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You make significantly better long form content than I could have imagined I think the split into this channel being long form and the 2nd channel being for 20 minutes or so has improved your videos a ton
I am President of a regional power. I was about to oversee the construction of our glorious new super weapon. Then I saw: hour long Rusty Buckets. The regime can wait.
As someone who's new to basketball (playing fantasy because my friends needed an 8th) I love your down to earth, non sensationalized videos. Always incredibly interesting and insightful.
@@spoodyR3Imagine a player averaging 40 PPG but getting swept and the other player avg 25 PPG but winning the whole thing as the best player. Would be way more unfair to the guy who won the championship tbh
At this point you became one of my favorite channels on youtube, not just for basketball but overall, the change in format was amazing and I really help it reflects in numbers rusty.
I love the long form content that allows you to approach a subject from multiple sides and really flesh out your argument with evidence and narratives.
To be fair, it probably will ALWAYS be that way. The most basic and fundamental idea in basketball and most sports has always been the goal of scoring more points than the opponents. Scoring in itself is the most important aspect to gain for offense and basketball as a whole. But considering that, there is a reason why we consider more than just scoring and even winning in mvp conversations. Each player at the top of the discussion is one of the best scorers on some of the better teams (trying to consider Luka), so we factor in the rest of their stats, narrative, etc.
Long time viewer here. I feel very sentimental about this channel because of the time I discovered it. Just wanted to say am glad these long videos have amazing scripts, understanding of context both in the NBA and the world in general, great video editing and music. Don't ever stop Rusty
Man I think you have a great understanding of what’s important in sports. Great use of clips and delivered in a great story format. Plus that Russel Westbrook introduction made me smile ear to ear. Love it man
It’s one of those awards where sometimes it’s spot on. The person who won it was completely deserving. On the other side of that coin it goes to someone who is still deserving but the voters for one reason or another don’t think so. Rusty puts it well with voter fatigue, but I think media narratives play a bigger role than people may admit. Edit: he essentially says the same thing lol.
The thing I hate about modern MVP discourse nowadays is that players are getting penalized for playing on contenders with deep rosters or adequate help. Like if you want to win a championship, your MVP level player probably has an all star level teammate, but now thats suddenly "too much help" to be in MVP consideration
guys this is extremately good content, could be something you watch on a streaming platform or something, I absolutely love this, congrats to all the team, keep it up!
every time it switches to Rusty i cant help but think ''why is a guy whos head is wider than both shoulders combined holding this basketball'' nice vid
I started really getting into the NBA during the 2016-2017 season. And if you weren’t watching OKC games at the time and seeing what Russ was doing I truly feel for you, he was the most exciting and spectacularly athletic player I’ve ever seen bar none. I remember staying home “sick” from school to watch his games
There's a timeline wher Joel Embiid still wins MVP because the very fact of how much the Sixers suck without him shows how high his value is for the team and Adam Silver hand up giving the trophy to him on a hospital bed for narrative and entertainment purposes
... that was always the point of the award, you give it to the guy who was the most valuable in the season - not for a damn 4 year stretch or his 10/15 years of legacy lol
Exactly, or player of the season. It could be framed as "which player will we remember most from this season?" - which doesn't necessarily align with the most impressive numbers.
People always argue Wilt's 100pts game was made up, but they were counting points back then and writing down which jersey number scored how many points.
Tatum getting bonus points for being the best player on the best team and being in Boston while Jokic doesnt get any for being defending champ and finals mvp seems a little meh. Good video though.
He's modeling how the voters think, not what he thinks. He's trying to predict the MVP, not deciding his own. He spent the video talking about how the voters decide on MVP. If he wanted to choose who he thought should be MVP, I think he would have more and different criteria.
There's another factor in SGA's favor that I don't think you mentioned. He's North American(Canadian). The last 5 MVPs have all been from other continents, and I think people are hungry for a less "foreign" player to win it. It normally wouldn't matter, but this race is so close that I think it matters a great deal.
Hard agree on DWade. Man is the 3rd best shooting guard in NBA history, and is one of the best defensive players under 6'5 in NBA history. He's the definition of a player who was MVP caliber but never won the award because of circumstances out of his control. Having to contend with Nash, Shaq, Dirk, LeBron, and Kobe with MVP at his peak for the award. It's hard to win MVP even when having an all time season like 2008-09....because the Cavs won 23 more games with LeBron being the superstar despite Wade having better numbers (sans rebounds).
@@fortynights1513 It makes sense though. As a Miami fan I am biased towards Wade. But LeBron carrying that team to a better record than the Big 3 Celtics, late 2000s Spurs, Kobe B2B Lakers, and Melo/AI nuggets is wild. I know Cleveland's defense was crazy but still, it's a wild thing that it happened.
You hit the nail on the head with people not relying on watching mainstream media for discourse. Overheard a guy watching your video on scoring in the elevator of my apartment.
Narratives need to go away, MVP needs to come from an efficiency perspective. And both sides of the ball need to be weighed equally. Im sick of people voters turning it into an offensive award.
