Kevin Durant — You the Real MVP?

Feb 21, 2015; Charlotte, NC, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant (35) cheers his team from the bench during the second half of the game against the Charlotte hornets at Time Warner Cable Arena. Thunder win 110-103. Mandatory Credit: Sam Sharpe-USA TODAY Sports

Kevin Durant is out for the season and we all know that’s horrible news for the Thunder. He’s insanely valuable, after all he was last season’s MVP. But after digging into some of the SportVU On-Off data[1. The On-Off data is as of Tuesday March 24, so it is a bit older but for the purposes of this exercise, should be just fine.], I found it fascinating to see the degree to which he’s improving his teammates’ shot difficulty by simply being on the floor. And even more astonishing was how he really puts the other five MVP candidates to shame:

However, he and his Thunder teammates do have the added benefit of playing with Russell Westbrook[2. Not that the other MVP candidates don’t have great teammates who help draw defensive attention away. Lebron has Kyrie, Curry has Klay, CP3 has Blake.]. So what happens when we separate out Westbrook’s On-Off splits from Durant’s On-Off splits? We can look at the Thunder players with both on the court, with only Westbrook on the court, with only Durant on the court and finally with neither on the court.

So overall, the Thunder’s other players are seeing slightly less attention on their shots when Durant is the only star on the court compared to when only Westbrook is on the court. However, because of the limited number of games Durant has played this year, it’s hard to draw any conclusions about which individual players benefit more from Durant versus Westbrook. The only player who has a decent sample size of shots with Durant on the court is Reggie Jackson, who isn’t even with the team anymore. For what it’s worth, he did seem to take more open shots with only Durant compared to only Westbrook only. While it’s hard to compare the Thunder players with Durant only, we can still gather a lot of information from the table.

For example, while keeping the limited sample size in mind, both Dion Waiters and Andre Roberson were taking crazy open shots when both Durant and Westbrook were on the court together. And that difference is much smaller when both Westbrook and Durant are off the court. Additionally, Ibaka clearly benefits from having both on the court with Durant possibly being the more important player for getting him more open looks.

Regardless of what you take away from these tables[3. Keep in mind these are pure On-Off splits, not Adjusted. So we still have to be careful about the interpretation.], the Thunder will clearly miss Durant.  And yes, my name is Captain Obvious.