This squad plays team ball from top to bottom more than any other team in the league…but with the success of this team so far this season, Paolo deserves a bit of praise in this regard. Orlando is winning and he is the #1 player. He deserves to be in the conversation right now.
“The guys who have the most value are the ones who impact winning the most.” Yeah, that’s still not Paolo.
I will once again go to my statement of “no one on the 2014 spurs was an MVP level player.” Paolo does not impact winning the most. Every impact metric shows him to be good, but nowhere near the levels of Jokic or Embiid. Everyone on the Magic is contributing. We have arguably the best bench unit in the league. The bench BPM has been insane.
Sorry, but Paolo should not be anywhere near the MVP discussion. Everyone should know by now that it means the best regular season player that season. That’s why they gave it to Jokic in 2021 and 22 despite not having the best record. I think you’re giving Paolo way too much credit for our success. We aren’t even a lottery team without him. That’s how good our defense is. And he’s not even the third best defender on our team.
Also, the game he had that big time shot over Caruso was a travel. Sorry it just was there’s no other way around it. We can’t complain about refs and then be okay with that.
I look at MVP by counting stats, and advanced metrics which include on/off numbers. Paolo is averaging 19.5 ppg, 6.5 rpg, and 4.5 apg with around 3.5 turnovers. Good numbers. His BPM is 1.0. No MVP in history would’ve had one that low. His +- isn’t even the highest on the team. Ingles is over +70 while Paolo is over +20. Even with their limited minutes, every single person on the bench other than Black have the highest +-
It’s obvious where our success is coming from: a collective effort.
Paolo for MVP
Jokic, Embiid, Luka, Shai, Haliburton, Durant, Steph, Giannis, Fox, Tatum, Sengun, Lebron, Sabonis, Anthony Edwards, Brunson, Adebayo. All of these players I’d put for MVP before Paolo. But not all of them are even seriously in the conversation, especially Sengun and Brunson. To me, it really just depends on what u mean by “in the conversation”. If you’re outside of the top ten, I’m not counting u. Paolo isn’t even in the top 15.
Paolo is the most valuable player on one of the most successful teams. He is in the conversation, as evidenced by us having a conversation about it.
An arbitrary “top ten” might matter to you, but it isn’t stopping the conversation from happening.
=)