MVP Selection Criteria II
In MVP Selection Criteria, I examined some of the historical patterns and trends in NBA MVP voting. The league has never established specific and defined MVP criteria, leaving the voters to their own devices.
It is way too early in the 2021-22 season to talk about MVP candidates, but that does not stop many people from doing so. In order to not abandon the field to people who do not know what they are talking about, sober-minded commentators are thus drawn into the discussion as well.
There is no question that Stephen Curry is playing at an MVP-caliber level so far this season. However, it is interesting to contrast the way that he is portrayed by the media compared with the way that other MVP caliber players have been portrayed. We have seen Curry play well as the second option behind Kevin Durant on two championship teams, and we have seen Curry play well while his teammate Andre Iguodala won the 2015 NBA Finals MVP, so we know that Curry can win championships as a major part of a strong ensemble cast--but the notion that he is a Pantheon-level player who can carry a subpar supporting cast is, at the very least, unproven.
Last season, Curry played alongside several promising young players plus Draymond Green--who has a solid chance of being honored as a Hall of Famer--and Andrew Wiggins, a former number one overall draft pick who has developed into a very good two-way player, yet Curry was not able to even lead the Warriors into the playoffs; the Warriors lost a home game in the Play-In Tournament as Ja Morant outplayed Curry in the key moments.
This season, the narrative is that the Golden State Warriors have a great record because Curry is carrying a squad that is without the services of Kevin Durant (who fled for Brooklyn two years ago) and the injured Klay Thompson. Again, there is no doubt that Curry is playing very well, but the point is that the narrative that he is the only weapon for the NBA version of the Little Sisters of the Poor is not accurate.
When a player is playing very well and his team is winning, it may be difficult for some people to discern how much credit that player should receive, but if that player sits out or does not play well and his team still wins then it may become easier to figure out what is happening.
Curry did not play on Friday night versus the Detroit Pistons, but the Warriors built a big lead and held on to win, 105-102. Curry shot just 2-10 from the field in his return to action on Saturday, but the Warriors again built a big lead and this time they cruised to a 119-104 victory over the Toronto Raptors. Detroit and Toronto are not powerhouses, to put it mildly, and this is just a two game sample size, but the limited evidence that we have from this season does not suggest that the Warriors--even without Durant and Thompson--are completely helpless when Curry is out of action or ineffective.
In contrast, Kobe Bryant--who won one regular season MVP, while Curry has already won two and is being widely touted as the leader in the 2022 MVP race--not only won back to back Finals MVPs to establish beyond doubt his ability to be the first option on a championship team, but he carried the 2005-06 Lakers to a 45-37 record, the sixth seed in the playoffs, and a near upset of the third seeded (and talent-stacked) Phoenix Suns. The 2006 Lakers' second best player was Lamar Odom. Green is superior to Odom as a defender and passer, and is not much worse as a rebounder. Odom was better than Green as a volume scorer but, like Green, he was best suited to being the third or fourth scoring option on a championship team. After Odom, the 2006 Lakers' next best players were Kwame Brown and Smush Parker. Suffice it to say that the Lakers needed Bryant to dominate to have a chance to win.
Bryant never shot .200 from the field in a game that season, so we cannot compare any of Bryant's 2005-06 games directly with Curry's most recent performance, but Bryant shot .350 or less from the field in 10 games that season, and the Lakers went 3-7 in those contests. The Lakers went 12-4 in the 16 games during which Bryant shot .550 or better from the field, including 8-1 in the games during which Bryant shot at least .580 from the field. Those eight wins included Bryant's 81 point game, his 62 points in three quarters versus 2006 NBA Finalist Dallas (Bryant outscored the Mavericks by himself during those three quarters), and a 50 point game against Portland late in the season to help the Lakers secure their playoff seeding.
Bottom line: in 2005-06, the Lakers played like a 25-57 team in Bryant's worst shooting games, and they played like a 62-20 team in Bryant's best shooting games--and he had many more great shooting games than poor shooting games.
When Bryant was the best player on non-championship contenders in 2006 and 2007, the simple media-driven narrative was that a player cannot win the MVP when his team is a non-championship contender. When Bryant was the best player on teams that advanced to the NBA Finals three straight times from 2008-10, he won one regular season MVP (plus the aforementioned two Finals MVPs). In contrast, Curry won two MVPs when he was the best player on a stacked championship contender, and he finished third in last season's MVP voting--one spot ahead of 2021 Finals MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo--when he could not even lift his team into the playoffs.
This is not about "hating" Curry. This is about exposing the simple media-driven narratives that distort historical truth and are reflected in MVP voting. NBA MVP voting started to go off the rails in the 1990s, when we first heard of the novel concept of "voter fatigue"--media members admitted to looking for reasons to vote for anyone other than Michael Jordan as the MVP. Since that time, various media-driven narratives have incorrectly elevated several players to MVP wins (Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Derrick Rose, James Harden are the most obvious examples in the past 20 years or so) while resulting in Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant winning only one regular season MVP each.
Labels: Golden State Warriors, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Stephen Curry
posted by David Friedman @ 1:39 AM