Man OKC Russ made me start watching hoops again. I had just got instagram at the time and i would always see the crazy shit he was doing that year. Russ was so much fun in his younger days. No one ran the court like him and no one played as hard. Him and KD in OKC was dope af
My biggest problem is voter fatigue I think jordan and Lebron fans can both agree that both players should have way more mvp idc ab voter fatigue idc if Lebron won the award 20 times I want to see the player who deserved it and had the best numbers win the mvp idc how many times he wins and if a 9 seed is averaging 35 10 5 idc he deserve it over the 2 seed 25 8 2
I feel like if they did a list like that every year, they would have to basically put the mvp as number 1. Otherwise to the casual public it could devalue the award
There’s no narrative around Luka cuz no one watches the mavs 😂 if people realized how depleted the roster was for the first half of the season I think there would be atleast some narrative there, there were several games where guys like AJ Lawson and Greg Brown were STARTING (I know what you’re thinking, WHO?!?) but yah it’s a really tough sell if they stay at 7 or 8 for sure even as a mavs fan I would think that’s a bit flukey even considering how close the 8th seed is to the 4th seed atm
Your vocabulary and presentation skills have advanced dramatically over the years! Thanks for putting out amazing content and I love the long-form documentary style man keep up the great work!
I think the rise of advanced stats is understated in how MVP conversations have shifted away from winning. The allure is that they offer a context-independent, objective measure of a player’s impact, and make it easier to argue that a player is more impactful than another despite fewer wins. A big focus of Jokic’s 2022 case was that he led the NBA in a lot of advanced stats. It’s often difficult to look at box-scores and see how things like turnovers should be factored in, or whether having more points outweighs more rebounds, etc, or how unquantifiable things like defense can be weighed in. It’s also led the debate to be leas focused on scoring alone than in eras past.
If advanced metrics were around throughout NBA history, and we used VORP to determine MVP’s (which is available since 1974), you’d find a lot of the best players getting more MVP’s: Kareem would have seven (1974-1980) Dr. J and Magic would take 81 and 82, Then Larry Bird would win four straight from 1983-1986, followed by seven straight MVP seasons from MJ from 1987-1993. David Robinson takes the two MVP’s in 94 and 95, followed by MJ again in 96 and 97. Karl Malone would get 1998 and 1999’s awards. Then in the four season stretch of 2000-2003, we get Shaq, Vince Carter, Duncan and Tracy McGrady. After that, KG in 2004 and 05, and LeBron would get eight straight MVP’s from 2006-2013. Then Durant in 2014, James Harden in 2015, Stephen Curry in 2016, Russell Westbrook in 2017, LeBron again in 2018, Harden in 2019 and 2020, and Jokic would be finishing up his fourth straight MVP season. Of those mentioned, I believe only Vince Carter led the league in VORP, and never finished top five in an MVP vote in his career.
No, big focus was on: - him playing without Murray and MPJ - having no real 2nd scoring option - having guards that are dogwater awful on the defensive end - similar stats compared to Giannis and Embiid and somehow having a better +/- than those 2 - ending up with similar records as Giannis and Embiid, idk about individual Ws aka the ones they were part of - first ever with the "2000 pts - 1000 reb - 500 ast" season It was "because of the advanced stats" for those media guys and fans who looked at their ppg and seeding and decided that he was nowhere near those two so those stat nerds had to pull out whatever they could to explain all that stat stuff to them. Even that "ppg argument" can be looked at from this perspective: "Even tho he had fg% on his side, Jokic had 3pts less because of FT attempts - if he had more FTs he'd be around 30ppg that season, at least." There ya go cuh, and ngl in that season I actually hoped that they'd make history and give it to both Jokic and Embiid lol ✌️
I just started watching after the split. So I don’t know anything different. However, I must say your content is among the most interesting, intelligent and well researched I have seen on the platform. I truly appreciate your opinion and I watch your videos very intently to make sure I understand the full weight of the topic. I’m very glad to have found your channel, keep up the outstanding work!
I would have always liked there to be either a "Best Player Award" instead of MVP or the Scoring Title being as highly praised as the MVP. The notion of Most Valuable kind of leaves it up to the marketing goals of the NBA who to pick.
I feel that if Ant had slightly better stats, he would be in the MVP race, the narrative and the winning is currently there, all that's missing is the stats. There is no better narrative than emerging face of the league leads the worst franchise in North American Sports to their best or second best record. Its the perfect story that NBA wants to push, all that's missing are the stats.
What gives it away that you weren't watching the Nash first MVP award in the moment is that you missed out on the greatest argument that was being used to justify his candidacy - he was a new player on a recently bad team and his presence turned his team's record. This same point was raised to bolster Jason Kidd's case - the Nets were 26-56 the year before he arrived and the following season they were 52-30. Kidd would of course lose to Tim Duncan and there was a lot of bitterness about it. The Suns were 29-53 pre-Nash and then became a 60 win team (62-20). That shift spelled out VALUE even if his stats did not pop out. VALUE = making your teammates better/ making your team better. Bonus points if your team was truly terrible. There was also a big narrative of Nash stepping out of Dirk's shadow to become the best player on a very good team. Nash's stats were better in the second MVP season and that sort of launched the momentum for his win. *he has better stats than last year, so I guess he should win again (?) The Spurs had 9 more wins (1st in the West and just 1 game behind the Pistons) that year but Duncan was only 7th in the voting - he had 18ppg 11rpg that year. It's amazing how nuance gets lost through the years. Great work on this video still! :) I love watching these long think pieces.
