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antcole · Joined: 12 Dec 2005 Posts: 74

Hello I'm new to this board, so I want to start off with a good discussion. In your opinion what were the worst MVP selections/ votes in NBA history?

Personally the first vote that comes to mind was Allen Iverson's MVP win in 2001. I love AI and I think he's a great player, but he shouldn't have won the MVP award that year over Shaq. Shap was clearly the best player in the game in the 2000-2001 season and he should have won the award a second time. Personally I think that Allen Iverson benifited from the hype he and his team got from locking up the first seed in the East and the belief that he carried his team. However, just because Allen Iverson's year made a great story doesn't change the fact that Shaq was the best player in the known universe.

My other votes will go to Magic Johnson's MVP wins over Michael Jordan in 1989 and 1990. Magic is a legend and his immense reputation were probably the deciding factors in his back to back MVP wins, but in 1989 and 1990 Jordan had arguably the two greatest-non Wilt Chamberlain- seasons in basketball history. I love Magic, but not only should Jordan have won the award in 89 and 90, the votes should have been unanimous. What are your opinions?

Neil Paine · Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 774 Location: Atlanta, GA

In reverse chronological order:

Steve Nash, 2005: Led Suns to league's top record, but may not have been the best (or even 2nd-best) player on his own team. Also, as is usually the case with Nash, it was a bad defensive year. Better MVP choices included Tim Duncan (my choice), Shaq, Amare Stoudemire, and Dirk Nowitzki. The league's best player was Kevin Garnett, but his team underperformed enough to eliminate him from contention.

Iverson, 2001

Charles Barkley, 1993: Not that Sir Charles had a bad year, mind you, but having anyone but Michael Jordan as MVP that year was totally inexcusable.

Magic Johnson, 1990 and 1989: See above, 1993. Jordan was the league's best player both years, and by a pretty wide margin.

I'm not sure about 1981... Dr. J was having a good year, but I think it was pretty obvious that Kareem was the league's best player again. I'll call it a toss-up, if only because the Sixers won 62 games.

Bill Walton, 1978: Sure, he was good... when he played. He only suited up for 58 games, the fewest of any MVP winner ever, and was the only winner to average under 20 ppg until Nash came along. There were plenty of other viable choices, too: David Thompson, George Gervin, and Kareem (sensing a pattern here?). Walton's selection also pretty much invalidated the award...

... that is, assuming that Dave Cowens, 1973 hadn't already. Cowens is easily the worst player ever to win the MVP, but sportswriters needed someone to credit for the Celtics' insane 68-win season. The only other choice on Boston probably would have been John Havlicek, but had he won he would have also been the worst MVP ever. The Celtics were a good team that year, with a lot of depth but no single superstar, so it was hard to find one guy to credit for the big season. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the real MVP this year, hands down, though Tiny Archibald's NBA-leading PPG and APG performance is a sentimental favorite. But honestly, how many MVPs did Kareem get screwed out of? Geez...

Willis Reed, 1970: With all due respect to Willis for hobbling out onto the court in Game 7, either Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, or Kareem would have been far better MVPs this season. In yet another case of a guy not even being the best player on his team (Clyde Frazier had a better overall year), sportswriters needed somebody to credit for the Knicks' season. While Reed's defense was probably a key to the Knicks' performance, Wilt did the same things while providing more offense.

Wes Unseld, 1969: Unseld had a very good rookie year for the Bullets that year, and 18 rebounds per game is always impressive, but come on now... MVP? I think not. Earl Monroe was a better player for Baltimore in '69, and he was not even close to MVP status. Again, West or Chamberlain would have been the best picks as most valuable, or even their L.A. teammate Elgin Baylor. Too bad Cincinnati was a bad defensive team that year, or Royals Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas might have had a shot.

