Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Great to be here.
Today we are not just talking about basketball.
We are, we're talking about the absolute pinnacle
of individual achievement in the sport. We're
looking at the award that defines legacies, the
trophy that separates the greats from, well,
the immortals. It really is. We are talking,
of course, about the NBA Most Valuable Player
Award. It's the singular honor. It really shapes
how we remember the history of the league. You
can win scoring titles. You can make all -star
teams, sure. Right. But... When you look back
at the eras of the NBA, you tend to define them
by who was holding that MVP trophy. Yes. It's
the shorthand for greatness. It is. It's the
King of the Hill Award. And I think what's so
cool about the stack of research we have today
is that it's not just a list of names. I mean,
sure, we're going to talk about Jordan and LeBron
and Kareem. Of course. How can you not? But we're
also going to get into the machinery of it all,
how the voting works, how it's changed over the
years. The mechanics are fascinating. Right.
From players voting to media voting and even
the hardware itself has a story. That's right.
And we have to, you know, acknowledge the current
context we're living in. As of the 2024 -25 season,
the man sitting on that throne is Shy Gilgis
Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder. SGA.
I mean, the timeline has officially moved into
a new era. It's just fascinating to see him on
that list now. It really is. But before we get
to the modern day, we have a mission here. We
need to unpack the history, the controversies.
And, oh, there are controversies. There are definitely
controversies. And the changing rules. Because,
and this is something I didn't fully realize
until I looked at the notes, the criteria for
winning haven't always been the same. No, not
at all. The very definition of value has shifted.
The people deciding that value has shifted. And
now eligibility itself has shifted. Exactly.
And recently, even the eligibility requirements
have shifted with this new 65 game rule. Which
we absolutely will get to because that is a game
changer. Literally. It is. But let's start with
the basics. If you win the MVP today, like Shai
Gilgis -Alexander just did, what are you actually
holding? Because for a long time, it was the
Maurice Podoloff trophy. Right. But that's not
the case anymore, is it? It is not. As of the
2022 -23 season, the league made a pretty significant
branding change. The MVP now receives the Michael
Jordan trophy. Which, let's be honest, that just
feels appropriate. It seems obvious in retrospect.
I mean, naming the MVP trophy after a five -time
winner seems like a complete no -brainer. But
walk me through the logic here. Why ditch Podoloff?
Was there like some kind of beef with the old
commissioner? It wasn't so much beef as it was
a realignment of symbols. Maurice Podoloff was
the first commissioner of the NBA. Well, technically,
his title was president back then. Right. He
served from 1946 until 1963. He was an administrator.
He was a suit. Right. He was crucial for the
league's survival. Don't get me wrong. But he
didn't exactly represent on court. Right. It's
a bit like winning the Employee of the Month
award and getting a trophy shaped like the HR
director. That is a harsh, but I'd say pretty
accurate analogy. So the league decided to move
his name. They did. So the league decided to
move Podolov's name. They didn't erase him. They
just moved him to a trophy that fits his role
a lot better. The Maurice Podolov trophy is now
given to the team with the best regular season
record. Okay, let's unpack that for a second.
That actually makes a ton of sense. It does,
right. The commissioner, the administrator, is
now associated with team success, the organizational
structure, the standings. The collective achievement.
And the MVP, the individual brilliance, is named
after the guy who arguably defined individual
brilliance, Michael Jordan. Exactly. It cleanly
separates the administrative achievement from
the athletic achievement. I like that. But, you
know, the hardware is just the symbol, the real
machinery of glory. And where all the arguments
happen is the voting process. Oh, absolutely.
And this is where the history gets really surprising
for people who assume it's always been sports
writers sitting in a room making the pick. And
that's a huge misconception. Oh, this blew my
mind when I was digging into the sources. I just
assumed it was always the media. The beat writers,
the columnists, the talking heads. Right. But
you're telling me that back in the day, the players
actually voted for the MVP. That is correct.
