The NBA MVP race isn’t fun.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun and it’s not fun. Watching LeBron James and Kevin Durant duke it out for MVP honors is most definitely fun. Knowing they’re the only two legitimate participants is not fun.
Once in a while, it’s nice to not know who the MVP will be, or at least have a field larger than two players. Mystery sells. Ambiguity can be fun.
Mostly, it’s also nice to discuss other players. There are only so many ways you can look at the season LeBron and Durant are having. Adding more contenders creates room for different, more versatile analysis.
That’s not going to happen this year. The MVP ladder is a two-man race. There’s LeBron and KD, and everyone else.
Well, actually, there’s LeBron and KD, then Joakim Noah, perhaps Blake Griffin and then everybody else.
Speaking with Basketball Insiders’ Jessica Camerato, Chicago Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau indicated he thought Noah deserved MVP consideration:
“It depends on how you define [who deserves MVP consideration],” Thibodeau said. “For us, I think he does. What he’s meant to our team over the course of the season — we faced a lot of adversity. He helped lift the team up and he’s improved, I think, significantly offensively. The defense has always been great, the rebounding. And it’s more than just the passing. It’s his scoring now, making quicker decisions. I think that’s helped us a lot.”
Thibs is spot-on here. First, Noah most definitely deserves MVP consideration (more on that in a second). But he’s also right about the lens through which people view MVP awards. There is no definitive criteria, no set of rules or guidelines. Interpretations of MVP honors are purely subjective, which is why it’s actually fascinating that this year’s competition has been narrowed down to two players. With so many different versions of what constitutes an MVP out there, you’d think there would be more years of five-player races.
To me, the MVP belongs to the player who is most valuable to his team. Not the best player on the best team, or even the most valuable player on the best team. Just the player who is more valuable to his team than anyone else.
Looking at it that way, Durant and James aren’t necessarily disqualified. Noah, however, enters the discussion in a big way.
Sans Derrick Rose and Luol Deng, he has the Bulls competing for a top-three Eastern Conference playoff spot. I don’t care if it’s the East, that’s impressive. Noah is also Chicago’s primary playmaker, which is unheard of for a center. While it likely explains why the Bulls offense is such a mess, it also attests to his versatility and overall value.
The problem with my interpretation of the MVP award is it opens up the floodgates for injured players. If, say, the Bulls were reduced to the worst team in the league without Rose, he could theoretically garner votes because he’s so valuable, his team is awful without him.
So you have to find that balance. Most years, those in power—voters—do a good job of picking the right player.
No matter how you look at the MVP award, though, Noah deserves to be in the discussion. He won’t win, and he might not even generate any votes, but his name deserves to be in there.
Dan Favale is a firm believer in the three-pointer as well as the notion that defense doesn’t always win championships. His musings can be found at Bleacherreport.com in addition to TheHoopDoctors.com.
