The Dirty Secret Behind “Dwight for MVP”

I have LeBron as MVP - no one is better than him. What I wouldve done this year for LeBron to come to the Knicks. A core of LeBron, Amare, Chandler, Gallo, Mozgov, Fields and Douglas would have been so fun to watch. And would do very well in the East this year and for years to come. Im happy for Melo, I think he is fantastic adn we will do well having him - but LeBron is next level.

"1) Howard’s offensive improvements STILL don’t make him a viable crunch time shot creator, 2) his post game improvements are highly noticeable largely because of the PR job done in the offseason, and 3) the improvement is being compared to a state of having had NO skillful-looking offense to begin with." 1) 1.2 points per possession even if he gets fouled in crunch time. That's vs. 0.8 points per possession for the league average offense in crunch time, and 1.07 for the best. Obviously Orlando doesn't go to him, but that statistic suggests they should. 2) No, they are noticeable because he increased his usage rate greatly and maintained his efficiency. That is genuine great improvement. 3) Have you watched the Magic for the last three years or are you just going on national talking head commentary? Skillful looking is not the issue, he has been significantly skillful. Take a look at his efficiency stats over the last three years. No he hasn't been LeBron offensively, but he has certainly produced at a prodigious rate. I agree Lebron's game has no holes. He is a fantastic player. And if you were going to argue he was the best player over the last three years, I would agree. But for this year, I would disagree.

Alright, time to go watch the game like everyone else to likes NBA basketball :D

One more thing, from the article itself - I agree that stats folks are going for Dwight Howard largely because he sits halfway between the standard "Intangibles = Rose for MVP" arguments and "Stats = Lebron for MVP" arguments. It's like picking a political candidate in the primaries based on how he matches up to the other party's candidate. That said, I liken Dwight Howard's MVP candidacy to John Edwards. Charming, looks pretty good on paper, but has the kinds of weaknesses that let you know deep down inside that this guy isn't the one. (I'm open to suggestions, though...)

Heh, come to think of it, nobody's got a realistic chance of getting the MVP without having a title-contending record or defending champ status, so that's not much of a point to make. The element of "pleasant surprise" is really carrying Rose's candidacy this year. Also, his team really does have some great wins against top teams and the best record in the East. While I can see (and often argue) that the "regular season team success" requirement for the MVP award is unfair to elite players with bad GMs, it DOES serve an important function: it eliminates the possibility of having to consider guys like Stephon Marbury for the MVP award. Sure, the guy is getting good scoring numbers, which is enough to make him get PAID like an elite player despite the fact that he KILLS his teams and everyone who gets rid of him does substantially better with whoever they get as a replacement. So while it's not fair that truly good players on bad teams don't get considered for the MVP, it's arguably worth it as a heuristic to keep team-killing lockerroom cancers like "Starbury" out of the race. In applying this to Dwight Howard's candidacy, I'm mixed on it. I think his immaturity is a serious weakness but I also think that even if his team were much worse - e.g. coached by Vinny Del Negro - he'd deserve to be considered for MVP based on his productivity. It probably also hurts that he has Shaq-like physical dominance but doesn't dominate the game like the previous Superman did (and Shaq was seriously penalized for his size to begin with).

On - I agree that Howard's MVP candidacy is mostly weakened by subjective factors AND the fact that Lebron exists. Simply put, Howard's team will really need to be a legit title contender to get him the MVP. While he's boosted his offensive productivity, his team got worse and his epic whining and technical foul-based suspensions have become just as notable as his play. I'm not saying the refs are always right, but a year ago (maybe two), he was standing up to SVG's incessant negativity and now he's right there next to him. It's immature and it hurts the team - there's even a basic stat for it: "Suspensions from accumulated technical fouls!" My guess is that Dwight Howard's intangible negatives will take his team getting the best regular season record to overcome no matter WHAT his statistics say (provided that he doesn't turn into Shaq on the offensive end). That or his team will have to be the defending champions from the previous year. His team will need to prove that he puts them in line for the title one way or another, and that's simply not the case here.

