations before MVP conversations.

Wemby’s just been better.

It’s a joke that Luka is somehow far behind Wemby. 

Nah, Luka being considered a serious MVP candidate by fans is the real joke.

Dude was the preseason MVP favorite 4 years in a row and has gotten a whopping 4 first place votes for the thing his whole career.

Dude’s gotten lapped by guys he was supposed to be better than and y’all are loosing your minds.

Outside of PRA, there’s not a single, objective, impartial metric or way of measuring an MVP that says Luka is ahead of Wemby in the race. 

considering the media is dragging the mvp convos, i think its entirely fair that fans get to partake in it as well. you could simply not engage with the post

No

Even Hornets fans can see through all the bs.

Or FG attempts

Lakers wins without Luka, Kings, Dallas, warriors, raptors,blazers, wolves.

Thats the same arguement last year with Jokic and SGA last year, however, SGA still won the MVP.

Edit: I wanted Jokic to win the MVP last year but it seem that argument doesnt make sense to them

Nuggets without Jokic beat the Sixers (in hilarious fashion) and Celtics, the other 8 wins were against bad teams.

The only sane person here

volume and getting wins on a bad team that everyone had in the playins should matter too, cant forget that SGA would have made the playoffs maybe once or twice in lukas shoes

It’s easier to be more efficient on a good team tho. I’m sure if sga, jokic, or wemby had a team as bad as LA is without luka their efficiency would take a noticeable dip.

And a DPOTY award tbf

Why actually discuss basketball or the competition when we can all parasocially become white knights that will fight with their lives against other fans to defend a yearly award to a star player of our choice?

It’s honestly a sht show. There is 0 need to have trackers for these unless you’re gambling. Records are gonna change, not every one is guaranteed to hit 65 games

And that efficiency gap is 2026 Wemby vs. 2016 Curry. It’s not close

No, thats too much work. Only rudimentary analysis that fits MY narrative please.

Trash ass team tho

I like how Luka’s whining has infected all the Lakers fans lol

lol i think you need to familiarize yourself with what the word “underrated” means 

i mean ppl still drag up the emiid mvp convos so i doubt that. somebody will always bring up ‘who should have actually won mvp in xy year’ and the discourse will start again

I think some people dont realize just how op wemby is if hes healthy just because the way hes born…west needs to hope he gets hurt or they wont be able to play offense

I’m a Spurs fan. Luka could 100% embarrass us in the playoffs. We don’t have the personnel to deal with him. Running through BOTH Spurs and OKC though would be a gargantuan task.

luka isnt on a linsanity run and context with who they play should matter too