Also, didn't Amar'e Stoudemire miss nearly the entire '06 season? Nash still led the Suns to 54 wins (8 wins less than when he did have Amar'e in '05)... so, would that be considered a narrative boost for Nash in his second MVP season?
Why is Chuck's case listed as an example of disrupting the trend of the award valued winning most if his numbers is comparable to MJ that year and his team won more? Just because it stopped MJ from 3-peating?
My problem with Bill's MVP as an example is that at that time the players were the one that voted on MVP and most players hated Wilt, that is clear from almost any player that played in that era.
Value and the NBA MVP. Certainly topics worth debating. Some say best player on a top seed, others say the best statistical player on a good team in context. Question out of curiosity (I ask because I get a variety of responses), who is the best player who never finished top five in an NBA MVP vote in their career. Here are the players who have finished top five (counting those who did it in the ABA): ABA Players (24): Connie Hawkins Doug Moe Mel Daniels Larry Jones Willie Somerset Jimmy Jones Rick Barry Spencer Haywood Roger Brown Bob Verga Zelmo Beaty Charlie Scott Dan Issel Artis Gilmore Billy Cunningham Julius Erving George McGinnis Ron Boone Joe Caldwell Willie Wise Bobby Jones Mack Calvin James Silas David Thompson NBA Players (98): Bob Pettit Paul Arzin Bob Cousy Mel Hutchins Dolph Schayes Bill Sharman George Yardley Bill Russell Maurice Stokes Elgin Baylor Wilt Chamberlain Oscar Robertson Jerry West Sam Jones Jerry Lucas Nate Thurmond Lenny Wilkens Dave Bing Wes Unseld Willis Reed Kareem Abdul Jabaar Walt Frazier John Havlicek Dave Cowens Tiny Archibald Bob McAdoo Bob Lainer Elvin Hayes Bill Walton Pete Maravich George Gervin Walter Davis Moses Malone Bob Dandridge Larry Bird Dennis Johnson Dan Roundfield Robert Parish Gus Williams Magic Johnson Sidney Moncrief Bernard King Isiah Thomas Terry Cummings Dominique Wilkins Hakeem Olajuwon Michael Jordan Kevin McHale Charles Barkley Clyde Drexler Karl Malone Patrick Ewing David Robinson Scottie Pippen Shaquille O’Neil Penny Hardaway Grant Hill Tim Hardaway Glen Rice Gary Payton Tim Duncan Alonzo Mourning Allen Iverson Jason Kidd Kevin Garnett Chris Webber Tracy McGrady Kobe Bryant Jermaine O’Neil Peja Stojakovic Steve Nash Dirk Nowitski LeBron James Chauncey Billups Chris Paul Dwight Howard Dwayne Wade Kevin Durant Derrick Rose Tony Parker Carmelo Anthony Blake Griffin Joakim Noah James Harden Stephen Curry Russell Westbrook Anthony Davis Kawhi Leonard Isaiah Thomas Damian Lillard Giannis Antetokounmpo Paul George Nikola Jokic Luka Doncic Joel Embiid Devin Booker Jayson Tatum Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
@@howclicheKyrie. Interesting choice. Haven’t heard him before. He has averaged 25+ points and 6+ assists a few times, so stats aren’t exactly an issue for him. But the thing that hurt him in this context is that he has not typically been the best player on his team, and unlike some of the players on here who were the second best on their teams under normal circumstances (like Pippen, McHale, or Havlicek in 1973), Kyrie hasn’t really played on any team that was said to have played one of the best regular seasons ever, and the best team he was the best player on is arguably the 2017-18 Celtics who had a 55-27 record and were the second seed. Interestingly, Kyrie Irving has somehow never received an MVP vote in his career. Also, the point guard in Boston the season prior, Isaiah Thomas would finish fifth in the MVP vote, and the team won two fewer games, but were the one seed in their conference.
@@howclicheWe can now add Jalen Brunson to that list of top five finishers. And among current players who don’t appear on that list, I say Anthony Edwards is quite likely to finish top five at least in the future should he continue to play at a high level
I do appreciate how close it is between jokic and sga compared to jokic and embiid. I unfortunately have agendas to push and think jokic is still winning his 3rd
@@sikkouvol.1996mvp is not whos better Thas yall problem it go to the most valuable player that season not whos better and also nothing to do with playoff success
Fun video, really enjoyed it! TBH, I think it's a little less complicated. People need to remember it's not about being the best player in the league (though that helps if you are!). MVP really for the most part has two criteria: 1 - how much winning is your team doing (i.e. how big is the pie), and 2 - how much is an individual player on that team is contributing to that team's winning (i.e. how big a piece of the team's win pie does a player have). If your team isn't doing well enough (i.e. the pie is too small) it doesn't matter how big your slice is, you won't win. This is Luka this year who ain't winning. If your team is stacked, even if the pie is big, your slice may be too small - this is Tatum who ain't winning and probably wouldn't win even if his stats were juiced up somewhat from current levels. There's some judgment involved in the sweetspot of the two, but not that much IMO. A good all-in-one metric that tends to measure this is Win Share per 48 minutes, and it seems the vast majority of the time the league leader in this metric wins the MVP award (that and PER are likely the two highest all-in-one metrics that correlate to the award winner). I think the voters get it right the vast majority of the time but def not always; there are occasional exceptions around voter fatigue, exposure (let's face it, it's easier to get coverage when you play for the Lakers instead of the OKC Thunder or Denver Nuggets) and as you suggest, whatever narrative people want to come up with (stat padding, racism, needs to "do it" in the playoffs etc). But I think honestly the narrative wins are pretty few and far between, like 1 out of every 10 years. Also, really agree with you around Giannis. I will disagree though as to who will win this year, I think it will be Jokic based on merit (leader in WS/48 though super tight, but ahead more in most other advanced metrics), though SGA is having an absolutely fantastic year. I think Luka, Giannis, SGA are like tops in the league in terms of usage and they put up big absolute stat lines, but Jokic's play basically creates an entire system of court generalship and optimal decision making between distribution, strategizing, and shooting that while putting up impressive vanilla Points/Rebs/Assist numbers, the impact really shows in things like on/off and the vast majority of advanced analytics. There might have been enough "narrative" for SGA to win if he was on a bigger market team, or OKC had a materially better record (if Murray didn't already miss 15+ game this year Nuggets would probably be in first by 4 or 5 games right now), and SGA had a bigger rabid following of barking fans and pundits, but it's not the case.
