Shaun Powell has covered the NBA since 1985. He sat down to discuss his weekly MVP Ladder column, his thoughts on the league and more in this month’s Reddit AMA.
Check out what he had to say.
Question
Who do you have as your ROY, 6MOY, and Most Improved Player?
Answer:
Rookie of the year, I’ll go with Kon Knueppel. That’s a close call, though. He’s been more durable. And I think he helped his team win more than any of the other rookies. He has played an important role with the Charlotte Hornets. Most Improved, I always wrestle with this award, because sometimes you have a guy like Ja Morant win it when he was actually pretty good the previous year. You look at a guy like Jalen Johnson, who’s got more triples than anybody, but then you look at Nikola Jokić. I thought he was actually pretty good last year and even improved this year. I’m gonna go with Deni Avdija out in Portland. This is a guy who’s taken up a pretty meaty role with the Trail Blazers. They may or may not make the playoffs, but he’s played pretty well. Sixth Man, the thing about the sixth man is that it gets into a little bit of a gray area. You don’t know how many players started more than enough games, but I’m gonna go with Payton Pritchard, if he is eligible. If he’s not, then it’ll be Derrick White. One of those two Celtics. Whichever one is eligible, I’ll go with that. Maybe neither of them is eligible!
Question
Happy St. Patrick’s.
Speaking of green, can you elaborate on the rationale of Jaylen Brown over Luka on the MVP ladder last week? Please be as quantitative as possible in your answer
Answer:
Yeah, that’s a great question. The MVP ladder stretches from opening night until now. Changes happen, and just because a player is above another player one week doesn’t mean they’re gonna be above that player the next week. Sometimes, a guy like Jaylen Brown, who’s been such an important part of the Boston Celtics, basically helping to carry that team with Jayson Tatum out, I think he’s gotta get some sort of credit for that. I know people will argue that maybe the Celtics’ record when Jaylen Brown sat was just about the same. But that doesn’t necessarily pass the smell test or the eye test. And I think the impact that he has on the floor, and particularly against good teams and against good opponents, has been significant. The other thing about the MVP ladder is just because someone is somewhere one week, the week that really matters is the final MVP ladder. That’s the one that matters. So, like, Jaylen Brown can be over Luka Dončić for every week, but if he’s not over him in the final week, it doesn’t matter. In the final week, that’s the final order. As far as Luka, he’s having a very good year if you dismiss his defense. Offensively, he’s probably the most gifted player other than Nikola Jokić, and even more gifted than Shai, in my opinion. Shai’s not the passer that Luka is. And lately, Luka has played very well. I would say Luka has a very good chance of moving up on the MVP ladder this Friday.
Question:
Take us through your process of building the MVP ladder. What metrics/factors do you value most?
Answer:
I can sit here and say that I have computerized data, and watch every single possession, plus/minus, and all those sorts of things, but I would rather not get too complicated. Sometimes it’s just the eye test. Sometimes you look and see how a player plays during a stretch when he’s playing top-notch competition. There’s a player who can be very good against, say, a backup player on the other team because the starter’s out. Or maybe he has a string of good games against some very marginal teams. Should that be heavily in his favor, going against someone else on the MVP ladder who’s playing a much more competitive schedule? Certain things are obvious. Where are they statistically? That counts for something. The other thing is, how do they impact their team’s winning? That counts for something. So I usually just like to add all that into the mix and really go week by week. Finally, and I think this is where people fall into a trap with the MVP ladder, people become prisoners of the moment. Someone could have 2 or 3 really good games, and then the next day, they expect them to be number one on the MVP ladder. Not taking into account the MVP ladder takes into account how that player has played since opening night. And I think that’s very, very important. I try not to fall into that trap. Yes, if a player plays very well leading up to the MVP ladder, I definitely take that into account. But I also take into account what has that player done for the full season.
Question:
Do you think if the Celtics and Lakers switched conferences in the 80s the title count for the decade would be 5-3 in the Celtics favor instead? Had to take something out of Boston having to battle Philly, Milwaukee, and Detroit every year and even their first round matchups were hey go try to shut down Jordan. Seems we could have a similar situation again if Minnesota goes East to make room for the expansion teams.
