2014-15 Regular Season MVP

[permaximum]

Stephen Curry.

Harden's Rockets finished 11 games behind and that's too much.

[ampersand5]

I doubt anyone will disagree on the numbers, but rather, will disagree on the underlying assumptions as to what an mvp is...

is it the player with the:

biggest impact on their team factoring in pt?
biggest impact per minute they were on the floor?
biggest impact on the best team?
biggest impact compared to the 2nd most impactful player on a team?

50-50 blend of RPM and BPM show:

Code: Select all

╔═══════════╦═══════╗
║   Curry   ║ 9.385 ║
╠═══════════╬═══════╣
║ Westbrook ║ 8.79  ║
║ Harden    ║ 8.35  ║
║ James     ║ 7.53  ║
║ Paul      ║ 7.465 ║
║ Davis     ║ 7.31  ║
║ Leonard   ║ 7.225 ║
╚═══════════╩═══════╝

[mystic]

(on an unrelated note, can someone explain how I can paste things from excel on here so the columns line up - thanks!)

Save the file as .prn, then paste the content of the .prn within the code tag. You may need to adjust the width of the columns accordingly first.

Edit: Well, you found a solution before I submitted the post ...


Regarding MVP:

My personal Top5:

1. Curry
2. Paul
3. Harden
4. James
5. Davis

(6.) Westbrook

My guess at the likely voting result:

1. Curry
2. Harden
3. Paul
4. James
5. Davis

[Mike G]

Both RPM and BPM are per minute rates. So, multiplied by minutes, we get:

Code: Select all

mvp?     RPM/BPM  %Min   tada
Curry     9.385   .66    6.18
Westbrook 8.79    .58    5.10
Harden    8.35    .75    6.27
James     7.53    .63    4.73
Paul      7.465   .72    5.37
Davis     7.31    .62    4.52
Leonard   7.225   .51    3.70

Of course, some players may be rested once their teams' playoff seeding is secured. LeBron, for example.

To line up columns, I just copy a block of Excel into Notepad.
Under Edit, click Replace...
Select any space between any 2 entries in a row. Copy that into the "Find what" cell.
Tap in 3 or 4 spaces (space bar) into the "Replace with" cell.
Hit the "Replace All" button.

Now you align columns using Backspace, Delete, and space bar. You get a kind of rhythm and it's not much like work.
Under Edit, "Select All" will show you if you need to trim empty spaces off the right side.
If that's good, then copy and paste between the brackets that appear when you hit the Code button in this forum's Reply area.

[Mike G]

Supposing it's between Curry and Harden, these guys are the clear leaders of #1-2 playoff seeds.
Compare their teams:

Code: Select all

Houston   Min    PER   WS   VORP        GSW      Min    PER   WS   VORP
Harden   36.4   26.7  16.4   7.8      Curry     31.9   28.0  15.7   7.9
Ariza    35.7   12.7   6.6   2.9      Green     30.4   16.4   8.5   4.4
Motiej's 24.8   14.4   4.7   1.0      Thompson  29.9   20.8   8.8   2.9
Beverly  21.1   11.3   3.5   1.2      Barnes    28.3   13.4   6.7   1.8
Terry    20.0   11.4   3.6    .7      Iguodala  25.2   12.3   5.1   1.9
Brewer   17.2   14.0   2.7    .2      Bogut     19.3   15.8   5.2   2.4
J Smith  17.1   15.2   2.1   1.0     Livingston 17.9   12.9   3.3    .1
Dwight   14.9   19.2   3.6    .3      Speights  14.7   19.5   4.0   -.2
T Jones  10.8   18.3   3.0    .7      Barbosa   12.0   15.3   2.8    .3
Dorsey   10.4   11.1    .5   -.1      D Lee     11.0   17.8   3.2    .8

Min = season minutes/82
Curry has slightly better per-minute rates, and Harden played 14% more minutes.
Curry has almost as many WS, and greater VORP, than his next 2 teammates.
Harden has more WS than any 3 teammates, and basically half the team's VORP.

In 38 years, the only MVP to average <36 mpg was Steve Nash (twice). Bill Walton went 33.0 mpg in 1977.
Every other MVP has gone at least 36, with the median almost 39 mpg.
Curry avg'd 32.7 in games that he played.

[AcrossTheCourt]

Silly Curry. Blowing out so many teams he doesn't even need to play the fourth quarter. Pad your minutes, man!

