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2021 NBA Offseason Thread

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The Bucks are on pace to become only the third team in the NBA history to reach 70 wins (Warriors blew a 3-1 lead).

I think Giannis is running away with the MVP, and it's not close at this point.
 
So I guess Rudy Gobert is the MVP.
By Rich's criteria, i guess, you'd have to ask him how he came to Giannis since the criteria he used was results when star not on court.
 
Giannis is the obvious MVP. But the Lakers depend more heavily on LeBron to generate offense. Those statements are not mutually exclusive.

Giannis is putting up numbers that prime Shaq would be jealous of. And he’s a legitimate DPOY candidate. He has no other top 20 players on his team. Oh yea and his team is on a 70 win pace. He’s the clear MVP frontrunner.

Lakers depend on LeBron to generate offense for them. Their offense falls to a points per possession mark that would be the worst in the league when Lebron is not out there. Personally I think that’s less to do with LeBron and more to do with how poor Rondo has been this season. And outside of those two they really have nobody else who can initiate offensive sets from the perimeter. They definitely need to shore up their perimeter playmaking before the playoffs (Collison would be a huge help for instance).

But the Lakers having a major roster flaw like that isn’t a legitimate argument to make LeBron the MVP. Instead of looking at how well their teams play when they don’t play, look at how well their teams do when they do play. By that measure, as well as by statistical output and two-way contributions, Giannis is the clear MVP.
 
Giannis is the obvious MVP. But the Lakers depend more heavily on LeBron to generate offense. Those statements are not mutually exclusive.

Giannis is putting up numbers that prime Shaq would be jealous of. And he’s a legitimate DPOY candidate. He has no other top 20 players on his team. Oh yea and his team is on a 70 win pace. He’s the clear MVP frontrunner.

Lakers depend on LeBron to generate offense for them. Their offense falls to a points per possession mark that would be the worst in the league when Lebron is not out there. Personally I think that’s less to do with LeBron and more to do with how poor Rondo has been this season. And outside of those two they really have nobody else who can initiate offensive sets from the perimeter. They definitely need to shore up their perimeter playmaking before the playoffs (Collison would be a huge help for instance).

But the Lakers having a major roster flaw like that isn’t a legitimate argument to make LeBron the MVP. Instead of looking at how well their teams play when they don’t play, look at how well their teams do when they do play. By that measure, as well as by statistical output and two-way contributions, Giannis is the clear MVP.

You can argue the roster thing both ways, though. Giannis certainly benefits in some ways from having an ideal roster around him. He's surrounded by 4 good or great shooters 100% of the time, and has free reign on the boards because Brook Lopez barely tries to get rebounds. Put LeBron on that roster and you'd certainly see a jump in his efficiency and counting stats. He'd probably average a triple double with room to spare.
 
You can argue the roster thing both ways, though. Giannis certainly benefits in some ways from having an ideal roster around him. He's surrounded by 4 good or great shooters 100% of the time, and has free reign on the boards because Brook Lopez barely tries to get rebounds. Put LeBron on that roster and you'd certainly see a jump in his efficiency and counting stats. He'd probably average a triple double with room to spare.

No doubt. LeBron plays the majority of his minutes with at least one and sometimes up to three non-shooters. At the very least he plays a lot of minutes with conventional bigs. The lane is often clogged. But I don’t think the MVP should be decided by how well someone might perform on another team. It should be decided by how well a player is performing on the team that he is on.
 
No doubt. LeBron plays the majority of his minutes with at least one and sometimes up to three non-shooters. At the very least he plays a lot of minutes with conventional bigs. The lane is often clogged. But I don’t think the MVP should be decided by how well someone might perform on another team. It should be decided by how well a player is performing on the team that he is on.
Yeah, usually people use the "best player on the best team" argument to say who the MVP is, and even though i think that's not always the case, since you can have a very good team with no players having dominant seasons statistically, this year that argument holds true.
He's the best player on the best team, but not only that, he's also having the best individual season (or one of the best) combined with the best record this year. He's clearly the front runner.
 
No doubt. LeBron plays the majority of his minutes with at least one and sometimes up to three non-shooters. At the very least he plays a lot of minutes with conventional bigs. The lane is often clogged. But I don’t think the MVP should be decided by how well someone might perform on another team. It should be decided by how well a player is performing on the team that he is on.

Hard to top what LeBron's doing by that criteria, right? The Lakers have exceeded all expectations this season, even best-case "ceiling" projections. LeBron's having the best season in the history of the RPM stat. What more could he realistically do?
 
Shh, that doesn't fit his narrative.

In fact:



It was an obvious joke my man.

Take it down a notch or two.

I simply think Giannis is a better basketball player currently and that's basically that.
 
It was an obvious joke my man.

Take it down a notch or two.

I simply think Giannis is a better basketball player currently and that's basically that.
My bad then, it didn't seem like a joke to me at the time. All good ;)
 
It was an obvious joke my man.

Take it down a notch or two.

I simply think Giannis is a better basketball player currently and that's basically that.

In what way? If you needed to win a playoff series starting tomorrow and could pick one player to lead your team, you'd pick Giannis over LeBron? That's crazy to me.
 
In what way? If you needed to win a playoff series starting tomorrow and could pick one player to lead your team, you'd pick Giannis over LeBron? That's crazy to me.

Yeah, very true, but that is not the criteria for MVP. If you look at illustrious recent MVPs like Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and Steph Curry the criterion for MVP is "put up a recent stat I think is mindblowing and is due for some love". Lebron has been around too long to blow anyone's mind any more and has already received lots of love over his career so he is not really qualified or eligible to be MVP. It is time for Giannis to follow in Steph Curry and Steve Nash's footsteps as a consecutive MVP winner. He hasn't won any championships he is definitely mindblowing if you watch him play!
 
Yeah, very true, but that is not the criteria for MVP. If you look at illustrious recent MVPs like Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and Steph Curry the criterion for MVP is "put up a recent stat I think is mindblowing and is due for some love". Lebron has been around too long to blow anyone's mind any more and has already received lots of love over his career so he is not really qualified or eligible to be MVP. It is time for Giannis to follow in Steph Curry and Steve Nash's footsteps as a consecutive MVP winner. He hasn't won any championships he is definitely mindblowing if you watch him play!

In terms of mindblowing stats, Harden (most PPG since Wilt!) and Doncic (most efficient offense in NBA history!) both join the conversation. But you can only have one MVP. Putting together team success, mindblowing stats, and the simple question of who's the best player when it comes down to it, it's LeBron>Giannis>>Others
 
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