From the inception of the award in the 1955 -56
season all the way until the 1979 -80 season,
the MVP was selected by a vote of the NBA players.
Whoa, wait. Pause on that. Just imagine the psychology
of that for a second. Mm -hmm. You're playing
against Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain. They
are physically beating you up in the paint, elbowing
you, dunking on you. Humiliating you on a nightly
basis. And then at the end of the year, you have
to take a piece of paper and write down, yeah,
that guy who embarrassed me is the best. It adds
a layer of peer respect that is really unique,
but also, you know, a layer of complex interpersonal
dynamics. When you look at those early winners,
Bob Pettit, Bill Russell, Wilt, they were being
crowned by the men they competed against. Every
single night. So it's the ultimate sign of respect.
There's a very strong argument to be made that
the player vote is the purest form of validation.
They know who is truly unstoppable because they
are the ones trying and failing to stop them.
But isn't there a huge downside to that? I mean,
players are human. They hold grudges. They have
friends on other teams. They might vote for their
buddy. Oh, absolutely. And that is the fascinating
friction of that era. Take the classic. Bill
Russell versus Wilt Chamberlain debate. The ultimate
rivalry. Wilt Chamberlain had the numbers. I
mean, the insane numbers. He was averaging 50
points a game in one season. He was a statistical
alien. 50? But Bill Russell kept winning the
MVPs. Why? Because the players voted. Because
the players voted. And the players clearly respected
Russell's winning impact, his defense, his leadership.
Or perhaps they simply liked him more than the
aloof. Sometimes difficult wilt. So the player
vote era might have actually been the popularity
contest era. Or maybe the who do I hate losing
to the least era. In a way, yes. Or at least
the respect contest. Players voted for the guy
they feared. Or the guy who made his teammates
better. They didn't care as much about raw box
score numbers because, well, they didn't have
advanced analytics back then. They went by feel.
By who dominated them. They went by feel. But
then in the 1980 -81 season. The league flipped
the script completely. So why the change? I mean,
if the player vote was the purest form of respect,
why hand it over to the media? What was the logic?
The league shifted the decision -making power
to a panel of sports writers and broadcasters
from across the United States and Canada. The
official rationale, the party line, was to bring
more objectivity to the process. Objectivity.
The idea was that the media watches all the games,
they aren't on the court getting elbowed, and
they don't have personal beefs with the players
in the locker room. But come on, objectivity.
The media has just as many biases as the players?
There's just different kinds of biases? Precisely.
And this is a crucial distinction that you have
to understand. When the vote shifted to the media
in 1980, we arguably saw the birth of what I
call the narrative MVP. The narrative MVP. I
love that. Explain that. Suddenly, being the
best player wasn't always enough. You needed
a compelling season -long arc. You needed a story.
We traded the fear factor of the players for
the editorial appeal of the writers. That explains
so much about the 80s and 90s. The writers love
a good story. Michael Jordan is ascending. Charles
Barkley is redeeming himself in Phoenix. Karl
Malone is finally due for one. Exactly. The media
vote also introduced the concept of voter fatigue.
Oh, that's a huge one. Writers get bored writing
the same headline every year. Players might not
get bored of admitting Jordan's the best, but
a writer, they want a new angle. This shift fundamentally
changed. Who won the awards in certain years?
It's the LeBron problem of the 2010s. He was
probably the best player for a decade straight,
but he didn't win 10 straight MVPs. He couldn't.
The voters would have staged a revolt. So for
the last 40 plus years, it's been the media controlling
the narrative and the award. But then, you know,
the internet age happens. The fans want it in.
And the league eventually threw them a bone.
A very small bone. A tiny one. Starting in 2010,
the process evolved again just slightly. Fans
got a voice. They get to cast one collective
ballot through online voting. Hold on. One ballot?
Like one singular vote out of a hundred and something?