[Mike G]

Ha, good point. Blowouts do afford the luxury of rest. But the facts remain:
- We don't know how good Curry is beyond 32 mpg. Doing it on occasion is not the same as doing it every night.
- He got those 4th quarters off due in part to having excellent teammates. In fact, he could have taken whole games off, and they'd still be the 1 seed.
- Harden's long minutes AND excellence are the reason Houston has the 2 seed. He carried them. Often with 3 or 4 below-avg teammates on the floor.

The ABA once had co-MVP's -- 1975, Erving and McGinnis. It would have been a shame if either hadn't won.

[mystic]

Curry had 45 games with more than 32 minutes. In those games the performance level did not look significant different from those with less minute, even though in average the opponents were stronger in those higher minute games. I don't see any reason to believe that Curry would suffer much (if at all) in terms of per possession impact, if he would have played more minutes.

Interesting note: Back in 2012 Harden's playing level was seen as lower by a similar minute argumentation as you present here against Curry. Reality showed that Harden indeed was able to maintain his level with more minutes.

[Mike G]

I like to think that the minutes extrapolation is proven by the performance. Even if a player "could" play extra minutes at the same level, there's more real value in actually doing it.

Harden failed to step up in the 2012 Finals, esp. in games 3 and 4. He may atone for that in some way this year.
Going to Houston, his Usg% jumped from 21.6 to 29.0, mpg from 31 to 38, and TS% dropped from .660 to .600.
After 3 years, he's got it all together.

Curry has gone 37-38 mpg for whole seasons before. It may be just coincidence that his performance is off the charts this year with reduced minutes.
In last year's playoffs, he went 42 mpg, and his overall performance suffered (7 games vs LAC).

[Mike G]

As for the one other example of an MVP going as few as 33 mpg -- the '78 Blazers were 48-10 with Walton playing, they were 16-4 in games decided by 5 or less, 16-1 in 20-pt blowouts; and they ended up taking the 1 seed with a 10-win cushion.

So they were 10-14 without him. This in spite of being a deep team, with good backups at every position.
Walton led the team with 8.4 WS; 2 others had 6 or more; 5 with 5 or more; including Walton, 10 had 3 or more WS.
It resembles Curry's situation a lot more than Harden's.

The next closest MVP winner would be Steve Nash. Nobody seems to know why he won it, though. He was entertaining?

[Antares]

The next closest MVP winner would be Steve Nash. Nobody seems to know why he won it, though. He was entertaining?

He got all the credit for Phoenix's improvement from 29 wins to 62. The prior year was a complete mess for the Suns, so some improvement was to be expected, but Nash was the shiny new piece that supposedly made everything better.

In 38 years, the only MVP to average <36 mpg was Steve Nash (twice). Bill Walton went 33.0 mpg in 1977.
Every other MVP has gone at least 36, with the median almost 39 mpg.

Not to digress too badly from the topic, but as long as it's part of the discussion: it may be worth noting that the league-wide trend in "peak minutes per game" is downwards. Nobody's averaged 40 minutes a game in four seasons now. Only one player this season even averaged more than 37 minutes a game (Jimmy Butler), and only six players averaged more than 36 minutes per game.

[Mike G]

Eh, Walton won MVP in '78. My bad.
The point is well taken that marathon minutes are again out of style. Popovich has led by example in this department, and success is imitated.

Still, the leader boards look like this:
Points/G
28.1 Westbrook
27.4 Harden
25.3 LeBron
24.4 Davis
24.1 Cousins
23.8 Curry
...
19.1 Paul (#18)

Assists/G
10.2 Paul
10.0 Wall
9.6 Lawson
8.6 Westbrook
7.9 Rondo
7.7 Curry
7.4 LeBron
7.0 Harden

Steals
2.3 Leonard
2.1 Westbrook
2.0 T Allen
2.0 Curry
1.9 Paul
1.9 Harden

Is another 3.6 points less valuable than 0.7 assist?

[permaximum]

Is another 3.6 points less valuable than 0.7 assist?

Well, leading the way into 11 more wins is more valuable than 3.6 points.

[Mike G]

Then the MVP is always the best player on the best team?
Last year, the MVP should have been Kawhi Leonard?

[permaximum]

Mike G exaggerates things again

MVP is always the best player of one of the top teams. He's chosen by comparing his per game stats and supporting staff's per game stats to other candidates and their supporting staff from other top teams. But this year there's only one or two top teams because of Warriors' historical record. There's no considerable player in the Hawks.

These are all my assumptions ofc. But looking at previous MVPs, since 1988 the worst record of an MVP's team is 54-28. Before that there are 5 cases such as 50-32, 49-33, 47-35, 46-36, 40-42 between 1955-1988.

It doesn't necessarily mean I agree with this approach. However I understand there they're coming from.