MVP Votes - Game by Game

Southnet

OzCardTrader
Messages
1,089
Location
Adelaide
Real Name
John
eBay User
southnetdesign
The MVP voting in the NBA has always intrigued me as I struggle with how over an 82 game season over 6 months it can always come down to essentially 4-5 players and they are generally the known and acknowledged super stars. What if an up and comer just has a breakout year? How is the voting not influenced by recency bias for performances in March/April? I believe there is voting done half way through the year which helps, but the focus on the "narrative" tends to be the main driver.

So I decided to have a go at using a more common method of assigning votes after each game. This is tough given the 1200 odd games in the NBA, but I'm a stats nerd and while it's fundamentally a waste of time it gives me some base level enjoyment.

You can visit my Blog at nbacoach.wordpress.com to see the Methodology I'm using, essentially I'm using the Box Score data plus my observations of games (some in full, most looking at the condensed version on League Pass) and listening to PodCasts analysing games etc. I try and post an update each week, sometimes will be 2 weeks if work gets in the way, and also comment on patterns or trends I'm seeing. I also show how many Best on Courts the top players have as it's interesting to see who accumulates their votes based on this mainly, and who (like Tobias Harris this season) can be near the top but rarely is the best player in a game.

Week 6 - up to 26 Nov
120 Votes - Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetkounmpo
117 Votes - Kevin Durant
115 Votes - Lebron James
105 Votes - Kemba Walker
104 Votes - James Harden
98 Votes - Damian Lillard
96 Votes - Kawhi Leonard
94 Votes - Marc Gasol
90 Votes - Anthony Davis, Zach Lavine
Players with Votes 89 down to 70 - Vucevic, Griffin, Irving, Derozan, P George, T Harris, Oladipo, Steph Curry, Drummond, Towns.

Top Best On Court Vote Getters
10 - Kevin Durant
9 - Lebron James, James Harden
8 - Joel Embiid, Kemba Walker

Notes After Week 6
With Curry out the Leaderboard changes with Giannis and Embiid equal 1st. Embiid has one more Best on Court than Giannis so technically is the leader, he is having a very consistent year and the 76ers are very reliant upon him for wins so hopefully he continues to stay on the Court.

Kevin Durant has stepped up his game in Curry's absence, with he and Klay clearly the best 2 players on Court the majority of time the Warriors win. Even with the losses Durant was able to be a standout performer.

Lebron is Best on Court every time the Lakers win pretty much, but his statistics aren't always at their stellar best so in a loss he picks up lower votes only. Harden starting to come back into the mix with 9 Best on Courts and starting to post some amazing numbers even if the Rockets haven't quite come back to life yet.

Climbers
Some players who are starting to climb into the Top 20 votes based on some strong performances are Vucevic, M Gasol and Paul George. And Doug McDermott gets onto the board with a Best on Court performance to help the Pacers in Oladipo's absence.
 
Back
Top Bottom