Bill and Ted’s excellent NBA MVP adventure
We study the past to understand the present. Nowhere is that adage more apparent than in the cinematic masterpiece, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989). The film’s title characters, Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan travel through time gathering historical figures — Billy the Kid, Socrates, Beethoven, Genghis Khan — who in turn offer a lens through which to view modern society, in the form of the best-damn class history report that San Dimas High ever saw.
Of course, basketball invites historical reflection, too. It’s fun to look for the bygone equivalent of a modern player or — more precisely in this case — the bygone equivalent of a modern season; the search can be instructive, too. So, join me, Bill, and Ted in the phone booth as we search for past MVPs whose award-winning seasons resonate with those of the leading modern-day candidates: LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, and Russell Westbrook.
LeBron James wins? No way, dude. Yes Way!
First, let me point out that my search for MVP historical dudes won’t go back any further than the 1980-81 season. That was the first year in which the media voted for the MVP. Before then, players voted for each other and it was just totally bogus — everybody and anybody could get MVP shares. In the 1975-76 season, for example, 30 players earned an MVP vote, 15 of them garnering one of the first-place variety. Just for some context, a fully-loaded phone booth has a maximum capacity of nine MVP candidates, even sideways with the door open.
In the media-voting era, there has been a lot more consensus — with the MVP winner accounting for an average of 72 percent of the first-place votes. Most recently — despite the increasingly divisive nature of sports coverage — MVP voting has actually become more harmonious, with MVPs gobbling up an average of 85 percent of the top votes over the past decade, culminating with Stephen Curry’s unanimous victory last year.
This year, though, there are four most-excellent MVP candidates who likely each received some first-place votes from the media before the balloting ended at the conclusion of the regular season. LeBron James was not the front-runner for most of the season, but discord among the media regarding the proper definition of “most valuable” could mean that strange things are afoot in the NBA. If James hopes to win his fifth MVP award there is one historical dude who could help him.
LeBron dials: 746-8463 (Sho-Time) for Magic Johnson, Los Angeles, 1990
Johnson is the only MVP in league history to win the award without earning the plurality of first-place votes. His competitor, Charles Barkley, held a margin of nine extra first-place votes in 1990. However, Johnson and Barkley weren’t squaring off mano-a-mano, the 1990 MVP voting was more like an Old West saloon brawl with the Top-10 vote-getters also including all-time greats Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon, John Stockton, and Larry Bird.
Jordan ambushed Barkley with the proverbial whiskey bottle to the back of the head — crippling his chances at the MVP by rustling away some of his first- and second-place votes. Johnson, on the other hand, was dealt second-place votes like Billy the Kid collecting aces at the poker table; more than doubling Barkley’s haul. In the end, Johnson’s advantage over Barkley in second-place votes was enough to overcome his deficit in first-place votes, as Magic edged Charles by 22 points to win MVP by the smallest margin ever.
There are some similarities between Johnson’s MVP credentials in 1990 and LeBron’s own resume this season. Johnson (22.3 points per game) was a lower-scoring MVP option than Barkley (25.2) or Jordan (33.5) — just as James (26.4) has a less impressive scoring average than Harden (29.1) or Westbrook (31.9) this year. Likewise — although the equations weren’t yet written — time-traveling basketball nerds would have known that Johnson’s advanced stats (Win Shares, VORP, Box Plus-Minus) weren’t as good as Barkley’s or Jordan’s. Similarly, James trails Harden and Westbrook in these categories, this season.
Despite his relative statistical deficiencies in 1990, the 30-year-old Johnson — having earned five championships, eight All-NBA honors, and a pair of MVP awards — was still very much the head hog at the trough. It would be another season before the younger Jordan beat Magic in the Finals to win his first championship and claim his spot as the new sheriff in town. At 32, James is the law now — ten straight All-NBA nods with three rings and four MVPs along the way; whereas Westbrook and Harden are among a small group of young guns who are aiming to overtake him.
Given the parallels to the 1990 situation, you could see how this year’s voting might once again become as convoluted as an explanation of causal loops in time travel. What if Westbrook and Harden split the first-place votes between two contentious media blocs with James snagging all the second-place votes as a neutral third option? Is it possible he too could win the MVP without being anybody’s first choice, just like Magic did in 1990?
