The MVP is a terrible award. This is true in basically every league, but it's especially true in the NBA. In the NFL, at least there's a decent chance that the winning player was the best quarterback in the league that year, although this is certainly not always the case. In the NBA, there is no implication whatsoever that the MVP was the best player in the league. They don't even pretend that it's about that; everyone who's lining up to name James Harden MVP is quick to acknowledge that if the award were going to the best player in the league, it would be LeBron's. (They're wrong--LeBron doesn't try during the regular season, and I guess just no one's watching him enough to realize that? Which is understandable, given what Westbrook and Harden are doing this year. Whereas Westbrook is currently trying harder--and playing better--than anyone since Kobe Bryant in 2006.)
The MVP. That acronym is for Most Valuable Player, which most people know but which no one really stops to talk about. I've said in the past that MVP, interpreted literally, can be hard to measure, and this is true. But it's not hard to define. A player's value can be expressed straightforwardly in the following way:
- Take each player in the league off their team and compare their team's performance with and without them. The player whose team falls off the most without him is the most valuable.
Of course this is really hard to measure (except in a few cases), which is what should make MVP an interesting award. But the people who vote on this award are sportswriters and broadcasters who completely ignore the concept of value in favor of their horrifyingly bad definition: The best player on the best team, or more generally the best player on one of the two or three best teams.
Which raises a problem: Generally the best teams have more than one great player, meaning that if you removed the "MVP" from their team, the team would still perform fairly well. Case in point: when Michael Jordan retired the first time, the Bulls' wins went from 57 (in '93, with Jordan) to 55 (in '94, without Jordan). That's a win differential of two. In what world can that be called "valuable"?? (N.B. Jordan didn't win MVP in '93, but he won it in '92 and '91.) In fact, given the suddenness of Jordan's retirement and the stability of the team in between those two seasons, this may be the best example in NBA history of why players considered among the league's "Most Valuable" sometimes bring very little literal value to the table. (Note that this is not an indictment of Jordan's abilities, merely an illustration of why the voters' definition of value is explicitly terrible.)
So what kind of players can be said to be genuinely valuable? They're still probably going to be among the league's superstars; while I'm sure the Suns would miss him, and his 70-point game was very impressive, there's almost definitely no chance that Devin Booker is one of the league's most valuable players. Moreover, these players will probably tend to appear on at least good teams, albeit probably not great ones; if their team is garbage, that's probably an indicator that the player isn't actually bringing all that much value to the table.
The Most Valuable Player ever--for a single season, that is--is probably Kobe Bryant in 2006. (The Most Valuable Player of all time, for his career, is almost certainly Dennis Rodman.) Bryant played on a team that, if it hadn't had him, would have been the worst in the league--by far--and quite possibly one of the worst in history. That team, aside from Kobe, starred Lamar Odom (well before he got good in 2011 and won SMOTY), Smush Parker, Kwame Brown, Chris Mihm, Devean George, Luke Walton, and Brian Cook. There wasn't even another league average player there; every one of Kobe's teammates would have struggled to start, or even get minutes, on any other team.
So here's what Kobe did. In January, he dropped 81 points, the second-most ever scored in a game, and dragged his team to a win over Toronto. In December, he dropped 62 points in three quarters, outscoring the entire Dallas Mavericks team combined--a team that would go on to win 60 games. In January, he averaged 43.4 points per game, for the entire month. In April (not counting postseason), he averaged 41.6. That's TWO forty-point months in the same season! (For reference, Jordan NEVER had a 40-point month. Not once. Kobe did it an additional two times: February of '03, and March of '07. March of '07, by the way, he also put up 50+ points in four straight games: 65, 50, 60, and 50. Don't ever tell me Jordan's a better scorer.)
Kobe dragged that sack of D-league burnouts to a seven seed, where they faced a Phoenix Suns team that was on fire, led by MVP (hahaha) Steve Nash, plus Shawn Marion, Raja Bell, Boris Diaw, Kurt Thomas, and a deep bench of players who all would have been the second best Laker on the opposite roster. The Lakers had absolutely no business being there. They were facing a team that was superior in virtually every respect. Most people expected a sweep. But Kobe dragged the Lakers to a seven-game series against the Suns before finally succumbing.
That's value.
So here's our approximate methodology for finding the players who ACTUALLY contribute serious value to their teams:
1. We limit our search to elite players, since they're the only ones who are good enough to add this kind of value;
2. We focus on teams that are not at the very top of the league, since they can likely afford to lose one superstar without falling off too far;
3. We find the players whose teammates are so bad that without their superstar, the team would be vastly worse than they are.
James Harden is generally considered the frontrunner for MVP this season. This is a mistake, but not as bad of one as it might appear. The Houston Rockets live to shoot threes and score in the paint; it's almost literally all they do, and they're exceptional at it. James Harden is the perfect fit for this team. His game has always been oriented around shooting either from three or from the basket. And while he's actually shooting shockingly badly from three this year--34.5%, a career low (!!)--his vision makes up for it, and he's leading the league with 11.2 assists per game. This is a plane built for James Harden to pilot, and while it's not exactly the SSOL Suns in terms of its complexity (again, literally all they do is shoot threes and layups), he is probably pretty valuable to the team. But he's also a distant second this year for MOST valuable.
And that's because Russell Westbrook is having, as I think I mentioned way back at the start of the article, one of the most valuable seasons of all time. Let me emphatically state that the Thunder minus Westbrook are nowhere near as bad as the '06 Lakers minus Kobe. They're a lottery team, no doubt, but Oladipo, Adams, Gibson, Kanter, and probably a few other guys all would have been the second-best player on that Lakers squad. But that doesn't detract from what Russell Westbrook is doing. You probably know already, but I'm gonna spell it out anyway, because it's that amazing a season.
Russell Westbrook is averaging a triple-double--31.8 PPG, 10.6 RPG, 10.4 APG--while leading the league in scoring. Not only has that never happened, it's never even come CLOSE to happening (primarily because Oscar Robertson was playing at the same time as Wilt Chamberlain). A lot of guys have come close to averaging a triple-double: Oscar a bunch of times (including actually doing it once, in 1962), Magic Johnson in '82 (when he put up 18.6/9.6/9.5, led the league in steals, and somehow finished 8th in MVP voting), et al... but nobody's done it while also being the top scorer in the league.
Let me put this in perspective. Let's focus just on the points and the rebounds. The last time someone averaged 30+ PPG and 10+ RPG was Karl Malone in 1990. Robinson, Shaq, Hakeem, Ewing, Duncan, Garnett, Bynum--none of those guys ever achieved what Westbrook is almost certainly going to do this year. And he's a POINT GUARD.
Now let's look at just the points and assists. The last time someone averaged 30+ PPG and 10+ APG was Tiny Archibald in 1973. This one might be more understandable, since generally great passers tend to focus on passing rather than scoring--Magic, Nash, Jason Kidd--but it's still pretty incredible.
And finally, looking at just rebounds and assists: the last person to average 10 of each was, of course, Oscar Robertson in 1962.
Now realize that Westbrook is about to do all three of those things, simultaneously. And that he's doing it while also playing unbelievably well in the clutch, carrying his team Kobe-style to wins, dropping contested midrange jumpers in the fourth quarter and overtime--NOBODY does that anymore--and just generally annihilating the rest of the league. This isn't Kobe '06, value-wise, but it's the closest thing I've seen. It may be the closest thing in NBA history.
Russell Westbrook is the MVP. And while he may not win the NBA MVP, I feel like winning my blog's MVP is far more meaningful, if perhaps less prestigious.
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