Facts. Meanwhile Deni and Duren were lottery picks

If I had it my way, lottery picks would be disqualified from winning within 5 years of their debut. Ja Morant won it, he was the 2nd pick, bro was supposed to get better.

The original winner of the award was Alvin Roberston, a 7th overall pick who just finished his sophomore season.

6 of the first 8 winners were lottery picks in the first 3 years of their career, several in their second year. One of those players (Pervis Ellison) was a 1st overall pick just three years before winning.

The average pick for winners in the last 10 years is almost the exact same as the first 10 years. More recent winners have played more years in the NBA than the original winners.

If you look at a rolling average, the average draft position of MIP winners peaked in 2008, and has decreased a bit since, but the average tenure of recent winners is near the all time high.

Honestly though, if you take a look at those late 90s, early 2000s years what you see isn’t an era with a fundamentally different perspective on the award but rather one that idiosyncratically produced a lot of late-drafted/late-career players who took leaps comparable to or greater than their lottery-drafted rivals.

In 2000, Dirk finished a very close second, for instance, despite being a 9th overall pick in his 2nd year. In 1998 Corliss William and Donyell Marshall (both lottery picks in their 3rd season; Donyell went 4th) finished 2nd and 3rd. In 1997 Rasheed Wallace (4th overall pick, 2nd year) got 13 first place votes. There are a lot of similar examples. Further, it looks like the winners won, not because of some notion among voters about the spirit of the award excluding highly touted prospects, but because those later picks improved more (at least statistically, I don’t have great insight from this vantage about whether any particular player was playing more or less winning basketball).

If anything the number of lottery picks early in their careers getting votes has decreased substantially over the last 40 years.

I don’t have any particular dog in this year’s race, or the Ja Morant race. I think for this award any given year has a number of totally deserving winners. I’m just, I dunno, dismayed by the ability of the terminally online NBA community, when faced with something that annoys them (typically an end of year award) to manufacture firm knowledge out of thin air. In this case, the now evidentially widespread belief that there once existed a spirit of the MIP Award that excluded certain undeserving players but which has now been lost.

Obviously this is all trivial, even by the standards of NBA awards. It’s just scary, irrespective of context, to watch people collaborate on the manufacture of misbelief and then use it for no reason other than to browbeat media personalities, justify a sort of smug satisfaction, and excuse themselves of the need to engage, critically or otherwise, with the arguments of people they disagree with.

Hard to believe, but tis the truth.

Snyder is the greatest developmental coach in league history confirmed

For the first time in golden knights history

Frankly, I’m surprised the Pacers haven’t done it before

I hate being a Pelicans fan

The funniest timeline

Going from full time doghouse to full time starter will probably set him up for a huge PPG jump

Genuinely can happen too lol

My meme pick is Gabe Vincent. But by being an actual strong contributor to the Hawks’ winning streak next season

He’s too good already this year to win next year.

We have our farm team to thank for that

If it makes you feel any better, you can’t win MIP without starting from the bottom first. They literally couldn’t have done it without you!

Damn TIL. all this time I thought they were first cousin smh

Yea agreed Shai was never a touted prospect. Was a 4 star recruit. Was playing off the bench in college iirc until his coach found he worked way harder. Ended up in the low lottery. Exceeded expectations with the clippers but was more of a side addition to the crazy pick haul in the PG trade. Had an all star season but then encroached on MVPs before winning (likely) 2 of them.

NAW was better in childhood but struggled later on until he got benched in college and turned his life around to work harder. Got drafted in like the 20s iirc. Traded away all the time and was a throwaway in a trade before showing his value as a player on the wolves. Now he’s one of Atlanta’s go to options.

Their stories are pretty great and both worked hard despite not being guys with obvious talent

Get out 👉🏽

delete this nephew

No.

At first I was gonna say no way TMac and Vince clears them but after more consideration, SGA alone is putting him and NAW above Tmac and Vince.

Announcers loved it too lmao

He was also unfortunately awful in the prior playoffs. He couldn’t hit a shot outside of like 2 games vs you guys.

I’m sorry but have to say it. I hope so much that it smokes the crap out of your team

yep we had him for one whole day, and then traded him for jingles, a second rounder, and “elijah hughes”. that pick ended up being #57, although we did draft the second best 57th pick since 1999 so that’s cool i guess lol. shoutout jabari walker

And Markkanen in 2023.