I think we might be in need of a new award. The MVP award might stay for the best player on the best like in the past and the new award would be something like an most impactful player award (MIP), which would be the player that has the most impact on winning aka carries his team the most.
Imo MVP is the person who impacts their team the most while also bringing them to the highest level (with a few exceptions such as Westbrook literally averaging a triple double while dragging the thunder to the playoffs or jokic having one of the greatest statistical seasons of all time) but unfortunately since the mvp voting is amongst people like Kendrick Perkins or Stephen A it kinda just ends up being “Who do I think had the most aura this season”
Why shouldn't a player's defensive stats count towards the MVP? Im sure Kobe's defensive stats were better than Steve Nash's back then, just like SGA's defensive stats didn't help him this year. MVP seems to be just the Offensive Player of the Year Award!
![Why Nobody Cares About The NBA Finals Anymore [Deep Dive]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0rtRb1LcKVo/mqdefault.jpg)
Go to sleeper.com or download the app, and use promo code Rusty and for a limited time you'll get up to a $500 match on your first deposit. Terms and conditions apply. See Sleeper’s Terms of Use for details. Currently operational in over 25 states. Check out Sleeper today!
Dont quit brother
You make significantly better long form content than I could have imagined I think the split into this channel being long form and the 2nd channel being for 20 minutes or so has improved your videos a ton
It certainly leads to the channels having more distinct identities from one another
If you like him so much why don't you marry him?
"Jokic making the case for the MVP award on social media"
He's more likely to win next year's Dunk Contest than do that
Jokic would rather make a case for his Horses to win their race...
You re wrong he most like to win another chip that is MVP...not circusant but guz who make histeammate better and is best when needed
Not the greatest arguments
most valuable pony, he's absolutely in
@@congsience2989 he should dunk over one of his horses (he gets injured and is out for the remainder of the season)
I love how reliably you can breakdown Rusty’s video essays into 70% basketball analysis and 30% critique of capitalism
The pan to Tim Duncan's feet in that one shot is diabolical LMAO
I am President of a regional power. I was about to oversee the construction of our glorious new super weapon.
Then I saw: hour long Rusty Buckets.
The regime can wait.
Rusty it’s 2am here in the UK and you drop an hour-long banger on a topic I’ve been waiting to see you cover for ages!? I’m tryna go to sleep dude 😂
And the sponsor’s name is Sleeper? You’re just rubbing it in my face lmao
4 am in Ukraine, doing the same hehe
Just Wipe your mouth
Bro same but in Spain
Greetings fellow UK NBA fan!
As someone who's new to basketball (playing fantasy because my friends needed an 8th) I love your down to earth, non sensationalized videos. Always incredibly interesting and insightful.
I gotta say, I love the way you write your script and lay out everything. Word choice, flow, and organization is top notch!
Thank you so much!
Word choice and flow? What is he spitting bars? Jk lol. Rusty is great.
@@Remmy0930 great for falling asleep, takes 60 seconds to get out 15 words
“Just because something is subjective doesn’t mean it’s meaningless”
Love this quote ! I feel like ppl get this confused
Tired: Regular-season MVP
Wired: Finals MVP
I find finals mvp worst it should be playoff mvp not just one series just seems unfair
@@spoodyR3no
@@spoodyR3Imagine a player averaging 40 PPG but getting swept and the other player avg 25 PPG but winning the whole thing as the best player. Would be way more unfair to the guy who won the championship tbh
At this point you became one of my favorite channels on youtube, not just for basketball but overall, the change in format was amazing and I really help it reflects in numbers rusty.
“So Russ had his newly single Girl Boss moment…and we were all rooting for her.”
Jesus Rusty, warn a brother next time lol 😅
My biggest complaint is people treating the MVP like the scoring title
MVP way heavier tho..so it’s weird
I love the long form content that allows you to approach a subject from multiple sides and really flesh out your argument with evidence and narratives.
Let's be honest, it's really just a glorified Offensive Player Of The Year award.
Modern day yeah for the most part 😭
Well...offense is the most valuable THING in the NBA 😂
To be fair, it probably will ALWAYS be that way. The most basic and fundamental idea in basketball and most sports has always been the goal of scoring more points than the opponents. Scoring in itself is the most important aspect to gain for offense and basketball as a whole. But considering that, there is a reason why we consider more than just scoring and even winning in mvp conversations. Each player at the top of the discussion is one of the best scorers on some of the better teams (trying to consider Luka), so we factor in the rest of their stats, narrative, etc.
