This year could be the year in which the word "valuable" is really hotly debated. We haven't seen such a fierce MVP chase in many years, and when you understand MVP with different ideas, you will also make different choices.
Traditionally, MVPs are awarded to three types of players: the best player on the best team, the player who can lead the team to win on his own, and the player who plays the explosive data and performance that subverts people's perceptions.
When discussing the best players on the best teams, we still look at Curry for the first time – the Suns have a better record, but Booker and Paul's stats and performances don't support their competition for MVP. The Warriors are the second-best team in the league, and Curry has the league's number one, with a plus-minus of 10.3. But with his recent strikes again and again and the Decline in the Warriors' overall performance, things have become complicated. In Curry's 13-year career, he's never shot so badly. This season he shot 42.1 percent from the field and 38.4 percent from three-point range, both career-lows.
Some have attributed his decline to a chase against him this season, but in the case of the Warriors' space worse than this season, Curry's shooting percentage is much higher than this season's performance. All indications are one thing: While the rapid pace of sports science and training has greatly increased the average career length of professional players, Curry, who is celebrating his 34th birthday in two months, may have begun to decline. Curry's shooting percentage in 2022 has dropped to 35.4 percent, and his three-point shooting percentage is only 29.9 percent, averaging just 19.6 points per game. Many people think it has something to do with the absence of Drummond Green, Curry's best brother and partner, and as Green's injury becomes complicated, Curry's leading position in the MVP chase has also been impacted.
We hope this is just a regular fluctuation in Curry's performance in small sample games, a brief fatigue after one fierce confrontation after another. But if the situation doesn't get better, his third MVP trophy is likely to be far away.
Of course, we all know that all along, Curry's use as an offensive weapon has surpassed the data, bringing a more threatening offensive system to the Warriors, allowing a team with obviously less talent to achieve the top results in the league. With that in mind, it's perfectly feasible for you to vote for the MVP's first vote for him. But at the same time, we have to admit that Curry's performance this season is actually not as good as in previous years.
He lost the ability to punish opponents in the middle distance, dropping his always reliable throw shooting to 32 percent and making it difficult to even finish the basket, with his 57.0 percent shooting percentage well below his career average (64.5 percent) this season. In fact, even if this state wave that began in mid-December did not come, we have mentioned before that Curry's performance this season is lower than his average performance in the past 5 years. For the first two months of the season, he has been leading the MVP list simply because of a lack of competitive opponents.
And now, competitive opponents have come to the fore. Unlike Curry, before this medial ligament sprain in his left knee, Durant was likely to be playing his best season of his career at the age of 33. If you're a data controller, it's easy to conclude that Durant is better than Curry this season: Durant has averaged more points and rebounds per game than Curry, has about the same number of turnovers and assists as Curry, and as a scorer, he is more efficient than Curry. At the same time, he is also a defender who is more influential on the defensive end.
He doesn't depend on the system, he is the system himself. With Irving sidelined and Harden slipping, Durant is likely to have shouldered the most tackling tasks since his MVP season, while he averaged 29.3 points per game (first in the league) and 5.8 assists (second-highest in his career). In a team that averaged 27th in the league in terms of three-point shooting per game, he supported the team's offense with an unsolvable personal attack. With the Nets in second place in the East, you can't question his ability to lead the team, and he looks like he's about to overtake Curry in the MVP selection — until he announces he's going to miss 4-6 weeks. Even if he does make a comeback in 4 weeks, it means he will miss another 13 games with six absences this season. You know, since Bill Walton in 1976-77, no one has been able to get an MVP without missing more than 11 games.
If you want to mention the statistics, no one should be able to match Nikola Jokic this season. The MVP last season continues to dominate most of the high-end stats list this season, and the current PER value of 32.23 is a shock in NBA history. Without Jamal Murray or Michael Potter Jr., almost every Nuggets game this season has gone exactly the same: Jokic builds the lead for the team, a poor bench buries the edge, and then waits for Jokic to return to the court and figure out how to win the game.
The data truly records this performance, with the Nuggets winning 9.3 points per 100 possessions when Jokic is on the floor, and losing 11.7 points per 100 possessions when he's not on the floor. That means the Nuggets look like one of the best teams in the league as long as Jokic is on the floor, but as soon as he sits on the bench, the Nuggets are in a quandary and suddenly turn into a G-League team.
You will never find a player who can change a team so dramatically. Although whether he takes the ball in the low post or in the high position, the opponent will find a way to use two or three defenders to pinch him and interfere with him, he can still contribute a steady score and shooting rate. A lot of teams want to burn him off on the offensive end and punish him defensively, and he returns with his best rebounding and defensive performances of his career. He's actually better this season than last season, but as last season's MVP, this season in a 22-20 team, it's hard for the judges to vote for him again.
The only catch-up man who was blameless in terms of attendance, stats and record was Giannis Antetokounmpo. His stats are no match for Jokic's, and the Bucks are only two wins away from the Bulls, the number one in the East. Moreover, it may be difficult for many people to imagine, but after winning the Finals MVP, this season's alphabet brother is likely to evolve again.
With Brooke Lopez playing just one game this season, he has been a center for nearly half of the season. When he was standing under the basket, his opponent shot just 48.2 percent from the Bucks penalty area, the second-best figure in the league, behind Rudy Gobert.
On the offensive end, after shrugging off the sense of urgency for the title over the past few years, his mentality has clearly become calmer. Brother Alphabet himself described this change this way: "Before I reached the top and won the championship, I always thought, 'I want to win, I want to win, I want to be the champion...' and now, this pressure is gone. All I want now is to read the game the right way, to score, pass and assist correctly. This will make my game a lot easier. ”
If you watched the Bucks' game against the Nets two days ago, I believe you will also be impressed by his well-founded and free-flowing posture on the court. As the aggressive Giannis gradually learned to slow down during the game and think a little, learned to grasp the opponent's defensive strategy and respond, he also became more difficult to deal with than before. At the moment, he and Curry are clearly ahead of other competitors in the MVP competition. And in terms of trends, he and the Bucks are on the rise, while Curry and the Warriors have an uncertain future.
In any case, the season was only halfway through. There are also many interesting factors that affect the selection of MVPs. With the incorporation of Klay Thompson, can Curry's energy be re-released? Will the Warriors trade some potential stars for a player who can help them "win in the moment"? Can Durant make an early comeback and what will happen after his comeback? Could Jamal Murray's return help the Nuggets climb to the top four in the West? When will the Bucks step up their regular season rankings to something that is hard to ignore? Can Devon Booker play a more eye-catching stat to increase his competitiveness? Can Ben Simmons' comeback or trade boost Joel Embiid's MVP prospects? These are unknowns.
It's only halfway through the season, and the competition for MVP is gradually becoming fierce.