Bill Russell, 1962: Russell was great, one of the best ever, but speaking of the "best ever": Wilt Chamberlain's 1962 may have been the best ever individual season in the history of the game. The Big Dipper led the NBA in at least 10 statistical categories that season, including, of course, 50.4 (!) points per game (100 in one game). Sure, Russell's defense was dominating (and we can only conjecture that Wilt's wasn't, as Philly was last in points allowed/game, yielding almost 4 more points per game than average), but could it ever possibly offset Wilt's offenive contribution? Even with that last-place D, the Warriors finished at 49-31, eclipsed 10,000 points scored on the year, and took Russell's Celts to 7 games in the East finals before finally bowing out. Say it with me: Chamberlain deserved the MVP in 1962.

Bill Russell, 1961: Elgin Baylor had a better year. Plain and simple. Those who say that Russell's defense could offset any other player's offense should note that Baylor's Lakers were tied with the Celtics for the league's top defense, with Baylor playing 3133 minutes... if he were a significantly worse defensive player than Russell, you'd think it would bear out in the numbers. As for offense, Baylor was the NBA's best, even better than Chamberlain: nearly 35 points per game, nearly 20 rebounds, and 5 assists, plus the league's best PER. Give him the award!

Finally, Bob Cousy in 1957. It was arguably the best season in Bob Petit's considerable career, but the voters didn't seem to care about his 25 points and 15 rebounds per game, giving the award to the Nash-esque Cooz. 7.5 assists per game (2.4 more than anyone else) and an NBA title (over Petit's Hawks) are impressive, but Petit was easily the league's most productive player, on a team with few other options. Meanwhile, Cousy racked up his assists (basically his only claim to the award) next to Bill Sharman, Tommy Heinsohn, and Russell.

So, those are my undeserving MVPs. There are probably more out there, though; I tried to give the voters huge benefits of the doubt, but some omissions were too glaring to ignore.

Mike G · Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:09 am Post subject:

Hey, I think I may actually agree with 100% of the opinion so far in this thread. Consider these comments to be additions and not criticisms:

1998: Jordan was named MVP at the beginning of the season. Shaq (again) missed 20 games. Robinson was almost as great but missed 9 games. Therefore, Karl should've had 3 in a row.

1993: Hakeem was a close 2nd and played every game (MJ missed 4).

1981: Far from Kareem's worst snub, and Julius was due

1979: Moses' time hadn't actually arrived. Kareem still averaged almost 4 blocks, and 5 assists!

1978: Wylie, you don't say who should've won, rather than Bill. Kareem missed 20 games himself. Lanier missed 19. My vote: Artis Gilmore!

1973/69: Who was 'worse': Cowens or Unseld. Wes' year would be pretty typical of his career, yet he was never again a major vote-getter. This was just the umpteenth slap at Wilt, and his 'me-first' attitude (real or perceived). Nobody likes Goliath.

In 1970, I like West and Billy C.

1961: Yeah, this was Baylor's best shot. He never led the league in anything, and he never won a ring.

1957: I rank 9 guys above Cousy, and they are all 'bigs'. These 9 split 50 votes, while Cooz took 31. (The next-best G was running-mate Sharman).

This is still a predictable factor in MVP voting: Guard bias. More specifically, little-man bias. No one loves Goliath, and everyone loves the underdog. Most voters are closer to Iverson's size than to Shaq's.

From Cousy to Nash, I think it comes down to voter perception of what brings more 'value' to the league, as an enhanced commodity. Do spectators want to watch Wilt/Kareem/Shaq overwhelming people? Or do they like well-oiled-machine/Team basketball? -- whether orchestrated by 'team-first' Centers (Russell/Unseld/Cowens/Walton) or by point guards.

