Joel Embiid and a History of Undeserving MVPs
Examining my lowbar for the MVP award and when a player that doesn't deserve it has won.
A few weeks ago, it was a foregone conclusion that Nikola Jokic would win his third MVP. At least, according to the mainstream media and public sportsbooks, that has shifted to Joel Embiid. And while Embiid wouldn’t be the most undeserving MVP in the award's history, or even the most undeserving to do so in a 76ers jersey — foreshadowing, I disagree with this. So, for fun, let’s talk about how I grade former MVPs, and maybe we’ll talk a little about Embiid.
My MVP Criteria
One of the key parts of the MVP award is it is nebulous. There is no set series of criteria. Any voter can vote however they want. It’s why someone once argued that Carmelo Anthony deserved it more than LeBron James! But my very simple set of criteria?
10 Wins Produced in an 82-game season
Top 20 in the NBA in Wins Produced
The Best Player on their Team
A reminder, the Wins Produced formula developed by David Berri uses boxscore statistics to estimate a player’s contribution to a team’s point margin, which directly maps to wins. An average player is worth 0.100 Wins per 48 minutes, as in, if they, and four average teammates, played a full NBA game, they’d win 50% of the time. Great players exceed 0.200 Wins per 48 minutes, twice as good as the average. And truly elite can hit 0.400! An average starter would be expected to earn around six wins in a regular NBA season, so 10 is a very reasonable mark, usually about the bottom end hit by most 0.200 starters.
I want to stress my bar for MVP is ridiculously low. And yet, I still occasionally find myself disappointed. Let’s hope this year isn’t one of them. You can find year by year Wins Produced stats at the Boxscore Geeks.
Past “Failures”
A player can be an underserving MVP IF they miss any of the above three criteria for me. Of course, to truly be bad, they must miss all three, and we’ll discuss both scenarios below.
I like to use the 1979-1980 NBA season to start any analysis. We only had the modern boxscore in the NBA from the 1977-1978 season onward. There are various reasons the 1960s and 1970s NBA differed greatly from modern. The biggest is that the three-point line was added in 1979. Basically, 1979 in my mind, is the start of the modern NBA and a good place to do good apples-to-apples comparisons. With that in mind …
1. 1980 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem won his final MVP in 1980, his sixth all-time, which is still a record. And, it’s hard to say he didn’t deserve it, at 18 Wins Produced and a WP48 of 0.274 (2.7 times better than the average center in a golden era of centers), this certainly is an MVP-worthy season. Indeed, he placed 4th in the NBA in Wins Produced. So what gives? Rookie Magic Johnson is what. At 19 Wins Produced, a WP48 of 0.326, Magic was the best player in the league as a rookie. Now, that thin margin of one win? Yeah, I get it. Hard to be too mad at this MVP. And Magic also went on to win Finals MVP that season, so there’s that.
2. 1992 - Michael Jordan
Uh oh. Alright, in 1992, Michael Jordan earned his third MVP, his third Finals MVP. And, let’s be clear, he was great. At 18 Wins Produced, 7th in the NBA, and a WP48 of 0.277, not a bad MVP candidate. To be fair, Dennis Rodman had one of the most absurd seasons in NBA history that year, but as I’ve said, my bar isn’t even based on if more deserving players were snubbed.
The issue? Horace Grant and Scottie Pippen. Horace Grant put up 22 Wins Produced at a 0.367 WP48, and Scottie Pippen earned 18.0 Wins Produced at 0.273 WP48 (I’m fine with the observation Scottie “wins” due to minutes played. But as any MVP arguer knows, the common refrain is - “It’s a regular season award!”)
Horace Grant is an all-time great that’s underrated in NBA history, largely because instead of being great at any one thing, he was really good at everything — for his era. Again, it's not a bad MVP, but it falls short because another Bull likely deserved it in 1992.
A theme that persists through MJ’s legacy is he was indeed amazing, but he had some of the most underrated teammates in NBA history, which may get him slightly more praise than he deserves. Moving on!
3. 1997 - Karl Malone
In 1997 Karl Malone earned 15 Wins Produced, good for fourth in the NBA, and put up a WP48 of 0.240. So far, these “incorrect MVPs” follow a trend. The issue? Karl Malone’s teammate was John Stockton, who put up 18 Wins Produced, good for first in the NBA! It’s also worth noting that the Wins Produced formula adjusts for position, which can cause some areas for debate. E.g., Magic played better than Kareem, but Kareem’s raw numbers were better in 1979-1980. In this case? Even if Stockton were judged as a Power Forward, he’d be better than Karl Malone. Stockton is an all-time great but is underrated in NBA history. I wonder if this will happen again.
