crzymdups wrote:I personally think Russ has had the craziest single season I've ever seen. 42 triple doubles, all time record, second guy ever to average a triple double, led a mediocre team to the playoffs.

Today after getting the record for most triple doubles in a season, he went for 50 to beat the Nuggets. Game winning shot on a 35-foot three as time expired.

I just think in ten years, Russ's season is the one we'll be talking about. Heck it'll be the one we're talking about in 25 years or 50. To me, a season like this deserves the MVP hands down.

Under David Stern, certain players would essentially get a "free pass"

Jordan in most of his years. LBJ with his "crab dribble" Iverson during his most marketable phase ( the dude was insanely marketable overseas in his prime) Wade during his early Heat years ( Stern basically gutted the Kings in the process) Rose in his MVP year

If you touch the player, he gets two free throws. If you look at the player wrong, he gets two free throws. If that player, however, with the golden free pass picks up Lucille, the barbed wired baseball bat from Negan, from the Walking Dead, and clubs a player over the head with it. The guy with the fractured skull gets hit with a technical 2 and the golden child gets two free throws.

Westbrook travels. He jumps into players. He throws his elbows around. If any player gets too close to him and gets good clean contact, Steven Adams and Taj Gibson are free to hammer on that player later with no movement from the refs. The league and Adam Silver had made it real simple. When Westbrook gets the ball, he's going to score. The league will make sure he scores.

He's an elite talent, no doubt. But he's also clearly getting "marketable" treatment from the league.

To be fair about this all, so did Jeremy Lin during Linsanity. The league and Stern simply could not watch Lin get battered game after game ( players were just taking free hits on him after a while) and risk his injury or risk having that massive international audience see him get tomahawked by POS players like Derek Fisher with no call.

At some level, the modern game is a joke. Can you sell a ton of shoes? Can they get a commercial of you dunking over a car? How many cheeseburgers can you sell for me?

Westbrook will win MVP. He probably could have won it just on his own talent and merit and that he's an effective ballhog, but why take that chance?

Curry and Leonard are the best representation of what MVP means, but they are quiet humble players and frankly that doesn't mean as much as if you can dunk over a car. If either was married to Beyonce and were seen as violent thugs who shot up nightclubs and wanted to be fashion/entertainment moguls, they would simply be more appealing to the NBA marketing machine. Being maybe the historically best long range shooter in NBA history means little when you can tomahawk dunk the ball after traveling 57 steps to the hoop.

Harden means the most to his team night after night, but after the domestic violence perception issues with the NFL and MLB, and with the not so secret private life of Harden out there, it's not something the league wants to risk. They saw the damage of anointing Derrick Rose MVP and saw how that fell out for them from a conduct perspective.

The league administration hates the Warriors. They play team ball. Green pisses people off. Durant went there after the league essentially changed nearly all the rules to keep him in OKC or a larger market and literally changed the league cap projection to try to drive him away.

I swear to God, all Zinger really needs to do is produce his own basketball sneakers and find a way to get every teenager in Europe to buy a pair, and I truly believe he'd be the first NBA player to average 80 free throw attempts a game. They'd build a mechanical hoop that would expand when Zinger shot the ball and contract when he was defending someone else. They'd wire up a drone, have it fly during the game over the rim and have it block opposing players shots for him if the league could see him selling 10 million pairs of sneakers a year.

Westbrook is marketable. He's a great player. But he's marketable. That's what matters the most.

Bonn1997 wrote:No Durant? FWIW, here is basketball reference's MVP predictor. It's not the MVP evaluation of the site. It's just an attempt to predict how the judges will vote.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/mvp.html

Durant joined a 73 win team and just missed a quarter of the season.
Warriors closed out his hiatus on a 13 game win streak.

I just can't see him being a serious contender for MVP...

Bonn1997 wrote:

MaTT4281 wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:No Durant? FWIW, here is basketball reference's MVP predictor. It's not the MVP evaluation of the site. It's just an attempt to predict how the judges will vote.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/mvp.html

Durant joined a 73 win team and just missed a quarter of the season.
Warriors closed out his hiatus on a 13 game win streak.

I just can't see him being a serious contender for MVP...

So the award goes to the guy whose team is only a little above. 500? Based on the voting here, it seems that way at least. I'd say team wins should only be a small part of the equation, since it's impossible to actually know how the team would do without the player. Just to look at the pro-Durant argument: Maybe GS wins 64 this year without Durant and 68 with him. (There's no guarantee they repeat last year's win total.) Going from 64 to 68 you could say is huge. It's probably much harder than going from 40 to 44, for example. That said, I don't think he'll get it. He probably would have if he hadn't gotten injured. And I don't think Harden is exciting enough to most people. I do think it will go to Westbrook.

TPercy wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

MaTT4281 wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:No Durant? FWIW, here is basketball reference's MVP predictor. It's not the MVP evaluation of the site. It's just an attempt to predict how the judges will vote.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/mvp.html

Durant joined a 73 win team and just missed a quarter of the season.
Warriors closed out his hiatus on a 13 game win streak.

I just can't see him being a serious contender for MVP...