Kawhi Leonard is most triumphant
The MVP Award is primarily an achievement award; but, unofficially, it’s also a prize that tends to reward a player who has created an entertaining season-long narrative. This season, in particular, three of the four top MVP candidates have big, brash personalities that make for intriguing storytelling. For Leonard, then, the question was: how can he create a moving narrative that inspires MVP voters without ever opening his mouth?
Of course, not every MVP has had a story to tell and Leonard doesn’t need to look far afield to find a historical analog for his low-key style. As a guide, he can call on his quiet mentor and former teammate, Tim Duncan.
Kawhi dials: 244-3863 (Big-Fund) for Tim Duncan, San Antonio, 2003
Duncan won the MVP in 2003 after he and the Spurs led the league in wins for three consecutive years — tallying 58, 58, and 60 victories, respectively (total of 176). Similarly, Leonard and the Spurs have won 55, 67, and 61 games (total of 183) in the past three regular seasons, making him the most-triumphant player among the four MVP front runners. This season, he and the Spurs beat out second-best Harden and the Rockets (55 wins) by six games. But, winning isn’t really a unique attribute for an MVP — a lot of them have done that. A more unique similarity shared by the potential MVP pair is that both Leonard and Duncan have excelled at defense.
Defense might win championships, but offense wins MVPs. In the 36 years of media voting, 32 MVPs have posted an Offensive Box Plus-Minus number superior to their Defensive Box Plus-Minus number; Kevin Garnett in 2004 (49 percent offense, 51 percent defense), David Robinson in 1995 (49 percent, 51 percent), Hakeem Olajuwon in 1994 (31 percent, 69 percent), and Duncan in 2003 (45 percent, 55 percent) are the only exceptions.
This season, Leonard is the only MVP candidate who has impressed on the defensive end of the floor, although for inscrutable reasons the Box Plus-Minus numbers don’t really show it (Leonard’s 2017 Defensive BPM looks worse than it should due to his bad luck on defense and Westbrook’s looks better than it should because he has broken the BPM metric with his unprecedented 40 percent usage).
But, the career box plus-minus stats tell a more fundamental truth: Duncan was more defense than offense over the course of his career (27:73) and Leonard (57:43) has been a paradigm of two-way play during his nascent career. By comparison, the other three — James (80:20), Westbrook (81:19), and Harden especially (98:2) — slant much more heavily towards offense. For Leonard to win, would likely require a philosophical change in the collective mentality of the voting media members — a logical shift towards a more balanced accounting of offensive and defensive contributions. Socrates himself would attest, though, that relying on logic to change the opinion of a voting crowd can be a very dangerous proposition.
James Harden is most excellent
This season, Harden has been orchestrating the Rockets offense like Beethoven simultaneously playing every keyboard in the San Dimas Mall. He’s doing it all in Houston — scoring nearly 30 points per game and handing out 11 assists on top of that.
The Rockets’ playoff draw has provided the maestro of Houston with a uniquely challenging arrangement. To win the championship, Harden will need to go through Westbrook and Leonard and then, potentially, past Curry and James, too. To beat all of his top MVP competitors in a single postseason? That would be unprecedented, a most-excellent accomplishment.
Tim Bontemps of the Washington Post recently wrote about how the Harden-Westbrook duel is reminiscent of David Robinson beating out Hakeem Olajuwon for the 1995 MVP. In that case, an indignant Olajuwon came back to eviscerate Robinson in the Western Conference Finals on his way to a second consecutive title. Olajuwon was a distant fifth in MVP voting that year, though, so the analogy won’t ring true if we assume that Harden and Westbrook will finish No. 1 and No. 2 this year. So, to be a bit more precise, below are all the instances when the MVP and the runner-up played each other in the postseason.
In the first round, Harden played the Rockets past Westbrook and the Thunder at an allegro pace in 4/1 time. It wasn’t exactly a remix of the regular season MVP race, though — Westbrook just kept right on getting his triple-doubles in the first round of the playoffs, averaging 37-12-11 in the series. Harden played beautifully too, humming right along with 33-6-7 in his own right. Plus, again, his team won.
If Harden is to be the MVP, it would be only the second instance when the MVP beat the runner-up in the playoffs without outscoring him. The first time it happened, runner-up Kevin Durant outscored MVP LeBron James by two points per game in a losing effort in the 2012 Finals.
