Bellyaching over the NBA MVP award seems to be an annual tradition. Its a controversial award, not just with regards to the winner/loser, but the definition of the award itself. Some contend that the MVP should go to the "best" player in the league, while others believe it belongs to the most "valuable" player. Value in this case, meaning relative value of a player to his team.
I tend to gravitate towards the second group, so with that in mind, I set out to right the wrongs' of every ill-awarded MVP trophy since 1974. To do this, I needed a metric that could accurately measure "value". The obvious choice was VORP (Value Over Replacement Player), a derivation of ASPM that attempts to rank players based not just on productivity, but on "value" to their team. Factors like position, salary, and replacement level skill are accounted for, which makes VORP the metric for the job.
The methodology was simple. I subtract the league leader's score (VORP) from the MVP's VORP, for every year dating back to 1974. The larger a negative number, the greater a travesty it was that the MVP didn't go to the league leader in VORP. I omitted values of 0 from the table, which were the years the MVP went to the correct player.
I tend to gravitate towards the second group, so with that in mind, I set out to right the wrongs' of every ill-awarded MVP trophy since 1974. To do this, I needed a metric that could accurately measure "value". The obvious choice was VORP (Value Over Replacement Player), a derivation of ASPM that attempts to rank players based not just on productivity, but on "value" to their team. Factors like position, salary, and replacement level skill are accounted for, which makes VORP the metric for the job.
The methodology was simple. I subtract the league leader's score (VORP) from the MVP's VORP, for every year dating back to 1974. The larger a negative number, the greater a travesty it was that the MVP didn't go to the league leader in VORP. I omitted values of 0 from the table, which were the years the MVP went to the correct player.
-Michael Jordan and LeBron James have suffered the most from "MVP Snubbery". Not only have they been snubbed the most, but their snubs tend to be the largest.
-Steve Nash, Magic Johnson, and Karl Malone are the primary culprits of these MVP travesties. Nash and Magic especially, two point guards with the worst VORP gaps, who snubbed the two GOAT's repeatedly.
-LeBron, Bird, and Dr.J, are the three players who've won numerous MVP's, but haven't snubbed anyone.
-Derrick Rose winning the MVP over LeBron caused a lot of angst, but it wasn't that bad of a snub. His 2011 ranks toward the bottom of the Snubbery list.
- I ran a couple regressions and determined that the accuracy of MVP voting has remained the same over time. Since 1974, the MVP has been correctly awarded about 49% of the time.
That's all folks. I'm posting the above table on a separate tab at the left under "MVP Snubs". Plenty more fun and interesting posts are on the way.
-Steve Nash, Magic Johnson, and Karl Malone are the primary culprits of these MVP travesties. Nash and Magic especially, two point guards with the worst VORP gaps, who snubbed the two GOAT's repeatedly.
-LeBron, Bird, and Dr.J, are the three players who've won numerous MVP's, but haven't snubbed anyone.
-Derrick Rose winning the MVP over LeBron caused a lot of angst, but it wasn't that bad of a snub. His 2011 ranks toward the bottom of the Snubbery list.
- I ran a couple regressions and determined that the accuracy of MVP voting has remained the same over time. Since 1974, the MVP has been correctly awarded about 49% of the time.
That's all folks. I'm posting the above table on a separate tab at the left under "MVP Snubs". Plenty more fun and interesting posts are on the way.