So the award goes to the guy whose team is only a little above. 500? Based on the voting here, it seems that way at least. I'd say team wins should only be a small part of the equation, since it's impossible to actually know how the team would do without the player. Just to look at the pro-Durant argument: Maybe GS wins 64 this year without Durant and 68 with him. (There's no guarantee they repeat last year's win total.) Going from 64 to 68 you could say is huge. It's probably much harder than going from 40 to 44, for example. That said, I don't think he'll get it. He probably would have if he hadn't gotten injured. And I don't think Harden is exciting enough to most people. I do think it will go to Westbrook.

If Westbrook and Durant are taken out of their respective teams, which team drops the most wins?(regardless of record)

Westbrook has undoubtedly had a great season but I think a team going from elite to super elite is a lot harder than moving up in the .500s. Just consider how rare it is for a team to win 70 or even 68 games. I'd say pushing a team from 65 to 68 is more impressive than almost any upward push from .400s to .500s that Westbrook gave OKC.

Also, I think if the two switched teams, Westbrook wouldn't fit well in GS and they'd have a worse record. If Durant had been healthy all season and played in OKC, I think they'd still be around .570. Westbrook probably can compile these crazy stat lines only on a .500 team that's tailored to him.

That said, Curry should get the award again IMO. I believe he's more valuable to GS than Durant is and if he hadn't been superman last year, people would be more shocked than they are by how well he's playing this year. Triple doubles are impressive but a little overrated. If you count turnovers, Westbrook is usually flirting with a quadruple double anyway.

TPercy wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

TPercy wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

MaTT4281 wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:No Durant? FWIW, here is basketball reference's MVP predictor. It's not the MVP evaluation of the site. It's just an attempt to predict how the judges will vote.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/mvp.html

Durant joined a 73 win team and just missed a quarter of the season.
Warriors closed out his hiatus on a 13 game win streak.

I just can't see him being a serious contender for MVP...

So the award goes to the guy whose team is only a little above. 500? Based on the voting here, it seems that way at least. I'd say team wins should only be a small part of the equation, since it's impossible to actually know how the team would do without the player. Just to look at the pro-Durant argument: Maybe GS wins 64 this year without Durant and 68 with him. (There's no guarantee they repeat last year's win total.) Going from 64 to 68 you could say is huge. It's probably much harder than going from 40 to 44, for example. That said, I don't think he'll get it. He probably would have if he hadn't gotten injured. And I don't think Harden is exciting enough to most people. I do think it will go to Westbrook.

If Westbrook and Durant are taken out of their respective teams, which team drops the most wins?(regardless of record)

Westbrook has undoubtedly had a great season but I think a team going from elite to super elite is a lot harder than moving up in the .500s. Just consider how rare it is for a team to win 70 or even 68 games. I'd say pushing a team from 65 to 68 is more impressive than almost any upward push from .400s to .500s that Westbrook gave OKC.

Also, I think if the two switched teams, Westbrook wouldn't fit well in GS and they'd have a worse record. If Durant had been healthy all season and played in OKC, I think they'd still be around .570. Westbrook probably can compile these crazy stat lines only on a .500 team that's tailored to him.

That said, Curry should get the award again IMO. I believe he's more valuable to GS than Durant is and if he hadn't been superman last year, people would be more shocked than they are by how well he's playing this year. Triple doubles are impressive but a little overrated. If you count turnovers, Westbrook is usually flirting with a quadruple double anyway.

How did GS go from elite to super elite? They broke the NBA record last year.
How does Curry get the award again? If your pick is based on best player or best team, then Curry as MVP makes sense.

crzymdups wrote:I personally think Russ has had the craziest single season I've ever seen. 42 triple doubles, all time record, second guy ever to average a triple double, led a mediocre team to the playoffs.

Today after getting the record for most triple doubles in a season, he went for 50 to beat the Nuggets. Game winning shot on a 35-foot three as time expired.

I just think in ten years, Russ's season is the one we'll be talking about. Heck it'll be the one we're talking about in 25 years or 50. To me, a season like this deserves the MVP hands down.

100% agree. It has been a season for the ages, and most likely the greatest single season achievement of all time. Simply amazing.

SupremeCommander wrote:I voted Westbrook... I've never seen someone do so much and it actually is the reason the team wins... he's been incredible. I think Kawhi should get an honorable mention. I think Lebron deserves it. I've just never seen anyone do what Westbrook is doing and I always thought it was ridiculous Oscar didn't win

Yeah I'm pretty sure Westbrook will get it. And he is having a great season. But he's basically a high volume player - a crazy high number of points, rebounds, assists, turnovers, made and missed FGs a game, etc. I think Curry's efficient production helps his team more, and if the two switched places, the Warriors would be worse and OKC better than they are now.

Nalod wrote:I think I want to change my vote to Leonard.
Harden is right, wins do matter. Should be best player on best record.
If Durant not miss as much as he has, I'd be inclined to vote him.
There is precedent to not vote westbrook, Oscar was not MVP and OKC is not a great record.
Wilt would throw up big stats and not get MVP's. It was usually best player on best team.
So Harden's rockets have won 8 more games. But Spurs even better than that.
And Leonard is a great defensive player!!! Winning matters.