Harden dials: 843-5464 (The-King) for LeBron James, Miami, 2012
In addition to the MVP, LeBron won the title in 2012, so Harden might really value his insight. Unfortunately, putting 2012-LeBron in the time-traveling phone booth with 2017-LeBron could be dangerous. It’s been theorized that such an interaction would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe. Most-heinous! Still, Bill and Ted seem to have this potentiality worked out. Old LeBron need only ask young LeBron: “If you’re really me, what number am I thinking of?
Russell Westbrook just totally ravaged this season
He ravaged it like Genghis Khan ravaged Oshman’s Sporting Goods.
Before this season, many felt it would be impossible for Westbrook to win the MVP Award if the Thunder won fewer than 50 games. The logic was undeniable — such a feat hadn’t been accomplished since Moses Malone was named the 1982 MVP as the leader of a 46-win Rocket team. The plot below shows the complete history of the relationship between team wins and MVP media voting. MVP winners are shown in pink and all others receiving votes are shown in grey. The size of the spots correspond to the number of MVP shares won.
Notice how the pink dots mostly float atop strings of grey competitors’ dots — illustrating the tendency for each MVP winner to be chosen from one of the best teams in the league. Malone’s 1981-82 season stands out as an exception to the rule; but there was another most-untriumphant MVP in the past.
Westbrook dials: 724-2855 (Rag-Bull) for Michael Jordan, Chicago, 1988
In the 1987-88 season, Jordan and the Bulls won 50 games, just three more than Westbrook and the Thunder did this year. This first MJ-MVP season came squarely in Jordan’s “Raging Bull” phase — pre-championship number one, when he was still pretty much a one-man demolition crew. Look at the similarities in Box Plus-Minus stats up and down the rosters for the 1988 Bulls compared to the 2017 Thunder. Jordan was an impressive +12.2 per 100 possessions with only one of his teammates, Charles Oakley (+1.3) making a meaningful contribution in his support (Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant were on the team too, but neither rookie was playing much in 1988). Similarly, Westbrook was a best-ever +15.5 this season, with only Stephen Adams (+0.5) helping him out.
Just like Westbrook and the Thunder this year, the limited roster surrounding Jordan warranted some unadulterated ball hoggery on his part. He posted a usage rate of 34.1 percent, which, at that time, had been the highest of any MVP winner — it’s now (temporarily) the second-highest rate to Allen Iverson’s 35.9 percent in 2000-01. Westbrook, for his part, just posted the highest single-season usage rate in NBA history (41.7 percent) for an MVP or otherwise. Relatedly, both players led the league in scoring — Jordan with 35.0 points per game and Westbrook with a career-high 31.6.
Bill & Ted SPOILER ALERT: Bill and Ted are going to end all war and poverty.
NBA SPOILER ALERT: Westbrook is going to be the MVP.
I’m not saying “I think Westbrook is going to win the MVP”, like the time — in July — when I said I thought Westbrook was going to win the MVP. I’m saying, I brought the Grays Sports Almanac back from the future and I already know what’s going to happen. Westbrook will be announced your 2017 MVP Award winner on June 26.
San Dimas is great
In Bill and Ted’s climactic scene, Socrates uses sign language — through his interpreter, Ted — to indicate how much he loves San Dimas. The teenagers assembled in the modern-day amphitheater get a chance to reflect on how great they have it. In this rambling metaphor you’re reading, I’m pretty sure San Dimas represents the NBA. The NBA is great.
This year’s four-way MVP race has been so entertaining. Think of it, in a single season, we have the modern equivalents of three all-time legends: a young Michael Jordan, a peak Tim Duncan, and aging Magic Johnson as well as the modern equivalent of the nearly-modern equivalent of Magic Johnson, each playing at the top of his game. I will be sad when the award is finally handed out, because three of these most-excellent MVP candidates will be branded as the modern equivalents of medieval dickweeds.
Next: Chris Paul is a burner phone
If only we were living in the enlightened utopia of 2688. In that brighter future, when the time came to hand out the MVP award, Adam Silver would simply stride to the podium and urge us to “Be excellent to each other,” and that would be an outcome with which we could all be satisfied.