Seriously, I'm gonna guess the "Lebron irreparably undermines your MVP campaign" effect probably had a LOT to do with Rose (who had been on record saying, to paraphrase, "why can't I be the MVP?") being kinda lukewarm to the idea of Lebron joining him on the Bulls. Wade was excited about the idea and did everything he could to sell Bron on coming to the Heat while Rose really didn't wan't to take the back seat when he wanted his own taste of the spotlight.

I don't see Dwight over Lebron. Obviously Dwight is a defensive anchor, but I recall reading a great article comparing the Celtics' D to the Heat's and it's clear that the Heat's great D is predicated on Lebron and Wade's perimeter ferocity and fantastically athletic help defense. So it's not like Howard is the ONLY defensive anchor in the MVP running. Beyond that, Lebron sets up his teammates and encourages his guys to play more confidently on offense and makes a point to hit guys that are open and keeps going to them even if they miss a shot. Add in his court vision and fantastic passing ability and you've got a guy that's integral to both the offense and defense of one of the top teams in the league. The only argument that you can make against Lebron is that Wade and Bosh are the second and third best players on his team and that it's hard to see the stuff that he's added to his already astounding tool bag. Basically, he's setting screens and playing the PnR without the ball in his hands (something TOTALLY new) and he's continuing to refine his post game - something that's gone entirely unnoticed. Considering the following: 1) Howard's offensive improvements STILL don't make him a viable crunch time shot creator, 2) his post game improvements are highly noticeable largely because of the PR job done in the offseason, and 3) the improvement is being compared to a state of having had NO skillful-looking offense to begin with. Lebron's game simply has NO holes. None. There's basically nothing he CAN'T do and nothing he isn't willing to do to win games. He's a great teammate and leader, incredibly productive, great on both ends of the floor, constantly improving his game, and he's managed to be the same fantastic player he's always been despite having to change his game to play a dramatically different role on a new team that plays more to Wade's strengths and weaknesses than his own. Rose just had to keep doing what he was already doing with better teammates, a deeper bench, and a DRAMATICALLY better coach. Ok, he went from "can't shoot 3s at all" to "can shoot 3s" but he's still a volume shooter. Lebron has had to change his game, not just add to it, but learn to play a big important role WITHOUT the ball in his hands in addition to getting the same assists he's gotten in the past. Yes, he's got better teammates too, but there's NO depth and he's still able to be the most productive player in the league while getting ridiculous boos from everybody's home crowd (compared to a year ago when everyone loved him and he easily won the MVP). To maintain the level of productivity he's maintained in the face of everything is astounding - when has a reigning MVP-class player ever had the humility to change his game just because he CAN and it will better fit with his lesser teammates' strengths and give everyone a better chance to win? While he's the better ball handler, he's taking the hit and playing off the ball simply because Wade NEEDS the ball in his hands to be effective more than Lebron does. If Wade had gone to Chicago, he'd have had to play around Rose's offensive needs, just like the whole Olympic team had to do for Carmelo "I don't even consider passing" Anthony. Had Lebron gone to Chicago, he'd have done basically what he's doing now - destroying defenses with his on and off-ball skills. And NOBODY would be talking about Rose for MVP :) That brings me to what might be a decent abstract MVP candidate test - ask "If these two potential candidates were on the same team, who would be the guy getting the first place MVP votes?" There's simply NOBODY in the entire league that would top Lebron in this test. If Kobe had gotten Lebron instead of Pau, we'd be talking about how much easier Lebron made the game for him - NO WAY he'd have gotten the MVP. Lebron's just flat-out BETTER than Kobe in so many aspects of the game. He's not a glue guy; he's a SUPERGLUE guy. I mean, Wade is a legit MVP candidate and he's not even in the discussion anymore. If Miami had only brought back Bosh and filled the Lebron cap space with a better bench, Lebron's team (whoever they were) would still have a top record and Lebron would STILL be an MVP candidate, but more importantly, WADE would be in the running. Sure, Wade *hurt* Lebron's MVP candidate status, but Lebron EXTINGUISHED Wade's chances. Is there anybody out there that he wouldn't do the same to?