It’s a glorified employee of the year award**
I think Shai would shift the narrative on this, one of the most skilled defensive guards in the league.
My boy rusty went from content farm to full on NBA Documentary this was fire to watch 10/10
After all that bro said “idk 🤷🏾♂️” and dipped 💀
I’m a college student and these videos feel like a class seminar in THE BEST way
love the longer form content. the MVP being the “main character” point was a really good one
Bro you're easily making the best NBA content on the platform, loving the change to long form content
Long time viewer here. I feel very sentimental about this channel because of the time I discovered it. Just wanted to say am glad these long videos have amazing scripts, understanding of context both in the NBA and the world in general, great video editing and music. Don't ever stop Rusty
Man I think you have a great understanding of what’s important in sports. Great use of clips and delivered in a great story format. Plus that Russel Westbrook introduction made me smile ear to ear. Love it man
Thank God you changed your setup. This is so much cozier and chill. Feels better to watch.
Bro’s pushing out movies every month lol
It’s one of those awards where sometimes it’s spot on. The person who won it was completely deserving. On the other side of that coin it goes to someone who is still deserving but the voters for one reason or another don’t think so. Rusty puts it well with voter fatigue, but I think media narratives play a bigger role than people may admit.
Edit: he essentially says the same thing lol.
So basically, “it matters when I want it to, like when a white person wins it, but it’s bullshit when I don’t want the person who wins it to win!”
The thing I hate about modern MVP discourse nowadays is that players are getting penalized for playing on contenders with deep rosters or adequate help. Like if you want to win a championship, your MVP level player probably has an all star level teammate, but now thats suddenly "too much help" to be in MVP consideration
guys this is extremately good content, could be something you watch on a streaming platform or something, I absolutely love this, congrats to all the team, keep it up!
every time it switches to Rusty i cant help but think ''why is a guy whos head is wider than both shoulders combined holding this basketball''
nice vid
I started really getting into the NBA during the 2016-2017 season. And if you weren’t watching OKC games at the time and seeing what Russ was doing I truly feel for you, he was the most exciting and spectacularly athletic player I’ve ever seen bar none. I remember staying home “sick” from school to watch his games
There's a timeline wher Joel Embiid still wins MVP because the very fact of how much the Sixers suck without him shows how high his value is for the team and Adam Silver hand up giving the trophy to him on a hospital bed for narrative and entertainment purposes
They should have named it the player of the year award. That’s basically how it is perceived already.
Word
... that was always the point of the award, you give it to the guy who was the most valuable in the season - not for a damn 4 year stretch or his 10/15 years of legacy lol
Completely agree
Exactly, or player of the season. It could be framed as "which player will we remember most from this season?" - which doesn't necessarily align with the most impressive numbers.
are you seriously this stupid
We’re loving the long-form content Rusty, please keep it up 🙏
People always argue Wilt's 100pts game was made up, but they were counting points back then and writing down which jersey number scored how many points.
Tatum getting bonus points for being the best player on the best team and being in Boston while Jokic doesnt get any for being defending champ and finals mvp seems a little meh. Good video though.
He's modeling how the voters think, not what he thinks. He's trying to predict the MVP, not deciding his own.
He spent the video talking about how the voters decide on MVP. If he wanted to choose who he thought should be MVP, I think he would have more and different criteria.
Jokic should have 3peated and more then likely will win it again this year, voter fatigue is annoying
based on the title alone I know this is going to be a multi-platinum banger
Damn Jacob - such a slick and polished video.
It's great to see you put out such weighty and high quality content
There's another factor in SGA's favor that I don't think you mentioned. He's North American(Canadian). The last 5 MVPs have all been from other continents, and I think people are hungry for a less "foreign" player to win it. It normally wouldn't matter, but this race is so close that I think it matters a great deal.
That' probably part of the "narrative" factor, but true, there might be some foreigner fatigue.
Canadians are still foreigners to me, dammit! :D
Hard agree on DWade. Man is the 3rd best shooting guard in NBA history, and is one of the best defensive players under 6'5 in NBA history. He's the definition of a player who was MVP caliber but never won the award because of circumstances out of his control. Having to contend with Nash, Shaq, Dirk, LeBron, and Kobe with MVP at his peak for the award. It's hard to win MVP even when having an all time season like 2008-09....because the Cavs won 23 more games with LeBron being the superstar despite Wade having better numbers (sans rebounds).
In his “If the MVP went to the best player” series from 2020, Jonny Arnett had LeBron only narrowly taking the 09 MVP over Wade.
@@fortynights1513 It makes sense though. As a Miami fan I am biased towards Wade.
But LeBron carrying that team to a better record than the Big 3 Celtics, late 2000s Spurs, Kobe B2B Lakers, and Melo/AI nuggets is wild.
I know Cleveland's defense was crazy but still, it's a wild thing that it happened.
You hit the nail on the head with people not relying on watching mainstream media for discourse. Overheard a guy watching your video on scoring in the elevator of my apartment.
wake up babe, rusty dropped another hour long BANGER
Narratives need to go away, MVP needs to come from an efficiency perspective. And both sides of the ball need to be weighed equally. Im sick of people voters turning it into an offensive award.