Answer:
Yeah, that’s a great question. How the Lakers would have done in the East? Boy, I don’t know. I mean, the West did have some decent teams back then, but of course, they didn’t have Jordan. As far as Minnesota moving to the East and expansion and how they’ll do it, a lot of that is hypothetical. If you look at the makeup of each Conference now, that doesn’t mean that’s going to be the makeup of each Conference in two, three years from now. Or maybe, the next decade. You take a team like the Washington Wizards. They’re losing now. Does that mean the Wizards are gonna be losing 2 years from now? Maybe the Wizards 2 years from now, with the additions they made, and suppose they get the number 1 pick or top 3 pick overall in the draft, maybe they’re one of the four best teams in the East. And then suddenly, you’ll look at the East a little bit differently. And I could say the same thing about the West. Suppose the Utah Jazz, who have some nice pieces, get a high draft pick. They’ve got a good young core that they’re developing, and suppose they make another addition. All of a sudden, you look at the Utah Jazz a little bit differently. It’s a long-winded way of saying, in the NBA, things can happen, and they can happen quickly. And I think we’ve seen this time and time again.
Question:
Who is, currently, your favorite non-Starter player to watch in the League right now, and why?
By this I don’t mean ‘best player’ but the one you get the most enjoyment out of seeing play for XYZ reason…
Also, thanks for doing this, much appreciated!
Answer:
Naz Reid. And I know he’s one of the best sixth men in the NBA, and by the way, if he qualifies for the Sixth Man, I have to put him up there. I like Naz Reid. He’s got a nice flow to his game. He comes in, and he produces right away. He’s a valuable part of the Minnesota Timberwolves. If you ask me that question maybe next week or two weeks from now, or maybe last month, maybe I’d have a different answer.
Question:
When it comes to players like Bam—who’s now the second place holder for most points scored in a game—what do you do for such anomalous stats for a player who is otherwise pretty consistent?
Answer:
I think I wrote that Bam was a pretty good player who just got hot. And that happens in the NBA. It was really the perfect storm. Number one, he couldn’t miss. And number two, he’s playing against the Washington Wizards, a team that has got a lot of young players on the floor. This is March, maybe they’re not as competitive as they are starting to pull players off the floor in the fourth quarter. It was strange, absolutely. Bam is known for being a defensive player. His previous career scoring high was 41 points. As a matter of fact, I think that’s the only time in his career he ever got 40 points or more. It was a combination that he got hot, plus in the fourth quarter, particularly the last 6 minutes of that game, the goal of the game was not necessarily to win, because Miami was going to win, the goal was to get Bam at least one more point than Kobe Bryant. Mission accomplished. I think you had those two forces working for Bam, but you could put any other player in Bam’s spot that night, who got hot, and then his coach and his teammates tried to do whatever they could to get him the required amount of points to get beyond Kobe Bryant. Those things happen. It may not ever happen again in our basketball lifetimes with a player like Bam. I give him a lot of credit. I don’t dismiss it because the first 60 or 65 points were purely legitimate. He was just hot. It was just the last 6 minutes of that game when things got a little strange.
Question:
What factors did you guys think of when putting SGA over Jokic in the MVP ladder both this year and last year? Was it the performances against the Nuggets? The team record? The consistency?
Answer:
How about all of the above? First of all, you know what was very weird? And Nikola Jokić said this. I think last year was the best year of his career, and better than any of his MVP years. I think until he got injured this year, he was off to the best start of his career. Had he stayed healthy, I would say this year would have probably been the best year of his career. I know that sounds strange, but he’s on such a roll, averaging a triple-double, just doing things we haven’t seen in the NBA in quite some time. I know you can throw out Russell Westbrook, but Westbrook is not 7-foot tall. Where Shai gets the edge is his consistency, number one. And number two, Shai plays both ends of the floor. And we’ve seen him be one of the better defensive guards in the NBA. I think last year, he led all point guards in blocked shots, and he helped trigger that team defensively. I know you have Lu Dort as well, but Shai plays both ends of the floor better than Nikola Jokić, and I don’t think I’m out of bounds by saying that. Taking nothing away from Joker, you could make a case, and I would not argue against you very strongly, that he should have won MVP last year. You could even make the case this year, and I will not argue against you very strongly that he could win MVP this year.