Makeup calls are also a distinct element. Maybe Magic 'had to' win 3 MVP's to match Bird. Cousy, Oscar, Erving, Barkley, Olajuwon, Robinson 'got theirs'; not in seasons that were necessarily their best.
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Jim Raynor · Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 65 Location: New Jersey

This isn't a selection, but the worst MVP vote I can think of was the one P.J. Brown got last season. IIRC, the sportswriter who made that vote admitted that he did that just to bring attention to an underrated player.

jkubatko · Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Posts: 702 Location: Columbus, OH

On my site I have outlined a method for calculating basketball win shares. Win shares can only be calculated from the 1977-78 season forward. In those 28 years, the MVP has led the league in win shares 17 times (60.71 percent). In the other 11 years, here is the difference between the MVP's win shares and the league leader's win shares (sorted from largest difference to smallest):

jkubatko · Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Posts: 702 Location: Columbus, OH

Another way to look at this is to take the player's PER and convert it into "PER credits." To do this I take a player's PER, divide by 15, and multiply by minutes played. PER can only be accurately calculated since the 1977-78 season in the NBA, but I came up with a way to estimate PER for other seasons (please see this article for more information). Of the 50 NBA MVPs, 27 (54 percent) have led the league in PER credits. Here are the cases where the NBA MVP did not lead the league in PER credits:

Neil Paine · Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 774 Location: Atlanta, GA

Thanks, Justin. Speaking of Win Shares (their not being able to be calculated prior to 1978, that is), John Hollinger made a kind of off-hand comment in this year's Forecast that I thought was really cool... on page 33 he said, "I have a rule of thumb that for every 2,000 minutes a player plays, each additional point of PER is worth an additional win." Specifically, he used it to compare how many wins Antoine Walker's addition added to Boston's record... Does this mean, though, that (Wins = (PER*(Minutes/2000)))? How do these "PER Wins" compare to Justin's Win Shares (which I think are incredible, btw)? If they do match up (I just thought of this, so I haven't even experimented with this yet), and PER can be calculated for virtually all NBA seasons, we could have a master list of all-time "player-win-type" stat leaders. Any thoughts?

jkubatko · Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Posts: 702 Location: Columbus, OH

Mike G · Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 9:59 am Post subject:

gabefarkas · Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 1313 Location: Durham, NC

94by50 · Joined: 01 Jan 2006 Posts: 499 Location: Phoenix

HoopStudies · Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 12:15 pm Post subject:

jkubatko · Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Posts: 702 Location: Columbus, OH

Perhaps I misled some people, but I am not advocating the use of a statistical system for selecting the MVP. Anthony started this thread by asking about the worst MVP selections in NBA history. One way to get a starting point to answer that question is to find players who statistically did not "look like" an MVP. I actually think the NBA MVP voters have done a pretty good job over the years, much better than the MLB MVP voters.

Valuable can mean different things to different people. Dean, have you talked to John about why he chose Garnett? If not, your implication that he was lazy (you said he made the "simple" choice) is unfair.

Oh, and some of us are married with two beautiful children, so we don't need to worry about getting dates. :-)
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Basketball-Reference.com

kjb · Joined: 03 Jan 2005 Posts: 865 Location: Washington, DC

bchaikin · Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 688 Location: cleveland, ohio

Let's elevate the discussion to Most Valuable, not just most productive...

ok - last season in 04-05 shawn marion was the most valuable player on the suns, followed very closely by amare stoudemire. this season in 05-06 it's shawn marion again whose most valuable in phoenix....

And maybe we'll get a few more hot dates...

sorry - already married (but my calculator's real hot)...

The main reason I bring this up is because I think criticism of MVP awards really can make our community sound bad....

i think a sound discussion of why or why not a player should have been named MVP is fruitful in bringing out to the public the different methodologies for determining just this. the fact that the steve nash selection has spurred such debate is good reason for looking at the process of selection more closely, in particular via stats analysis...

where many years earlier the choice was made with less stats available and possibly those who did the voting not seeing each of the players on a regular basis, today there is so much available in terms of stats, video, and stats analysis such as this community has developed to make a qualified choice. debating the MVP for example brings all these into play and gives one more tools to make an educated choice...

i can't imagine, for example, that there isn't an nba draft war room where discussions just like this occur all the time - one scout's idea of why one player is good or bad versus another's, or video evidence versus statistical evidence...

i'm not saying the method for choosing the MVP should be changed, but only that we as a community should in fact debate the choice...

Stats are a simplification of basketball....

stats are a vindication of basketball....