Man OKC Russ made me start watching hoops again. I had just got instagram at the time and i would always see the crazy shit he was doing that year. Russ was so much fun in his younger days. No one ran the court like him and no one played as hard. Him and KD in OKC was dope af
Outro was peak 😂😂
This is crazy hard to stop watching even when I have to, banger video
In depth, well thought out points coupled with an mvp metric breakdown that actually made sense. Great editing too! Keep up the excellent work!
It’s so great to have you back to this long form stuff
Perfect ending Rusty
This might be your best documentary rusty keep going 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
The quick edit on Duncans fit 😂
Ya this is the best NBA content out there. So easy to watch. You’re the Alt Shift X of Basketball in terms of quality
About to sit down and eat this is going to be peak
First Rusty in-depth I've seen. Damn, dude you are really finding new gears here and I also like the shorter stuff. Go mate, go!
My biggest problem is voter fatigue I think jordan and Lebron fans can both agree that both players should have way more mvp idc ab voter fatigue idc if Lebron won the award 20 times I want to see the player who deserved it and had the best numbers win the mvp idc how many times he wins and if a 9 seed is averaging 35 10 5 idc he deserve it over the 2 seed 25 8 2
I have been saying this about dirk being robbed!!! I love that you brought this up
This video makes me want the NBA to have a player top 100 list similar to the NFL. I wonder how often the MVP would actually be the top spot.
I feel like if they did a list like that every year, they would have to basically put the mvp as number 1. Otherwise to the casual public it could devalue the award
3:42 I like the Wilt image there.
There’s no narrative around Luka cuz no one watches the mavs 😂 if people realized how depleted the roster was for the first half of the season I think there would be atleast some narrative there, there were several games where guys like AJ Lawson and Greg Brown were STARTING (I know what you’re thinking, WHO?!?) but yah it’s a really tough sell if they stay at 7 or 8 for sure even as a mavs fan I would think that’s a bit flukey even considering how close the 8th seed is to the 4th seed atm
Your vocabulary and presentation skills have advanced dramatically over the years! Thanks for putting out amazing content and I love the long-form documentary style man keep up the great work!
Yo Rusty, thought this was like ten minutes, stoked to see that it's over an hour long, tho have to watch after class now
By far the best video you’ve ever made Rusty! This is phenomenal work
I think the rise of advanced stats is understated in how MVP conversations have shifted away from winning. The allure is that they offer a context-independent, objective measure of a player’s impact, and make it easier to argue that a player is more impactful than another despite fewer wins. A big focus of Jokic’s 2022 case was that he led the NBA in a lot of advanced stats.
It’s often difficult to look at box-scores and see how things like turnovers should be factored in, or whether having more points outweighs more rebounds, etc, or how unquantifiable things like defense can be weighed in. It’s also led the debate to be leas focused on scoring alone than in eras past.
If advanced metrics were around throughout NBA history, and we used VORP to determine MVP’s (which is available since 1974), you’d find a lot of the best players getting more MVP’s:
Kareem would have seven (1974-1980)
Dr. J and Magic would take 81 and 82,
Then Larry Bird would win four straight from 1983-1986, followed by seven straight MVP seasons from MJ from 1987-1993.
David Robinson takes the two MVP’s in 94 and 95, followed by MJ again in 96 and 97.
Karl Malone would get 1998 and 1999’s awards.
Then in the four season stretch of 2000-2003, we get Shaq, Vince Carter, Duncan and Tracy McGrady.
After that, KG in 2004 and 05, and LeBron would get eight straight MVP’s from 2006-2013.
Then Durant in 2014, James Harden in 2015, Stephen Curry in 2016, Russell Westbrook in 2017, LeBron again in 2018, Harden in 2019 and 2020, and Jokic would be finishing up his fourth straight MVP season.
Of those mentioned, I believe only Vince Carter led the league in VORP, and never finished top five in an MVP vote in his career.
No, big focus was on:
- him playing without Murray and MPJ
- having no real 2nd scoring option
- having guards that are dogwater awful on the defensive end
- similar stats compared to Giannis and Embiid and somehow having a better +/- than those 2
- ending up with similar records as Giannis and Embiid, idk about individual Ws aka the ones they were part of
- first ever with the "2000 pts - 1000 reb - 500 ast" season
It was "because of the advanced stats" for those media guys and fans who looked at their ppg and seeding and decided that he was nowhere near those two so those stat nerds had to pull out whatever they could to explain all that stat stuff to them. Even that "ppg argument" can be looked at from this perspective:
"Even tho he had fg% on his side, Jokic had 3pts less because of FT attempts - if he had more FTs he'd be around 30ppg that season, at least."
There ya go cuh, and ngl in that season I actually hoped that they'd make history and give it to both Jokic and Embiid lol ✌️
Thank you for recognizing sga's greatness
Was that Mr. Plinkett? I didn't notice, but my brain did.
The ending was the best answer I could’ve asked for 😂
I just started watching after the split. So I don’t know anything different. However, I must say your content is among the most interesting, intelligent and well researched I have seen on the platform. I truly appreciate your opinion and I watch your videos very intently to make sure I understand the full weight of the topic. I’m very glad to have found your channel, keep up the outstanding work!
I would have always liked there to be either a "Best Player Award" instead of MVP or the Scoring Title being as highly praised as the MVP. The notion of Most Valuable kind of leaves it up to the marketing goals of the NBA who to pick.
