The NBA Most Valuable Player race was hotly contested this season. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic both put up incredible seasons. In the end, by securing his first MVP, SGA was able to keep the Joker from winning his fourth.
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That battle continued into the postseason. SGA won with a slight edge, as his Oklahoma City Thunder prevailed in seven games over Jokic’s Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference semifinals.
Shai more than validated his MVP win by leading the Thunder to the NBA title. He was rewarded with the Finals MVP trophy as well, which put him in rare company as just the fourth player in history to win the scoring title, regular season MVP and Finals MVP in the same year, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal in that honor.
Jokic was named to the All-NBA First Team for the fifth time in his career, but it seems a shame that he has no hardware to show for a season in which he was top-three in the league in points, rebounds and assists.
LeBron James knows a thing or two about winning trophies, and he shared an intriguing idea on the most recent episode of Mind the Game for how the NBA could reward somebody besides the MVP. Interestingly enough, he took the idea from the NFL.
“I did think about how the NFL does Offensive Player of the Year and MVP,” the four-time MVP said. “I thought that could possibly be something in our league … not saying we should do it, but it was something that was like pretty cool in the NFL how they do that. Offensive Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, MVP.”
LeBron’s cohost Steve Nash pointed out that the NBA already gives out a Defensive Player of the Year award, which does make it a bit weird that an offensive player isn’t also recognized. He also made a great point that like most leagues, the criteria to win NBA MVP aren’t exactly defined.
“We usually associate [the MVP] in some capacity with team success,” Nash said, “which is a good thing. And is it good that it’s a sort of nebulous kind of thing we don’t exactly know, but there’s a narrative sometimes that forms, or there’s a popular opinion that develops. Maybe that’s just the way it should be.”
LeBron shared Steve’s sentiment, wondering what the award parameters are, because they seem to change. “You know, is it the best player? Is it the player that had the best season with his team … maybe that’s Offensive Player of the Year … or is it just simply the best player in the league, like statistically?”
Both hosts agreed that a player would not deserve an award if his team didn’t even come close to making the playoffs, saying almost in sync, “If that’s the case, he’s not most valuable then.”
In the NFL, the MVP pretty much always goes to a quarterback these days. The Offensive Player of the Year gives the league a way to reward a non-QB who had a tremendous year. Saquon Barkley won Offensive Player of the Year this past year after running for over 2,000 yards, for example.
Though the NBA may run into similar issues if Adam Silver does implement an Offensive Player of the Year award and doesn’t define it better than the MVP, this can only be a good thing to reward another player for an excellent year.
