Around the NBA: MVP Talk & Lakers Offseason Hopes

by Julian Spivey & Preston Tolliver

How Much Can One Great Week Affect an MVP Race?

Julian:
 
James Harden had one of the greatest runs in NBA history at the end of December and into the first part of January and that got us to thinking how much can one great week or stretch impact an MVP race. Harden, the reigning NBA MVP, is coming off the best stretch of his career in which he averaged more than 40 points per game in the last week of 2018 leading his team to its hottest point of the year and doing it all without one of the best point guards in the league in Chris Paul. Harder was named the NBA’s Player of the Month for December, in which he averaged almost 36 point per game, eight assists and six rebounds and the Houston Rockets went 11-4 and sprung from out of the playoff hunt into the top few teams. When he averaged more than 40 points a game over a 10-game streak last month he joined Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant as the only players in league history to score 400 points over a 10-game span.
 
Can a great – really, historical – weeks have an impact on the league’s MVP race. Yes. But, I’m not sure a terrific week for a player in the first half of the season will be in the minds of MVP voters come the end of the season. If Harden’s week had come heading into the playoff stretch than it would’ve had a bigger impact. I do think Harden is well on his way to winning his second consecutive MVP, but it’s certainly too early to count out others like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Lebron James, Steph Curry and others.
 
Preston:

Let me tell you a story – an uplifting tale about a basketball player who, for a couple of weeks in 2012, flew among the stars. In 12 games leading to the All-Star break, this young wunderkind was one of the best players in the National Basketball Association, carrying a team with more dead weight than the Flying Dutchman to a 9-3 record. This bright-eyed knucklehead was named Jeremy Lin, and after that All-Star break, he fell from the skies with the velocity of Icarus tied to a thousand anvils.
 
Can a good (or even great) (or even phenomenal) (or even marvelous or other-worldly or ungodly) stretch of basketball change the outcome of an MVP race? Sure. But the pieces have to be there on both sides of that stretch. For a player to be deemed most valuable, they have to play at a ridiculously high level, for the most part, from the first game of the NBA season to the last game of the NBA season. 
James Harden has put together one of the best stretches in recent memory and provided he doesn’t enter his playoff form super early this year (and assuming Chris Paul’s eventual return doesn’t throw things super sideways), he’s probably looking toward his second consecutive MVP. But it’s not a lock, because basketball players historically play their best basketball in the second half of the season. Don’t count out LeBron, or Giannis, or Kyrie, or even Kemba freakin’ Walker (but you can definitely count out Jeremy Lin).

Who is the Greatest NBA Player to Never Win Most Valuable Player?

Preston:
 
The omissions of great players from NBA’s Most Valuable Player award are many, and almost always not because they didn’t play at a peak level, but because there was another Hall of Fame player there who cast just big enough of a shadow over everyone else to get the award. John Havlicek and Jerry West are huge snubs for eras in which Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain took nine of the awards in an 11-year span. Of the nine MVP awards given between the 1983-84 season and the 1991-92 season, only three men got them: Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan (Jordan would go on to win two more, in 1996 and 1998). That doesn’t mean there weren’t players undeserving of the award in that stretch – it just means that those players played alongside three of the top six or seven players in the history of basketball.
 
And that’s where my answer for this question comes in. Punching and kicking and hobbling during the passing of the torch from Magic to Michael, Isiah Thomas led the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons to two championships between the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers eras (note: he did win a Finals MVP in 1990, a series in which he averaged 27.6 points and 7 assists per game). In the 1989 Finals, he sprained his ankle but still put up 25 points in the last quarter of the game (though they’d go on to lose that game and the series that year). He didn’t just shine in the postseason. In 1985, he averaged 21.2 points and 13.9 assists a game (Bird, who won the MVP that year, averaged 28.7 points and 6.6 assists). Those numbers tapered off as he went through his career, but he was still a threat into the early ‘90s. His Pistons effectively put an end to the Magic Era and prolonged the start of the Jordan one. Isiah Thomas, all 6 feet, one inches of him, is the greatest player in the NBA to never receive a regular season MVP award.
 
Julian:
 
I understand it being hard to win a Most Valuable Player award when you share your entire career basically with the two greatest centers in NBA history: Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, one of which you shared a team with for a while. But Jerry West is the greatest player in NBA history to never win MVP. After all, he’s the guy the NBA patterned its own logo after. Remarkably West finished second in MVP voting on four different occasions, including three years in a row from 1970-1972. In the 1971-72 season, the only year in which West would win a championship leading the Lakers to the greatest year in NBA history at that time and a still standing record 33-game winning streak he would finish runner-up to Abdul-Jabbar.
 
The second greatest NBA player to never win MVP was West’s longtime Lakers teammate Elgin Baylor, who would finish second in voting twice and just so happened to do so during the Boston Celtics ‘60s dynasty and Oscar Robertson averaging a triple-double for an entire season.  

What Do You See the Los Angeles Lakers Doing This Offseason? 

Preston:
 
Here’s the problem with the Los Angeles Lakers’ signing of LeBron James last year. They signed him for four years, but the team probably won’t be a serious title contender until maybe the third year of his contract. They did little else to prepare for the future last year, and Anthony Davis – the seemingly destined next star – doesn’t become a free agent for another year-and-a-half (a trade is possible, but I don’t expect New Orleans to ship their star player to the competition). 
 
So, let’s answer this question by assuming that in 2020, Anthony Davis will definitely be a Laker. What the Lakers need to do is fill their other gaps. If they want Anthony Davis, then they don’t need Demarcus Cousins, who becomes available this summer. They also don’t need Kevin Durant, who also becomes available this summer. They don’t need Kawhi Leonard, who very much does not have a Los Angeles personality. 
 
What the Lakers need is a better backcourt. That leaves a lot of good options in this summer’s field of free agents. Klay Thompson defecting from Golden State to Hollywood would be pretty fun. Kemba Walker also comes open this summer and could really help the Lakers space the floor. Malcolm Brogdon could be a good pickup, too, and Terry Rozier is dying for a shot at a starting role that he definitely will not be getting in Boston. But let’s be real. It’s the Lakers, and if their moves last season tell us anything, it’s this: this summer, the Los Angeles Laker will sign 2012 MVP snub Jeremy Lin.
 
Julian:

LeBron James wants to win and he’s going to want to win now. I don’t think he’s going to want to wait until the third year of his four year deal (which could potentially mark the end of his career). Also, this is the longest possibly ever that the Lakers have been irrelevant, and that franchise has to be itching to get back into contention like no other. I agree Anthony Davis is likely to join the Lakers at least when his free agency period comes up in the summer of 2020, but if I’m the Lakers I’m going to try to see if I can make a deal for him early and lock him up long term. I don’t know how hard that would be to accomplish and the Lakers might not want to give much up. Preston said, “the Lakers don’t need Kevin Durant.” Hell yes, they do need Kevin Durant. There isn’t a team in this league that doesn’t need Durant. He’s one of the three best players in the league and if they have any opportunity at all to sign him, they should try. If that means not having a shot for Davis by 2020 than so be it. I feel the same way about Kawhi Leonard. If you can get him, go get him. Klay Thompson does seem like the most likely option for the Lakers, but I’d personally hate to see that as it wouldn’t be fun for me to see the “Splash Brothers” split up in Golden State. I wouldn’t be surprised to see James, Leonard and Thompson all on the Lakers roster next season. We’ll see what happens.