Great video! Really love the topic!
You really returned to form as of late. Good job!
I feel that if Ant had slightly better stats, he would be in the MVP race, the narrative and the winning is currently there, all that's missing is the stats. There is no better narrative than emerging face of the league leads the worst franchise in North American Sports to their best or second best record. Its the perfect story that NBA wants to push, all that's missing are the stats.
What gives it away that you weren't watching the Nash first MVP award in the moment is that you missed out on the greatest argument that was being used to justify his candidacy - he was a new player on a recently bad team and his presence turned his team's record. This same point was raised to bolster Jason Kidd's case - the Nets were 26-56 the year before he arrived and the following season they were 52-30. Kidd would of course lose to Tim Duncan and there was a lot of bitterness about it.
The Suns were 29-53 pre-Nash and then became a 60 win team (62-20). That shift spelled out VALUE even if his stats did not pop out. VALUE = making your teammates better/ making your team better. Bonus points if your team was truly terrible.
There was also a big narrative of Nash stepping out of Dirk's shadow to become the best player on a very good team.
Nash's stats were better in the second MVP season and that sort of launched the momentum for his win. *he has better stats than last year, so I guess he should win again (?) The Spurs had 9 more wins (1st in the West and just 1 game behind the Pistons) that year but Duncan was only 7th in the voting - he had 18ppg 11rpg that year.
It's amazing how nuance gets lost through the years. Great work on this video still! :) I love watching these long think pieces.
Also, didn't Amar'e Stoudemire miss nearly the entire '06 season? Nash still led the Suns to 54 wins (8 wins less than when he did have Amar'e in '05)... so, would that be considered a narrative boost for Nash in his second MVP season?
@@RJDavePhinYes! That is correct! Thanks for bringing it up.
love Rusty's longer form stuff. wish it got more appreciation
Why is Chuck's case listed as an example of disrupting the trend of the award valued winning most if his numbers is comparable to MJ that year and his team won more? Just because it stopped MJ from 3-peating?
My problem with Bill's MVP as an example is that at that time the players were the one that voted on MVP and most players hated Wilt, that is clear from almost any player that played in that era.
1950s basketball isnt real.
Out here dropping facts.
hour long vid on a weeknight? i’m here for it
Value and the NBA MVP.
Certainly topics worth debating. Some say best player on a top seed, others say the best statistical player on a good team in context.
Question out of curiosity (I ask because I get a variety of responses), who is the best player who never finished top five in an NBA MVP vote in their career.
Here are the players who have finished top five (counting those who did it in the ABA):
ABA Players (24):
Connie Hawkins
Doug Moe
Mel Daniels
Larry Jones
Willie Somerset
Jimmy Jones
Rick Barry
Spencer Haywood
Roger Brown
Bob Verga
Zelmo Beaty
Charlie Scott
Dan Issel
Artis Gilmore
Billy Cunningham
Julius Erving
George McGinnis
Ron Boone
Joe Caldwell
Willie Wise
Bobby Jones
Mack Calvin
James Silas
David Thompson
NBA Players (98):
Bob Pettit
Paul Arzin
Bob Cousy
Mel Hutchins
Dolph Schayes
Bill Sharman
George Yardley
Bill Russell
Maurice Stokes
Elgin Baylor
Wilt Chamberlain
Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Sam Jones
Jerry Lucas
Nate Thurmond
Lenny Wilkens
Dave Bing
Wes Unseld
Willis Reed
Kareem Abdul Jabaar
Walt Frazier
John Havlicek
Dave Cowens
Tiny Archibald
Bob McAdoo
Bob Lainer
Elvin Hayes
Bill Walton
Pete Maravich
George Gervin
Walter Davis
Moses Malone
Bob Dandridge
Larry Bird
Dennis Johnson
Dan Roundfield
Robert Parish
Gus Williams
Magic Johnson
Sidney Moncrief
Bernard King
Isiah Thomas
Terry Cummings
Dominique Wilkins
Hakeem Olajuwon
Michael Jordan
Kevin McHale
Charles Barkley
Clyde Drexler
Karl Malone
Patrick Ewing
David Robinson
Scottie Pippen
Shaquille O’Neil
Penny Hardaway
Grant Hill
Tim Hardaway
Glen Rice
Gary Payton
Tim Duncan
Alonzo Mourning
Allen Iverson
Jason Kidd
Kevin Garnett
Chris Webber
Tracy McGrady
Kobe Bryant
Jermaine O’Neil
Peja Stojakovic
Steve Nash
Dirk Nowitski
LeBron James
Chauncey Billups
Chris Paul
Dwight Howard
Dwayne Wade
Kevin Durant
Derrick Rose
Tony Parker
Carmelo Anthony
Blake Griffin
Joakim Noah
James Harden
Stephen Curry
Russell Westbrook
Anthony Davis
Kawhi Leonard
Isaiah Thomas
Damian Lillard
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Paul George
Nikola Jokic
Luka Doncic
Joel Embiid
Devin Booker
Jayson Tatum
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
I would say Kyrie Irving, who in flashes is the one of the most dangerous people to play the game
@@howclicheKyrie. Interesting choice. Haven’t heard him before.
He has averaged 25+ points and 6+ assists a few times, so stats aren’t exactly an issue for him.