Just one. The fan vote is tallied up and it counts
as a single ballot in the final count. It can
act as a tiebreaker or just one vote among the
panel. It's essentially a rounding error in the
grand scheme of things. That feels like a total
marketing gimmick. Your voice matters. Well,
about 1 % of it matters. It was absolutely a
nod to the growing engagement of the fan base
and the rise of social media. It allows the league
to say the fans are involved without actually
letting, you know, the internet trolls decide
who the MVP is. Can you imagine if it was 100
% fan vote? We'd have some very, very strange
MVPs. Alex Crusoe would have three MVPs by now.
We'd probably have a meme player winning MVP
every single year. So, OK, we have this panel
of writers and broadcasters, plus this token
fan vote. But how do they actually tally it up?
Right. Because I think a lot of people just imagine
everyone writes down one name and whoever has
the most votes wins. But it's much more nuanced
than that. Much more nuanced. And this is where
the math nerds get excited because it's a weighted
point system. Every voter doesn't just pick a
winner. They have to rank their top five. And
the order matters immensely. OK, break down the
math for us. Why does being second or third on
a ballot matter so much? So a first place vote
is worth 10 points. That's the gold standard.
But a second place vote is still worth a hefty
seven points. Third place gets you five points.
Fourth gets three points. And fifth place gets
one point. OK, so here's where it gets really
interesting then. Let's run a little simulation
in our heads. OK. You could theoretically have
a player. Let's call him player A, who is super
polarizing. Maybe he puts up huge stats, but
people don't like his style. Half the voters
think he's the best and give him a first place
vote. Right, 50 first place votes. But the other
half of the voters can't stand him and leave
him off their ballot entirely. So he gets zero
points from them. Correct. And then you have
player B. Maybe player B isn't anyone's absolute
favorite. Maybe he's a little boring, but he's
fundamentally solid. Mr. Reliable. Mr. Reliable.
And every single voter respects him enough to
put him second or third on their ballot. So he
racks up a ton of seven point and five point
votes. In that scenario, player B could actually
win the award without having nearly as many first
place votes as player A. His coin total would
be higher. So the system rewards consensus. It
actively protects against polarization. Absolutely.
It ensures that the MVP is someone the entire
basketball world generally agrees is elite, rather
than someone who just has a fervent but small
cult following. The winner is the player with
the highest total points. It forces the voters
to look at the whole picture, not just their
favorite highlight reel. It's a system designed
to find the player who is undeniably valuable
across the board. I get it. So that's the machinery.
We know how the votes are cast and counted. Now,
let's talk about the Titans, the guys who mastered
this system year after year. The legends. When
we look at the history books, who is the undisputed
king of MVPs? Standing alone at the top of the
mountain is Kareem Abdul -Jabbar. He has won
the award a record six times. Six times. That
is, that's almost hard to comprehend. That's
essentially a decade of dominance. And think
about the era he did it in. The 1970s. The 70s
were a really turbulent time for the NBA. The
league was struggling with drug scandals, tape
delayed finals, a merger with the ABA. It was
chaotic. And Kareem was the constant. In the
midst of all that chaos, Kareem was the constant.
He won three with the Milwaukee Bucks and three
more with the Los Angeles Lakers. It's wild to
think he split them between two teams like that.
Usually you associate an MVP run with one specific
dynasty. It just highlights his incredible longevity
and the fact that his signature shot, the sky
hook, it was simply unsolvable. It didn't matter
what jersey he wore. You couldn't stop it. That's
amazing. And here is a nugget I found that just
speaks to the prestige of this award. Go on.
Every single eligible player who has won the
MVP award has been inducted into the Naismith
Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. That's 100
% hit rate. It's 100 % hit rate. If you win MVP,
you are a Hall of Famer, period. Obviously not
counting active players who aren't eligible yet.
It's the ultimate credential. So Kareem has six.
