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The NBA's MVP award can oftentimes feel like a narrative-based award far more than an accomplishment-based award. The truth is that the NBA seeks to do more than simply crown the most productive player over an 82 game regular season. A storybook ending for fans poses significantly better ratings for them.
In one of my very first articles, I attempted to create a singular metric that could correlate a player's productivity with their chances of winning an MVP. I called this number, which yielded fairly strong results by placing both Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid in the top 5 despite neither of them being MVP favorites at the time, the MVP Index. Despite the success in these predictions, I never could have predicted Chris Paul sneaking his way into one of the tightest MVP races in recent history. His case was not driven by statistics but rather a storyline of an aging veteran reaching into the fountain of youth to lead an inexperienced Suns team to a top seed in the competitive western conference. While aspects of this may have been true, the case had very little statistical backing. Even when "Analytics" are used to justify a player's performance, it largely comes down to one number. PER.
MVP Winners since 1980
1st in PER: 18
2nd in PER: 6
3rd in PER: 4
4th in PER: 4
5th or Below: 5
After reviewing this data, I thought it would be interesting to see if the NBA fully leaned into their idea of acknowledging individual player's seasons rather than simply giving an MVP award to the league's best player or combining some merged version of these 2 ideologies.
One MVP max per player
In the early 20th century of major league baseball, the American League had a rule explicitly stating that each player would only be eligible for a maximum of one MVP award. After they won said award, they would not be given the opportunity to win it again. I applied this rule to a hypothetical NBA world to see which stars had missed opportunities to ascend to a greater all-time ranking and which forgotten seasons were truly the best. For situations where players repeat in MVP, the award will be given to the next available runner-up. Applying this rule leads us to the following list (We'll be starting from 1980 since that is when the media was given the ability to vote on the MVP award).
1980: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
1981: Julius Erving
1982: Moses Malone
1983: Larry Bird*
1984: Bernard King*
1985: Magic Johnson*
1986: Dominique Wilkins**
1987: Michael Jordan*
1988: Charles Barkley*
1989: Karl Malone*
1990: Patrick Ewing**
1991: David Robinson*
1992: Clyde Drexler**
1993: Hakeem Olajuwan*
1994: Scottie Pippen**
1995: Shaquille O'neal*
1996: Penny Hardaway**
1997: Grant Hill**
1998: Gary Payton**
1999: Alonzo Mourning**
2000: Kevin Garnett*
2001: Allen Iverson
2002: Tim Duncan
2003: Kobe Bryant*
2004: Jermain O'neal**
2005: Steve Nash
2006: Lebron James*
2007: Dirk Nowitzki
2008: Chris Paul**
2009: Dwyane Wade**
2010: Kevin Durant*
2011: Derrick Rose
2012: Tony Parker**
2013: Carmelo Anthony**
2014: Blake Griffin**
2015: Steph Curry
2016: Kawhi Leanord**
2017: Russell Westbrook
2018: James Harden
2019: Giannis Antetokounmpo
2020: Luka Doncic**
2021: Nikola Jokic
*Player did not originally win an MVP in this year
**Player has never won an MVP before
Under this new system, there would have been 14 new NBA MVPs. Some players such as Clyde Drexler, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, and Kawhi Leanord are obvious inclusions into this list. However, there are many surprises as well, including Scottie Pippen, Penny Hardaway, Jermaine O'Neal, Tony Parker, and Luka Doncic. At the bottom of the list, it can clearly be seen that there are very few changes, highlighting the narrative-based approach that media members use these days to aid potential first-time winners.
In my next article, I will go over the new MVPs from this list to see which ones stand out amongst the rest and which ones don't deserve to be on the list.
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