We can quantify all the direct ways in which people can contribute, we just haven't had people go through hours and hours of tape to make some of the statistics I pointed out above publicly available. Some teams do track that kind of information though. My point regarding Dwight vs. Lebron is that they are quite close in composite offensive and overall metrics. When players have little to separate them, in the absence of the statistics I mentioned above, then there's a place for subjective evaluation. (Unlike the case with Derrick Rose who's not really close.) And the subjective case for Dwight being significantly better on defense than LeBron (who is also very good in this area) has been made by many. In my earlier comment I was trying to explain why I felt that this subjective distinction is different from the subjective claims made by Rose supporters. It is a subjective claim that is not contradicted by objective measures. Howard's FT shooting problems are overstated as well. 60% at the line is 1.2 points per possession. It's about the same if you foul him or if you don't. The reason people are confused is because most players have a huge efficiency differential from the line vs. the field. 1.2 points per possession is still great, especially in crunch time. Howard's FT shooting % goes up to 64% in crunch time yielding 1.28 points per possession. Comparing this to the Magic's actual crunch time offense makes one think they are foolish to not actively involve Howard more.

Howard is also a terrible emotional leader for his team, earning frequent T's and having FT-shooting jitters that do nothing to inspire confidence. Yes, he's a defensive beast, and YES it's awesome that he's improved his post game so much, but when it comes to considering his game and the intangibles, he's the bizarro Steve Nash - something that can't help his MVP chances.

I would just point out that there _are_ statistical types out there who voted for LeBron: if you look at the APBRmetrics board, the MVP vote there is currently tied between Dwight and LeBron (and DRose is third). And my vote would go to LeBron, too, although it is very close. "The dirty secret behind “Dwight for MVP” is that an objective rationale for his victory doesn’t really exist." Hey, let's save "no objective rationale to win MVP" for Andrea Bargnani. I'd say there's 90% of an objective case for Dwight Howard, with 10% subjective/intuition needed to push him over the top. Saying there's no objective rationale for Dwight to win makes it sound like it's just fanatical Magic fans blindly voting their prejudice, rather than mostly objective people breaking a statistical tie on the basis of some other kind of information. I'd still disagree with people who voted for Dwight, but I wouldn't say they had no objective rationale for voting for him. It's just so close that you have to break the deadlock somehow and vote for someone.

i haven't yet studied the math behind all the advanced metrics pointing to Dwight over Derrick. That said--although there is more narrative behind proponents of Rose for MVP, isn't the argument that because there are no objective metrics to quantify some of his areas of contribution we should discount them a bit shortsighted? It sounds like the argument is "we can't quantify that so it has no value" instead of "we haven't figured out how to quantify that yet so we are forced to use qualitative evaluations"

I'm with you on Dwight over Derrick. But can we prove Dwight over LeBron? Is it even possible?

Also, unadjusted +/- numbers are more consistent for evaluating lineups (as an aggregate statistic), but are very noisy as an individual statistic. Adjusted +/- (and the other +/- statistics) were created for this very reason.

It's really simple. The reason the defensive case is more subjective, is because we don't have very good defensive statistics. It would be very very nice if someone came up with a crowd sourced model for tagging plays so we could find out things like % shots altered, field goal % when player x contests the shot, % of x play disrupted, etc. These things are not hard to track, but it is a herculean task for one person to accomplish. Until then, for defense, unlike offense, we still have to fall back on some amount of subjective analysis while keeping our biases in mind. It is certainly fair to point out that this is not entirely consistent with the statistical communities approach to offense, but this is due to the limitations of defensive statistics and not due to some imagined hypocrisy. In the games of the Magic that I have watched, Dwight Howard has been the lone defender to play above average. This was not always the case. Rashard Lewis was an above average defender for the magic until this year when his game fell off a cliff. Hedo Turkoglu played well on defense in Orlando on their magical run two years ago, but hasn't returned to that form in the games I have watched. Courtney Lee and Michel Pietrus are also removed from this years squad. The defense is definitely successful due to the scheme and team buy in. However a great deal of the scheme is predicated on funneling players to where Dwight Howard can help. These are of course subjective observations, and they are weighted less than objective statistics, but they do still count for something unless they are disproved by objective statistics. And that's really the difference between the Derrick Rose candidacy and the Dwight Howard candidacy. The Derrick Rose argument is contradicted by statistics. Not every plank of the Dwight Howard argument is supported directly by statistics, but none are contradicted by it.

Great article. I always said the same people that favor Dwight over Rose because of Thib's coaching are most likely also severely undervaluing Gundy's coaching schemes.