Who's in the tier just below him? Who's chasing
him? Just below him, we have the Five Timers
Club. which has two very exclusive members, Bill
Russell and Michael Jordan. The GOATs. Bill Russell,
five MVPs. And remember, as we just discussed,
those were player votes. His peers, the guys
he was battling, looked at him and said, you
are the best five separate times. That just carries
a different weight than Jordan's five, doesn't
it? It does. It really does. Jordan's five all
came in the media era. So Jordan had to battle
not just opposing defenses, but that Jordan fatigue
we talked about. The narrative. There were years
like when Charles Barkley won in 1993 or Karl
Malone in 1997, where you could easily argue
Jordan was still the best player on the planet.
But the writers wanted to spread the wealth.
They wanted a new story. Russell didn't have
to deal with that narrative fatigue as much because
the players just voted for who won and they kept
picking him. It's the LeBron problem, too. We
get bored of sustained greatness. Speaking of
LeBron, he's in the next tier down, right? Right.
Just below them, you have the four timers. Wilt
Chamberlain and LeBron James. That is just incredible
company. I mean, look at those names. Kareem,
Russell, Jordan, Wilt, LeBron. That's essentially
the Mount Rushmore debate right there in the
MVP standing. It is. The award winners list is
basically the definitive list of the greatest
to ever play. And there is a specific statistical
feat that only two of those men accomplished
and call it the efficiency of dominance. I like
that. What is it? Only Bill Russell and LeBron
James have managed to win the award four times
in a five -season span. Whoa. Four out of five
years. That's suffocating. That basically means
for half a decade, nobody else really had a chance.
Not really. The league was just living in their
world. Exactly. It speaks to a specific era where
the gravity of the entire sport revolved around
that one player. For Russell, it was the mid
-60s with the Celtics dynasty. For LeBron, it
was that Miami Heat and late Cleveland era where
he physically peaked. Just total domination.
Now, speaking of doing things in a row, let's
talk about the three -peat. Because winning back
-to -back is hard enough. Winning three years
in a row seems basically impossible in the modern
NBA. It has proven to be incredibly difficult.
Only three players in the entire history of the
league have won three consecutive MVPs. Three
players. Who are they? Bill Russell, again. Wilt
Chamberlain, his great rival. And the last one
to do it, Larry Bird. Larry Legend, in the mid
-80s. That was 84, 85, 86. And think about the
context of that. Magic Johnson was in the league
and at his peak. Jordan had just arrived. Kareem
was still playing at a high level. And Larry
Bird won three straight against that level of
competition. And since then, nobody. Since Bird,
no one has managed to secure three in a row.
We've had some really close calls recently, though,
right? Guys winning two straight. Very close.
Giannis Antetokounmpo won back -to -back in 19
and 20 and was right there for a third. And of
course, Nikola Jokic won back -to -back in 21
and 22 and had a massive, massive case for a
third before Embiid won it in 23. So why do you
think the three -peat is so hard now? Is it just
that the talent level across the league is higher
or is it something else? I think it goes back
to the media voting and the narrative. To win
three times in a row now, you have to not just
be the best, you have to be significantly better
than you were the year before. You have to keep
improving on greatness. You do. If you just stay
great, the voters get bored. They say, well,
we gave it to him last year. His stats are the
same. You also have to reinvent yourself to keep
their attention. That makes perfect sense. He's
doing the same amazing thing he did last year.
Boring. Who's got a better story? Next. It's
a tough hurdle to clear. Now let's look at which
franchises have the most hardware in their trophy
cases. I have feeling I know who's at the top
of this list. It's the usual suspects. The Boston
Celtics lead the pack with 10 total MVP awards
won by players on their roster. Russell and Bird
are doing the heavy lifting there, obviously.
But who else? Bob Cosi won one, right? Yes, Bob
Cosi won one of the earliest ones, and Dave Cowens
won one in the 70s. It just shows the generational
excellence of that organization. And second place
has to be their rivals. Of course. In second
place, the Los Angeles Lakers with eight awards.