Question:
Though the NBA stopped giving out a comeback player of the year award 40 years ago, who would you vote for if it was still around?
Answer:
You know, the reason why the NBA stopped giving that award out is because players were coming back for all the wrong reasons, which we won’t even get into now. I would have to kind of look to see. Jayson Tatum obviously would be the obvious one, but he hasn’t played that many games this year. I’m looking down the NBA standings, trying to figure out which player missed time. I can’t really think of one in particular. Even Kawhi Leonard, I know he missed a fair amount of games, but last year, he was actually pretty healthy. I know he missed some games at the start this year, but he’s come back and played very well. A guy like Zion Williamson. Has had a habit of missing games, but this year, that hasn’t been the case. The problem with Zion this year is that it hasn’t been reflected in the standings with the New Orleans Pelicans. They’re likely headed to the lottery, and you could argue whether or not he’s actually the best player on that New Orleans team. Dejounte Murray, who hurt his Achilles last year, has returned and played extremely well for New Orleans. Those are just some examples, some players I’m giving out. But I really would have to study the rosters to see who really missed significant time last year, because that’s what a comeback is all about.
Question:
What are your Eastern and Western Conference Finals matchups? You wrote about the Nuggets finding their identity late and Tatum’s return to Boston being that power shift in the East. Is it the favorites to get there, or do you think a team has an Indiana-esque Cinderella run in them like last year?
Answer:
It’s hard to answer that not knowing how the order’s going to be in each Conference. My two favorite teams might meet each other in the semifinals, but just for argument’s sake, I would say in the East, I’m looking at Boston and Cleveland. I know Detroit’s held the number one seed down for much of the season, they’ll probably go in the playoffs as the number one seed, but my feeling is with Cleveland getting James Harden and Boston getting Jayson Tatum, those teams have probably a little bit more upside than Cade Cunningham and the Pistons. I could be completely wrong about that, but the East is pretty close. You can make a case for any of those three teams. I know a lot of Knicks fans are gonna get on my case about that, and they certainly can be in the mix, but someone’s gotta go. And in this situation, I’m gonna say Cleveland and Boston in the East. In the West, as much as my heart says that the Denver Nuggets are gonna get their act together, they’re gonna be a lot healthier and stronger come playoffs, and the fact that they took the defending champions to a seventh game last year in the playoffs. I‘m gonna go with, the current number one and two seeds, Oklahoma City and San Antonio. Oklahoma City hasn’t really even been healthy all year, and they’ve stayed the number one seed. Shout out to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for that. And the Spurs, they’ve beaten Oklahoma City 3 out of 4 times this year, and this team is just getting better and better right before our eyes, and they’ve got youth. Wembenyama is developing very quickly offensively to where he’s a two-way force now. I think it’ll be those two teams in the West, and Boston and Cleveland in the East.
Question:
Will Jalen Johnson make first or second team all nba? Hawks haven’t had one since 1986.
Answer:
Yes! He won’t make the first team, but I can definitely make a case for him on the second team. He will make an All-NBA team this year. I went to the Hawks game last night, and this guy was just tremendous. 39-point, triple-double, and he’s just been fantastic all year. I had a feeling back in December that this was going to be Jalen Johnson’s team instead of Trae Young’s team very quickly, and lo and behold, that’s proven to be true. Here’s a guy who left Duke under strange circumstances, got hurt, and decided to prepare for the NBA, and left his team in mid-season. In his rookie season, he was okay, not all that great, but he’s worked hard. He’s made himself a heck of a player. Defensively, he’s good, passing the ball, spotting his teammates, rebounding, and scoring. You have to give this guy a lot of credit for how hard he’s worked and how much he has improved over the last few years. He is definitely all NBA material. As a matter of fact, I have him in the top 10 list on the MVP ladder.