The first problem is what does most valuable mean? Does it mean the best player on the best team, does it mean the player who meant the most to his team, or does it just mean the best player in the league regardless of team success? For example, Russell Westbrook won the MVP award this past season after averaging a triple double on a team that won 47 games and lost in the first round of the playoffs. Part of the argument that people made for Westbrook winning was that he played on a team that did not have a lot of great players insinuating that without Westbrook they would not have won 47 games. The argument when Stephen Curry won the MVP awards in 2015 and 2016 was that he was the best player on the best team. You can go throughout the history of the award and players who were awarded the trophy for various reasons.
The second problem is that you have the same group of sportswriters voting for the award and some of them get tired of voting for the same player. Michael Jordan lost the MVP to Karl Malone in 1997 after winning 69 games and having better stats than Malone, but it seemed that people were tired of voting for Jordan. In 2011, Lebron James received 4 first place votes as Derrick Rose cruised to the MVP award. Lebron won four less games than Rose that season, but he dominated on the court. He had better stats than Rose and the reason that the vote was not closer is that people were upset at Lebron for leaving Cleveland to join the Heat. There are other instances of this happening and it is difficult to really decide who the MVP is in the league when you have a group of people that bring personal feelings into their decisions because there is no clarification on what MVP means.
The solution to these problems is not easy. How do you fix this issue? Well, my solution is to add a few awards. The first award that I would add is an Offensive Player of the Year award. There is already a Defensive Player of the Year award, I feel like an OPOY would help a great deal with some of this. The second award you add is a Most Outstanding Player award that is given to the best player from the season. This eliminates the issue of what does MVP mean. The final thing I would do is clarify that the valuable in Most Valuable Player means a player that made his team much better than they could have been without him. For example, this past season the Offensive Player of the Year Award would have gone to James Harden. He averaged two less rebounds and two less points than Westbrook, but he had more assists and his team was the 2nd best offensive team in the league compared to Westbrook's team that was 16th in addition to the fact that Harden was more efficient in his shooting. The Most Outstanding Player would go to Kawhi Leonard. He had an incredibly efficient season and every night took on the scoring load for San Antonio in addition to defending the other team's best player. The Most Valuable Player would go to Isaiah Thomas from the Celtics. The reason is that he made a huge leap for his team offensively, was extremely efficient and helped get his team the number one seed in the Eastern Conference. He was the Boston offense and without him on the court they struggled. You may absolutely disagree with everything that I just wrote, but that is the problem with MVP voting. It is subjective.
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