That's Kareem, Magic, Shaq. Kobe, a Mount Rushmore
of their own. Then you have the Philadelphia
76ers with seven, thanks to a long history from
Wilt and Dr. J to Moses Malone, Allen Iverson,
and most recently, Joel Embiid. And the Bulls.
And the Chicago Bulls with 6 -5 from Jordan,
of course, and one from Derrick Rose. It really
shows that while MVP is an individual award,
it tends to cluster around the great dynasties.
You need a great organization to put you in a
position to win. That's usually the case. You
can't win MVP if your front office is a complete
disaster. Usually. Usually. And that leads us
perfectly into the criteria or rather the unwritten
rules of winning because usually team success
is paramount. But there are anomalies. There
are heartbreaks. There are these moments where
the voters did something completely unexpected.
Yes. This is my favorite part of the research.
The what -ifs and the statistical oddities. Let's
start with the idea of the unanimous MVP. Okay.
You would think with guys like Jordan or Shaq
or the Braun guys who were so clearly head and
shoulders above everyone else in their prime,
one of them would have swept the board maybe
multiple times. But that's not the case at all.
No. It is shockingly, shockingly rare. In the
entire history of the award, there was only one
unanimous MVP, Stephen Curry, in the 2015 -16
season. The year the Warriors won 73 games. The
73 -9 season. I mean, he completely changed the
game that year. He was shooting from 30, 35 feet
like it was a layup. It was unreal. He received
every single first place vote. It had never happened
before. The narrative, the stats and the team
success aligned so perfectly that there was literally
no contrarian argument to be made. He break basketball.
He broke it. But we have come agonizingly close
on two other occasions. We have. We call this
the one vote short club. This kills me every
time I read about it. One vote away from perfection.
Who are the members of this unfortunate club?
First, Shaquille O 'Neal in the 1999 -2000 season.
This was arguably the most dominant version of
Shaq we ever saw. A -B -E, most dominant. He
was destroying backboards, averaging nearly 30
and 14. He was an unstoppable force of nature.
He received 120 of 121 first place votes. 120
out of 121. Okay, I have to ask. We need to name
names here. Who is the spoiler? Who looked at
2000 Shaq and said, nah, I'm good? The single
dissenting vote came from Fred Hickman, who was
a broadcaster for CNN at the time. And he cast
his first place vote for Allen Iverson. Allen
Iverson. Look, I love AI. The crossover, the
culture, everything about him. But in 2000, was
he better than Shaq that year? Statistically.
Not even close. Team success. The Lakers won
the championship. But Hickman's argument, his
rationale, was that Iverson was more valuable
to his specific team. Ah, the semantic argument.
It's the classic trap. His point was that the
76ers would have been the worst team in the league
without him, whereas the Lakers still had Kobe
Bryant and might have survived without Shaq.
That is the ultimate best player versus most
valuable semantic trap. That's just trying to
be clever. It is. And Shaq took it very personally.
He held a grudge against Fred Hickman for years.
Over that one vote. He wanted that unanimous
history. I don't blame him. And then it happened
again, right? With LeBron. It did. The 2012 -13
season. LeBron James with the Miami Heat. Again,
arguably peak LeBron. His efficiency was off
the charts. He was a first -team level defender.
The Heat were a juggernaut. And he got it. He
received 120 of 121 votes. Unbelievable. And
the spoiler that time. A writer named Gary Washburn
of the Boston Globe. A Boston writer voting against
a LeBron -led Miami team. I'm shocked. That sounds
suspicious. Laughs. Well, Washburn swore up and
down it wasn't bias. He cast his vote for Carmelo
Anthony. Mello. So Carmelo Anthony got one first
place vote, denying LeBron a unanimous MVP. What
was the logic there? Washburn's logic was very
similar to Hickman's. He argued that the Knicks
winning 54 games and their division title that
year was entirely due to Mello's scoring. Whereas
the Heat were this super team that would make
the playoffs regardless of LeBron. I'm sorry,
that just feels like overthinking it to an absurd
degree. If you take the best player in the world
off the court, that's the most value lost, period.