4. 1998 - Michael Jordan
The same story as 1992 in many ways. The best player on the Bulls in 1998 was Dennis Rodman, who finished first in the NBA with 18 Wins Produced, and a 0.308 WP48. There are two funny follow-ups to this. Michael Jordan becomes the first player on the list to miss my other two criteria. At 8.2 Wins Produced and a 0.124 WP48, MJ had a pedestrian season. He was the 38th-ranked player in total Wins Produced for 1997-1998. Indeed, the first true miss on this list.
The easy caveat is Michael Jordan was known to be retiring likely. At a minimum, this was the end of the Bulls era. This was really a lifetime achievement award. Also, I argue that MJ’s best season was 1988-1989, for which he did not win an MVP. So, while the individual season is the first true strike on the MVP award, I would argue MJ deserved five MVPs. How’s that for diplomacy?
5. 1999 - Karl Malone
The second strike on the MVP award! Karl Malone won another MVP in 1999, but at 6.4 Wins Produced at a 0.166 WP48, Malone finished just outside the top 20 at 23rd in the NBA. As before, his teammate, John Stockton, was better. He had 7.7 Wins Produced, good enough for 7th in the NBA, and had a 0.263 WP48. The much, much, much more deserving MVP.
1999 was a lockout-shortened season with only 50 games played. Malone's per-minute production is such that over a full 82 games, he may have just mustered 10 Wins Produced. Regardless, he definitely didn’t deserve the MVP in 1999. Fun trivia fact: the All-Star game wasn’t held due to the lockout, so Karl Malone is the only MVP winner not to be selected for the All-Star game the same season he won MVP.
6. 2001 - Allen Iverson
Without a doubt the biggest blemish on the NBA MVP award. At 2.5 Wins Produced on 0.041 WP48, Iverson becomes the first below-average player to win the award! Iverson placed 8th in total wins on the 76ers that season, even below midseason acquisition Dikembe Mutombo, the player I, and apparently IBM, argue deserved the award.
A swing and a miss on every one of the criteria. If I ever get around to writing a book on advanced stats, I hope I won’t do something as silly as defending this horrible, horrible choice.
7. 2006 - Steve Nash
Ironically I’ll agree with a standard mainstream take, but not in the way you think. 2006 was Nash’s second MVP award. He easily deserved his 2005 award. In 2006 with 17.5 Wins Produced, 0.319 WP48, and being fifth in the NBA in Wins Produced, you’d think he’d be an obvious pick from a nerd like me. Nash’s teammate Shawn Marion finished third in total Wins Produced with 19.5 that season, on 0.305 WP48. Marion is one of the most underrated players in NBA history. A key part of the Suns before Nash, he helped the Suns win multiple sixty-game seasons with Nash and helped Dallas to a title. Much like Horace Grant, Marion should be a first-ballot Hall of Fame player more revered in NBA history, sadly, other greats on his teams may have gotten more of the credit!
Joel Embiid this Season
Joel Embiid sits right at 25th in the NBA with a little over 8.4 Wins Produced and a WP48 of 0.191 as of this writing. There’s a shot in ten games remaining he will pass ten wins and possibly cross into the top 20. The results in the last three games have been all over the place. Three games ago, he left early after sixteen minutes, and he followed this with a 38-minute game, which was MVP-worth, but followed it up with a bad game, admittedly on a back-to-back. Regardless, unless Embiid plays ridiculously well in the last ten games of the season, the biggest issue is that the 76ers employ former MVP James Harden, who leads the team in wins at 12, a 0.294 WP48, and ranked 6th in the NBA. I will also note that the MVP of this season will sadly follow another historical precedent. In 2008, Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul were the top two candidates. Late in the season, their teams played each other, and in a three-point loss, where Kobe outplayed CP3, the decision was basically made. Tonight the 76ers play the Nuggets, and I’m fine saying whichever player on the team that wins will win the MVP. And clearly, I find the recency bias logic of this ridiculous.
The question of where Embiid ends this season on my list will be if he crosses into “Viable MVP” territory with ten wins and top 20. That said, it’s pretty much impossible for him to deserve the 76ers’ vote from me. There is perhaps some irony as the last 76ers MVP was Allen Iverson, an “offensive” guard, who won over a defensive center in Dikembe Mutombo. The good news is, even if Embiid earns MVP, he still won’t make the podium of worst MVPs in NBA history, with Allen Iverson, MJ, and Karl Malone all having better (worse?) cases. There’s plenty of time for the voters to make the right call for Jokic or Harden. We’ll see what happens.
-Dre