But the thing that hurt him in this context is that he has not typically been the best player on his team, and unlike some of the players on here who were the second best on their teams under normal circumstances (like Pippen, McHale, or Havlicek in 1973), Kyrie hasn’t really played on any team that was said to have played one of the best regular seasons ever, and the best team he was the best player on is arguably the 2017-18 Celtics who had a 55-27 record and were the second seed.
Interestingly, Kyrie Irving has somehow never received an MVP vote in his career.
Also, the point guard in Boston the season prior, Isaiah Thomas would finish fifth in the MVP vote, and the team won two fewer games, but were the one seed in their conference.
@@howclicheWe can now add Jalen Brunson to that list of top five finishers.
And among current players who don’t appear on that list, I say Anthony Edwards is quite likely to finish top five at least in the future should he continue to play at a high level
I do appreciate how close it is between jokic and sga compared to jokic and embiid. I unfortunately have agendas to push and think jokic is still winning his 3rd
sGA shouldnt even be in this conversation...
How can you have eyes and think SGA is even close to Jokic Luka or Giannis???
@@sikkouvol.1996mvp is not whos better Thas yall problem it go to the most valuable player that season not whos better and also nothing to do with playoff success
The MVP Is the Friends you made along the way
Fun video, really enjoyed it! TBH, I think it's a little less complicated.
People need to remember it's not about being the best player in the league (though that helps if you are!). MVP really for the most part has two criteria: 1 - how much winning is your team doing (i.e. how big is the pie), and 2 - how much is an individual player on that team is contributing to that team's winning (i.e. how big a piece of the team's win pie does a player have). If your team isn't doing well enough (i.e. the pie is too small) it doesn't matter how big your slice is, you won't win. This is Luka this year who ain't winning. If your team is stacked, even if the pie is big, your slice may be too small - this is Tatum who ain't winning and probably wouldn't win even if his stats were juiced up somewhat from current levels. There's some judgment involved in the sweetspot of the two, but not that much IMO.
A good all-in-one metric that tends to measure this is Win Share per 48 minutes, and it seems the vast majority of the time the league leader in this metric wins the MVP award (that and PER are likely the two highest all-in-one metrics that correlate to the award winner). I think the voters get it right the vast majority of the time but def not always; there are occasional exceptions around voter fatigue, exposure (let's face it, it's easier to get coverage when you play for the Lakers instead of the OKC Thunder or Denver Nuggets) and as you suggest, whatever narrative people want to come up with (stat padding, racism, needs to "do it" in the playoffs etc). But I think honestly the narrative wins are pretty few and far between, like 1 out of every 10 years.
Also, really agree with you around Giannis. I will disagree though as to who will win this year, I think it will be Jokic based on merit (leader in WS/48 though super tight, but ahead more in most other advanced metrics), though SGA is having an absolutely fantastic year. I think Luka, Giannis, SGA are like tops in the league in terms of usage and they put up big absolute stat lines, but Jokic's play basically creates an entire system of court generalship and optimal decision making between distribution, strategizing, and shooting that while putting up impressive vanilla Points/Rebs/Assist numbers, the impact really shows in things like on/off and the vast majority of advanced analytics. There might have been enough "narrative" for SGA to win if he was on a bigger market team, or OKC had a materially better record (if Murray didn't already miss 15+ game this year Nuggets would probably be in first by 4 or 5 games right now), and SGA had a bigger rabid following of barking fans and pundits, but it's not the case.
Mfer brought up the hero's journey in a basketball convo, Rusty you're such a dork keep dropping these bangers
There's an easy way to fix this:
A 3,2,1 vote on every game. Tally the votes up at the end of the season. Most votes is your MVP...
As always, a thought-provoking video from you. 👌🏻
You should’ve mentioned the IMDB award which tried to take the human error out of it and tried to give an award to the statistically best player
The writing in this video was… I need a good word… exceptional!
"every MVP has made the hall of Fame"
Hardcore Derrick Rose fans: 😃
he deserves it
An hour-long video on the night where I have to wake up early the next morning. Fuck it🤷🏾♂️
Keep flirting with the camera angles!! I love it
These longer videos are so good
Made no sense to change that design of the award it looked decent now its like an oscar rip off
I think we might be in need of a new award. The MVP award might stay for the best player on the best like in the past and the new award would be something like an most impactful player award (MIP), which would be the player that has the most impact on winning aka carries his team the most.
I really like your long-form content
I can’t believe they didn’t name an NBA MVP in 97’. Weird? Probs we’re just too busy to bother.
almost thought you was going to go all das kapital when you asked what is value lmaooo
Imo MVP is the person who impacts their team the most while also bringing them to the highest level (with a few exceptions such as Westbrook literally averaging a triple double while dragging the thunder to the playoffs or jokic having one of the greatest statistical seasons of all time) but unfortunately since the mvp voting is amongst people like Kendrick Perkins or Stephen A it kinda just ends up being “Who do I think had the most aura this season”
Why shouldn't a player's defensive stats count towards the MVP? Im sure Kobe's defensive stats were better than Steve Nash's back then, just like SGA's defensive stats didn't help him this year. MVP seems to be just the Offensive Player of the Year Award!
Best video you ever made yet.
Woooo let's go SGA!
47:06 he nailed that shot on my 19th birthday. Thank you Westbrook
😂😂😂