Washburn overthought it. It just highlights how
subjective the voting can be. You have 121 people
and all it takes is one person trying to be smart
or different to ruin a historical moment. It's
wild. But there are other anomalies that are
even more statistically bizarre. For example,
the idea of winning without making the playoffs.
Wait, I thought that was impossible. If your
team is bad, you don't win MVP. That's like rule
number one. Generally, that is the golden rule.
If you aren't winning, your stats are considered
empty calories. But there is one and only one
exception in the history of the award. Who was
it? Kareem Abdul -Jabbar, again in the 1975 -76
season. He is the only player to win the award
despite his team missing the playoffs entirely.
How good was he that year to overcome that? Or
how bad was the rest of the league? A little
bit of both. The Lakers went 40 -42 that season.
Not terrible, but not a playoff team in the West.
But Kareem averaged 27 .7 points, 16 .9 rebounds,
and 4 .1 blocks. He was a complete force of nature.
But the team missed the playoffs. And remember,
this was the player vote era. Ah, right. That's
the key. The players didn't care about the standings
as much. They just knew they couldn't stop him.
Exactly. The players respected the individual
dominance. If the media had been voting in 1976,
Kareem probably doesn't win that award. they
would have penalized him for the team's record.
Speaking of standings, there's usually a benchmark,
right? Like, you've got to win 50 games to even
be in the conversation. That is the unwritten
rule, the rule of thumb. If you want to be MVP,
your team usually needs to win 50 games. However,
since that 1975 -76 Kareem season, three players
have defied this. if we exclude lockout -shortened
seasons. Okay, who are the modern outliers? Moses
Malone did it twice, actually, in 1978, 79, and
1981, 82. He was just such a dominant rebounding
machine on okay -ish teams that they gave it
to him. A force of will. Then, much more recently,
Russell Westbrook in 2016, 17. The triple -double
season, of course. Correct. The historical magnitude
of averaging a triple -double something we hadn't
seen since Oscar Robertson in the 60s, it just
outweighed the fact that the Thunder were a pretty
medium. The narrative of he is doing the impossible.
It was a story you couldn't ignore. And the third
one. The Joker. So it's rare, but it can happen
when the individual performance is just so undeniable,
so historic, that you have to reward it. Who
are the extremes on the timeline? On the young
end of the spectrum, we have Derrick Rose. He
won the award in 2011 at age 22. 22? I was barely
figuring out how to do my own laundry at 22.
He was the most valuable player of the entire
National Basketball Association. It was that
incredible explosion of athleticism with the
Bulls. He felt like the future of the league.
Sadly, of course, injuries completely derailed
that trajectory. Such a shame. And on the other
end, who's the old man of the MVP mountain? The
oldest winner is Karl Malone, who won his second
MVP in 1999 at age 35. 35. That's just pure old
man strength. That's what happens when you spend
20 years lifting weights in a barn in rural Utah.
Incredible. What about rookies? Has a rookie
ever walked into the league and just taken the
trophy right away? It's nearly impossible. The
learning curve in the modern NBA is just way
too steep. It hasn't happened in over 50 years.
Only two players have ever done it. Wilt Chamberlain
in 1959 -60 and Wes Unseld in 1968 -69. Wilt
and Wes. That's it. So if you're a rookie aiming
for MVP, good luck. You're fighting all of history.
It's a testament to how difficult that transition
from college or overseas to the NBA usually is.
But speaking of transitions, we have to talk
about the biggest shift in the profile of the
MVP winner over the last 30 years. The globalization
of the game. Exactly. This is a huge topic. If
you look at the list of winners from the 80s
and 90s, it's all American -born players. Magic,
Bird, Jordan, Barkley, Malone. But now... The
map has been completely redrawn. It really started
with Hakeem Olajuwon in 1994. He is considered
the first international winner of the award.
