Thursday 29 March 2012

Why Kevin Love is NBA MVP -- The MVP Debate



There are three things that make a player the MVP. His impact on his team, his stats, and his team's performance. Here's the comparisons of the top MVP candidates and how they stack up:

Most Valuable to Own Team
1. Chris Paul -- Last year at this point Clippers were 19-31. They add Chris Pual, they're 29-21. You can't deny the facts, he's more valuable to the Clippers than any player on any other team. 
2. Kevin Love -- Putting his whole team on his back, keeping his team in contention. Without Love T-Wolves are one of NBA's worst teams. 
3. LeBron James -- Tough call between KD and LBJ, went with LeBron. The Heat's various injuries made LeBron the pick here, because without LeBron the Heat would have actually really struggled.
4. Kevin Durant -- There are nights when he's overshadowed by Westbrook, and his team would win without him more often than the Heat would win without LeBron. 


Best Stats:
1. Kevin Love -- 26.6ppg, 13.9rpg, ESPN#NBAMVP rank: 6
Kevin Love is putting up ridiculous numbers. With his 51 point game, and his 40 point 19 rebound game, he's having a ridiculously good statistical season. 
2. LeBron James -- 26.7ppg, 6.6apg, ESPN#NBAMVP rank: 1
If LeBron's PER can remain the same he will have the best PER ever. That's incredible. He's only behind Love because of Love's amazing rebounding rate that goes with his scoring.
3. Kevin Durant 27.8ppg, 8.1rpg, ESPN#NBAMVP rank: 2
Kevin Durant is the best scorer in the NBA, and he's always going to put up impressive stats. This year he's scored less than the two previous years though. 
4. Chris Paul 19.4ppg, 8.8apg, ESPN #NBAMVP rank: 4
With Chris Paul the stats don't show the affect he has on the game being played. While his stats are impressive, they're not nearly as impressive as the stats of the players above. Paul's affect on the game comes with his speed and leadership along with the scoring and passing which he of course also does well. 


Team Record/Quality of players of team (How well team has done compared to expectations)
1. Kevin Durant -- OKC is living up to expectations with the second best record in the NBA, and Durant is a big reason why. 
2. Kevin Love -- With Rubio out for the season the T-Wolves season is fully dependent on Love. He's embraced this, and has gotten his team of NBA draft busts into playoff contention.
3. Chris Paul -- The Clippers were expected to compete for the division and make the playoffs. That's been exactly what has happened, and they are currently leading their division.
4. LeBron James -- It's pretty crazy for a team to be second place in the confrence and be underachieving... but that's the case with the Heat. 

Who Should be MVP:
After looking at the three things that are considered when deciding who's MVP, I've decided Kevin Love should be the 2011-12 NBA MVP. He has the best stats out of the four candidates, and has carried his team by himself like none of the other candidates. Love was the best player in the NBA in March, when he scored more than 35 points 5 times, including a 51 point game and a 40 point 19 rebound game. He's been dominating every team he faces, and the teams play fully relies on him. If Love were not on the Wolves they'd be one of the worst NBA teams instead of a playoff contender.





9 comments:

  1. weird how lebron is wearing a cavs jersey

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  2. Durant > James, this much is obvious. Durant is a leader who wins games that seem lost, watch that game against the TWolves, Durant has ice water in his veins he can pull a team by himself, Bron chokes in the clutch, he wants it to be D-Wayde's team.

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    1. I completely agree that Durant is better in the clutch and is probably a better leader, but leBron is definately a better overall player, and is putting up better stats this year. That makes him better than Durant.

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  3. Are you serious? His team has a 25-28 record and is 11th in the West. He is the classic example of a decent player putting up monster stats on a craptacular team. Without Love, the T-Wolves are one of the worst teams, but with Love, they are still one of the NBA's worst teams.

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    1. Thanks for the comment. I actually think that the fact that he's on a team with bad players make his performance much more impressive. He's got a .45fg% and .39 3ptfg% this season. He's scoring tons with good percentages without being on a team with any other real scoring threat. Also about the T-Wolves record, they'd be in the playoff hunt if they were in the east, so the 11th in the west is decieving. Also they'd go from 9th in the east to 14th or 15th without K-Love.

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    2. So your argument is that they would still be out of the playoff picture in the East and be hypothetically 14th or 15th in the West without Love? That's all speculative. The Fact of the matter is the T-Wolves are NOT a playoff team in the West (or East for that matter)WITH Love and they aren't a playoff team without him. The team is littered with former lottery picks, so it isn't that the team doesn't have talent. I would argue that the reason why the T-Wolves are even competitive has more to do with Coach Adelman than it has to do with Love. Looking at the Western Conference Playoff race, the Wolves could very easily be the 14th or 15th ranked team in the West with or without Love as there really isn't much that separates them from those teams. You can look at teams like the Nuggets or the Rockets who don't have the "MVP-caliber" player you so claim in Love and they are performing better than the Wolves. Honestly, you can't even argue that the Wolves have a less talented team than the Rockets. Heck, they are playing without arguably their two best players in Kyle Lowery AND Kevin Martin. Would you take any of those guys over the guys you have on the Wolves. The Wolves have talent, it's just that they aren't being utilized correctly. I think I would take a team of former #2 picks (Beasley, Williams, Milicic) over the likes of (Parsons, Budinger, Patterson) wouldn't you?

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  4. Kevin Love can't win because his team sucks even with him playing so well. Same could be said about LaMarcus Aldridge, except his team actually has a better record than the Wolves...whoops. I mean, if you are looking at team success based around a single player I think the player with the most wins for a team that lacks depth would be Dwight Howard and the Magic. Just my opinion though.

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  5. Nice article. One thing bothered me. You are probably a native english speaker, right? Get your "affect - effect" straight :)

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  6. Lucas,

    Come see me when you get a chance and I'll show you how to replicate some of your sidebars widgets in your new site.

    Mr Medved

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