{"id":14960,"date":"2022-04-12T14:07:35","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T14:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/?p=14960"},"modified":"2022-04-12T14:07:35","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T14:07:35","slug":"final-b-r-staff-nba-mvp-rankings-for-2021-22-season-bleacher-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/final-b-r-staff-nba-mvp-rankings-for-2021-22-season-bleacher-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Final B\/R Staff NBA MVP Rankings for 2021-22 Season | Bleacher Report"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Stacy Revere\/Getty Images<\/span><\/small><\/div>\n Multiple sources informed the Bleacher Report NBA staff that there has been an alarming lack of clarity on who should win the 2022 MVP award.<\/p>\n And so, on the heels of the regular season’s conclusion, we decided to cook up some.<\/p>\n A no-brainer or concrete favorite typically emerges this late into the process, but that hasn’t happened this year. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic all have MVP cases that would be considered airtight in any other season.<\/p>\n This says nothing of the latter half of the ballot. Devin Booker, Stephen Curry, DeMar DeRozan, Luka Doncic, Ja Morant and Chris Paul all had seasons worthy of landing them within the top five of MVP voting.<\/p>\n Moral of the story: Brace yourself. Because if our results are any indication of what’s actually going to happen, we’re in for one heck of a closely contested final ballot.<\/p>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n 1 of 6<\/p>\n Morry Gash\/Associated Press<\/span><\/small><\/div>\n Bleacher Report asked 11 NBA experts to vote for their top-five MVP candidates from this season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Each first-place vote is worth five points. A second-place vote is worth four points. That pattern continues down to fifth place, which is worth one point.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At the end, we tallied the votes, calculated the points and established our definitive top-five ranking.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This is one part of a B\/R staff series ranking the top-five most deserving candidates for major NBA awards this season. Special thanks to the following experts for their votes:\u00a0<\/span><\/em>A. Sherrod Blakely<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Andy Bailey<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Dan Favale<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Eric Pincus<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Grant Hughes<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Greg Swartz<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Jake Fischer<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Jonathan Wasserman<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Mo Dakhil<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Sean Highkin<\/span><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Zach Buckley<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n 2 of 6<\/p>\n Rick Scuteri\/Associated Press<\/span><\/small><\/div>\n Gross amounts of energy have been expended debating the most valuable player on the league-best Phoenix Suns. Consensus has generally tilted toward Chris Paul over Devin Booker, given how much control he has over their offensive structure.<\/span><\/p>\n Really, though, the answer doesn’t matter\u2014unless it’s used to paint Booker as a significantly inferior player riding the coattails of his running mate. Both he and CP3 meet the superstar criteria, and either one of them can shuffle their way into the MVP conversation during any given year.<\/span><\/p>\n At this time, our panel of esteemed scribes has awarded the honor to Booker. It is the correct choice, and not just because CP3 missed extensive time with a right thumb injury. Paul finishes the regular season with three fewer appearances and having logged 206 minutes less than his co-star. That’s not a large enough gap to serve as the defining difference.<\/span><\/p>\n Not to say that Booker’s time without CP3 isn’t part of his case. It absolutely factors into the equation. He has tallied far more solo reps\u2014<\/span>1,945 possessions<\/span>\u00a0versus\u00a0<\/span>1,488 for Paul<\/span>\u2014and the Suns have outscored opponents by seven points per 100 possessions in those stints.<\/span><\/p>\n There can be no underselling those results. This isn’t the most scientific way to look at it, but Phoenix’s net rating when Booker plays sans Paul is higher than the Milwaukee Bucks’\u00a0<\/span>net rating<\/span>\u00a0when Giannis Antetokounmpo takes the floor without Jrue Holiday.<\/span><\/p>\n Hate that logic if you must. It isn’t a be-all, but it is meaningful. So, too, is the simpler fact that Booker averaged 26.8 points and 4.8 assists per game on 57.6 percent\u00a0<\/span>true shooting<\/span>\u00a0while playing some of the best defense of his career for the league’s top team by a mile.<\/span><\/p>\n Voting Points: 13<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n 3 of 6<\/p>\n Carlos Osorio\/Associated Press<\/span><\/small><\/div>\n Under no circumstance should anyone claim Luka Doncic’s spot on the MVP ballot is recency bias run afoul.<\/span><\/p>\n Grifters with competing interests or livelihoods tied to engagement-at-all-costs will yell all day long about how the Dallas Mavericks’ superstar began the season slow and out of shape.<\/span><\/p>\n Hopefully, the clouds are listening.<\/span><\/p>\n Everything about Doncic’s slow-relative-to-his-megastar-standards start has been blown out of proportion. His performance out of the gate wasn’t so much a perma-slump or protracted rut as a blip on the radar.<\/span><\/p>\n Sure, he has been on a surface-of-the-sun heater since the middle of January, averaging 31.7 points and 8.7 assists while downing\u00a0<\/span>53.8 percent<\/span>\u00a0of his twos and 39.6 percent of his threes, including a logic-liquefying\u00a0<\/span>48.4 percent<\/span>\u00a0of his step-back triples. But, uh, this “stretch” just so happens to cover nearly half of the damn season (35 games).<\/span><\/p>\n Wind back the clock further, and you’ll find Doncic has been\u00a0<\/span>more thermonuclear than not<\/span>\u00a0since early November. For those keeping track at home, that’s pretty much the entire season.<\/span><\/p>\n Also, it absolutely matters that he’s going scorched earth for a Dallas Mavericks squad that wedged its way into a home-court-advantage playoff seed. For all the (warranted) hullabaloo over their surprisingly stingy defense and Spencer Dinwiddie’s incandescent\u00a0<\/span>crunch-time play<\/span>, the Mavs would not have clawed their way up the standings or register as a postseason dark horse without Doncic thriving as their all-everything.<\/span><\/p>\n Voting Points: 23<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n\n
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