Now, there's a little bit of nuance there, right?
Because he played for Team USA. There is. Hakeem
was born in Nigeria, but he played his college
ball at the University of Houston, and he became
a naturalized U .S. citizen in 1993. However,
the NBA categorizes him as the pioneer of international
MVPs because his formative basketball years were
outside the traditional U .S. system. So Hakeem
basically kicks the door open. Who are the other
players who walked through it? Well, the list
is fascinating because it represents so many
different corners of the world and so many different
styles of play. After Hakeem, you have Tim Duncan.
Now, Duncan is another one with an asterisk for
some people. He is, and it's a fair point. He
played for Team USA, and he is a U .S. citizen,
but he was born in the U .S. Virgin Islands and
famously grew up as a competitive swimmer. The
NBA counts him in their international tally.
Okay, so Duncan, then who? Then you have Steve
Nash. Captain Canada. Born in South Africa, raised
in British Columbia, Canada, a two -time winner.
And think about Nash. He wasn't a physical freak.
He beat you with skill, with passing, with shooting.
That signaled a real change in what an international
MVP could look like. He changed the game, and
then Dirk. Then Dirk Nowitzki from Germany. He
one -legged fadeaway. An unguardable shot from
another continent. And then after Dirk, we hit
the recent wave. This is where the dam doesn't
just leak, it breaks completely. Yes, the last
decade has been a takeover. You have Giannis
Antetokounmpo from Greece, Nikola Jokic from
Serbia, Joel Embiid from Cameroon, who, like
Olajuwon, became a U .S. citizen later in his
career, and finally, the current holder, Shai
Gilgis -Alexander from Canada. It's actually
incredible when you look at that recent timeline.
The last... What, six, seven years have been
completely dominated by international players.
Why do you think that is? What happened? It's
a huge topic of debate in basketball circles.
Many experts point to the differences in youth
development systems. How so? In Europe and other
parts of the world, young players often join
professional academies where they learn fundamentals,
footwork, passing, shooting, team concepts. from
a very young age. It's more structured. Very.
In the U .S., the AAU system, for all its benefits,
often prioritizes raw athleticism and one -on
-one highlight real play over those fundamentals.
So while the American kids are learning to dunk
and cross people up, the European kids are learning
how to actually play the game of basketball.
In a reductive sense, yes. Look at Jokic. He
famously can't jump over a phone book, but his
understanding of angles and timing and leverage
is at a genius level. Look at Luka Donicic, who
hasn't won MVP yet but is always in the mix.
The skill level of the international big men
specifically has, for now, surpassed that of
the American bigs. It's not just a blip. It really
is a takeover. If you look at the stretch starting
with Giannis, then Jokic winning three times
2021, 22 and 24 plus Embiid and now SGA. The
American born superstar has been shut out of
the top spot for years. It signals a fundamental
change. The global game has arrived and it's
at the summit. The best players in the world
are no longer exclusively coming from Chicago
or New York or L .A. They're coming from Sambor,
Serbia and Athens, Greece and Toronto, Canada.
It's a different league now. So we've got international
dominance. We've got changing voters, changing
trophies. But there is one more massive change
that was introduced very, very recently. The
lawyer era of the NBA, as I like to call it.
Plus the CBA era. The 65 game rule. This is critical.
This is the new machinery that every player,
fan and voter has to understand. To understand
the 65 game rule, you have to go back to the
mid 2010s. Science. really entered the locker
room. The analytics of the body. Exactly. Teams
started hiring biometric staff who said, hey,
the human body isn't meant to play 82 games on
concrete at this intensity. It's suboptimal.
Yeah. So we entered the era of load management.
Which logically makes perfect sense for a franchise
that's trying to protect its $200 million asset.
You want them healthy for the playoffs. Of course.
