Jimmy Butler, and Which Players Deserve NBA Conference Player MVP Awards
The NBA's new Larry Bird and Magic Johnson trophies may have been given to the wrong players.
The NBA introduced the Magic Johnson and Larry Bird Conference Finals MVP trophies this year. First, this is awesome. For years I’ve argued the NBA is too strict with its awards. The MVP award, for instance, has stayed the same since when the league had eight teams. It is now up to 30. I’ve said the NBA should copy MLB and give awards to each conference. At least they’ve started doing that in the playoffs, and that’s great.
With more awards, though, comes another time-honored tradition. A math nerd with their TI calculator (or, in my case, a cloud-based supercomputer) to argue the wrong player won the award. So let’s break down who won each Conference Finals MVP and who really deserved it.
Methodology
The metric of choice, as always, is the Wins Produced formula, which uses a player’s boxscore statistic to estimate their impact on player wins. As a twist, I’ll be using this in two ways. The first is straight Wins. The player in each Conference Finals that produced the most wins via their boxscore statistics should earn the MVP. The second is a method I’ve enjoyed that I call “Game Ball.” Namely, if we look for the most productive player on the team that won the game, and award them the game ball, then the player with the most game balls should earn MVP. The tie goes to the most productive player overall. Let’s go!
The Larry Bird Eastern Conference MVP
Out East, Jayson Tatum was the near-unanimous MVP selection, with only Tim Bontemps being correct. Let’s break it down.
Jimmy Butler (MIA) - 2 Game Balls, 1.7 Wins Produced
Robert Williams (BOS) - 2 Game Balls, 1.0 Wins Produced
Jayson Tatum (BOS) - 1 Game Ball, 1.2 Wins Produced
Bam Adebayo (MIA) - 1 Game Ball, 0.4 Wins Produced
Marcus Smart (BOS) - 1 Game Ball, 0.4 Wins Produced
An often implicit criterion in many awards is “On a winning team.” At this point, for the NBA playoffs, the Finals MVP has gone to the player on the winning team 52 out of 53 times, with Jerry West being the lone exception in the very first year the award was given.
Jimmy Butler was the best player in the series and most deserving of the Larry Bird Trophy, so salute to Tim Bontemps. If we stay with the best player on the Celtics? Then Tatum is a solid choice, having produced the most wins on the Celtics. The fun choice would have been Robert Williams, but I’m not naive enough to believe the voters would ever give an “MVP” award to a player who averaged under 20 points and ten rebounds a game.
The Magic Johnson Western Conference MVP
Out East, one lone voter got the correct answer, with eight voters, at least, giving a solid choice. Out West, I regret to inform you that all of the voters are wrong. Sorry, Steph!
Kevon Looney (GSW): 1.0 Wins Produced, 1 Game Ball
Jordan Poole (GSW): 0.9 Wins Produced, 1 Game Ball
Steph Curry (GSW): 0.6 Wins Produced
Luka Doncic (DAL): 0.5 Wins Produced
Andrew Wiggins (GSW): 0.4 Wins Produced, 1 Game Ball
Draymond Green (GSW): 0.3 Wins Produced, 1 Game Ball
Maxi Kleber (DAL): -0.3 Wins Produced, 1 Game Ball
While I’m certainly on the Luka Doncic bandwagon, I’m “happy” to report that a Warrior should have won the award. The thing is, there’s a solid argument it shouldn’t have been Steph. Indeed, Steph was never the best player in a single game, nor did he rack up the most Wins. He was one of only two players to average over 20 points per game in the series. Let’s be clear, he wasn’t a bad selection, and the NBA may owe Steph a makeup for giving the Finals MVP to Andre Iguodala in 2015. Both Kevon Looney and Jordan Poole averaged over 70% True Shooting and played spectacularly. Given the quickness of the series? It was a bit of overkill. And, again, I would never expect either player to win it. It just would have been cool if they did.
Conclusion
Here’s the good news, two very productive players won the first iteration of the Larry Bird and Magic Johnson award. Knowing what stats are still popular in the NBA, I wouldn’t have expected most of my choices to be considered. Still, if I’d have had a vote? Jimmy Butler and Kevon Looney would have been my picks. And that may be why I’ll likely never be given a vote!
Let’s see if the right player wins the Finals MVP!
-Dre
Well, if I *also* had a vote. Butler and Looney would now have 2 votes a piece.
I put out a poll after game 5, Looney as my pick. Curry was the crowd's pick. To me, Looney has clearly been the difference maker. And I think Butler and Looney are the right picks for the right reasons, which is mostly about properly defining what the awards are supposed to reflect.
In looking back on how most MVP votes have been cast (including the winning team bias) and in watching the games where we care about win outcomes... MVP in games like this seems to be most about contributions relative to expected value, key plays in key moments, poise under higher stress moments, and their ability to limit the impact of opponents.
And by these measurements, definitely feel Butler and Looney were the picks.
Wiggins was my 2nd. Both Wiggins and Looney's defense on Luka and rebounding kept Luka and the Mavs at bay. They missed a lot of open 3s, but [the Mavs] didn't have much for 2nd chance pts.
I was kind of amazed how the Mavs, who targeted Steph and Pool in PnR early in game 1 (were up big) got away from it and then rest of the series were content to do PnR that led to Looney on Luka, which Mavs really got away from. The Matchup data also was very favorable for Looney vs JJJr and Luka. Warriors had a +13 Reb margin vs Mavs and +15 reb vs Grizzlies and Looney and Wiggins are only starters with + On-Off Reb%.