The Suns reversed the defeat of the Kings, and after five consecutive wins, they won 58 and lost 14, and continued to maintain a strong performance in the league. Since Chris Paul joined the Suns, the team that has been hovering at the bottom for many years has suddenly found itself and suddenly become a powerful team in the league that cannot be ignored. Last season, the Suns reached the Finals, regrettably failed to lift that trophy, and the new season roared in the league in excellent shape.
In fact, the overall performance of the teams in the league this season has not been good, even if it does not mention the Lakers, Nets and other surprising teams, such as Philadelphia, defending champion Bucks and Golden State Warriors, etc., have not been able to play the expected performance. The Suns, on the other hand, marched all the way, shrugging off the Warriors, who had problems in the middle of the season, and smiling triumphantly in the standings alone.
The Suns' record is so stable, not that the team has not encountered problems, Chris Paul, DeAndre Ayton, Jay Crowder, Devin Booker and others are more or less injured - the starting player only Mikale Bridges has a kingless body, but the Suns can still move forward steadily.
There are constantly players missing games, and the Suns' record is unaffected, which has a side effect - well, it seems that no one on this team is indispensable, isn't it? Therefore, the Suns players are not ranked high on the league's MVP list, and the two key players Chris Paul and Devin Booker are not popular candidates.
So far this season, Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Alphabet Brother and other players are the MVP competition favorites, and some people will talk about Stephen Curry and LeBron James, but the two core players of the Suns are rarely mentioned.
Is it difficult to understand? Not really.
As we just said, the Suns don't seem to be very dependent on everyone, and those hot MVP contenders are even more indispensable on the team. For example, Nikola Jokic, who is now a father and a mother in this Nuggets team, a number of high-level statistics are very direct reflection of his importance to the team.
The same goes for Joel Embiid.
However, as the season progresses, the hot state of the Suns still attracts more attention from the outside world, after all, the Suns' record is there, and it is impossible to always turn a blind eye. The Suns have a large lead and Chris Paul is sidelined, and Devin Booker's fiery performance has earned him a lot of respect.
Yes, Devon Booker's relevance to the regular season MVP is improving.
Against the Kings, Devin Booker scored 31 points on 11-of-21 shooting and 20+ in his 13th straight game — and only three of those 13 games scored less than 25 points. So far this season, Devin Booker has played in 61 games, averaging 25.9 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game.
The stats don't seem hot enough, but does that mean Devon Booker has no hope of winning the MVP trophy?
In many cases, the regular season MVP will have a lot to do with the data - who let the data can most intuitively show the popularity of the player. In the 2016-17 season, Russell Westbrook won the regular season MVP, and the madness of averaging a triple-double per game is the ultimate representative of the "data bright" MVP winner.
However, there are also different situations.
In the 2014-15 season, Stephen Curry won his first regular season MVP, and his stats were not so shiny, averaging only 23.8 points, 4.3 rebounds and 7.7 assists per game. Of course, 48.7 percent from the field was a bright spot, and 44.3 percent from three-point range was staggering — it was Stephen Curry's crazy milestone season.
Having said that, the 2014-15 MVP competition was fierce, and James Harden put a lot of pressure on Stephen Curry.
Stephen Curry was able to win his first regular season MVP, and the team's record was a plus, and the Warriors' record of 67 wins and 15 losses that season was very high. In the 2014-15 season, two teams in the league won at least 60 wins, the other was the Eagles in the East, and the Eagles at that time were all soldiers and lacked "pacesetters" to take.
Is This season's Devon Booker similar to Stephen Curry in 2014-15?
So far, the Suns have won 58 of their 72 games, and the second-best team in the league, the Grizzlies, have nine fewer wins than the Suns. Will the advantage in the record help Devon Booker to break through in the MVP battle?
(Text/Yan Wujun)