But for the fan who buys the ticket. It was a
disaster for the product. Imagine a family saving
up $600 to go see the Clippers play. They drive
two hours, pay for parking, get the kids a jersey,
and then find out Chloe Leonard is sitting out
not because he's hurt, but because it's a Tuesday
and they want to rest him for a bigger game on
Thursday. It broke the social contract with the
fans. It completely broke the contract of I pay
money, you play basketball. Sure. The NBA realized
they were selling a product that wasn't being
delivered consistently. And their broadcast partners
were probably furious. They were. So in the collective
bargaining agreement that took effect with the
2023 -24 season, the league and the Players Association
drew a hard line in the sand. The 65 -game rule
wasn't just about awards. It was a desperate
attempt to reestablish that social contract.
So what does it say exactly? The rule states
to be eligible for MVP and other major awards
like all NBA teams, a player must appear in at
least 65 games. No exceptions. I mean, what if
you play 64 games and you average 50 points and
cure a disease at halftime of every game? You
are ineligible. The rule is strict. And there
is, of course, some very important fine print.
A game only officially counts towards that total
if the player's on the court for at least 20
minutes. Ah, so you can't just check in for five
seconds, commit a foul, wave to the crowd, and
leave to keep your streak alive. Correct. They
thought of that loophole and closed it. However,
there are very narrow exceptions. To near misses,
where a player plays between 15 and 19 minutes,
can count toward the 65. Okay, so that helps
a little for nights where maybe you twist an
ankle early in the game or get into foul trouble.
Exactly. There are also protections for legitimate
season -ending injuries. If you've played 62
games and then suffer an injury that is certified
to end your season, you might still be eligible.
I see. And there's a vague clause for... bad
faith circumstances, which is likely to prevent
teams from benching healthy players against their
will to sabotage their award chances or more
importantly, their contract bonuses tied to those
awards. But the big picture, the main takeaway
is. Availability is now a legal requirement for
greatness. It's not just a nice to have on your
resume. It completely changes the strategy. You
cannot just be the best player on a permanent
basis anymore. You have to be the best player
who is also durable enough to be out there for
most of the season. It forces the stars to be
on the floor. And we saw the impact immediately
in its first season. Instantly. Players who might
have sat out before were playing through nagging
injuries in March and April just to hit that
65 number. Which, as a fan, I kind of love because
I get to see them play. But it definitely adds
a massive hurdle for guys who are naturally more
injury -prone. Joel Embiid lost his chance at
a reteat MVP specifically because of this rule.
He did. He was having a historic, maybe even
better season than his first MVP year. He got
hurt, fell below the 65 -game threshold, and
was instantly and officially removed from the
conversation. It redefines value to explicitly
include availability. So let's bring this all
back home then. We've gone from Bob Pettit in
1956 receiving a trophy voted on by his fellow
players. A simple process. All the way to shy
Gilgis Alexander in 2025 receiving the Michael
Jordan trophy under these strict CBA mandated
game count rules voted on by a global media panel.
It's a journey from a peer reviewed acknowledgement.
a simple handshake among giants, to a global
media spectacle governed by complex eligibility
criteria and weighted mathematics. The trophy
has changed names. The voters have changed professions.
The winners have changed nationalities. But the
core idea remains the same, doesn't it? Who owned
the lead this year? Exactly. Who defined the
season? That's what we're all trying to answer.
So here is the thought I want to leave you with,
the thing for you to chew on as you watch this
season unfold. We now have a system where the
media votes, the fans have a tiny say, and the
rulebook demands you play at least 65 games.
Are we seeing a fundamental shift where availability
is becoming valued even higher than peak performance?
If the next Michael Jordan comes along and plays
60 unbelievable games but averages 45 points?
Under these rules, he can't be MVP. He's not
even on the ballot. Are we OK with that? Does
the award still measure the best player or is
it now officially measuring the best available
player? That is the question of this new era.
And I think the answer to that is going to define
the next decade of NBA history. Thanks for taking
the deep dive with us. We'll see you next time.