For 2 hours on a current Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn, I watched Nikola Jokic elevate basketball into artistry, weaving feathery soar photographs and pinpoint passes into an excellent geometric tapestry. In athletic phrases, the Denver Nuggets heart was dominant, accumulating 22 factors, 10 assists and 17 rebounds in a breezy victory over the Brooklyn Nets. But it surely’s the aesthetics of Jokic’s recreation—the intelligent angles and timing and precision—that make the Serbian big such a pleasure to behold.
He is been doing this for a number of seasons now, accumulating the final two MVP trophies alongside the way in which, however I can guarantee you that Jokic’s recreation has not develop into mundane or routine or boring. I’m not in any approach bored with viewing, discussing or writing about his basketball exploits. And after I sit right down to fill out my MVP poll on Monday, I cannot downgrade Jokic because of some obscure sense of weariness. (Full disclosure: I’ve been an awards voter for a lot of the final 26 years, besides from 2004-13, after I labored for the New York Occasions, which doesn’t allow reporters to vote.)
This all must be acknowledged as a result of, as we transfer firmly into NBA awards season, you’ll hear countless allusions to “voter fatigue”—the supposed phenomenon during which ballot-wielding media members, uninterested in honoring a selected star, select a contemporary title. It’s virtually an article of religion amongst NBA followers and even some media members. “Voter fatigue” is the explanation, we’re instructed, that Derrick Rose snatched the 2011 MVP from LeBron James, denying him a 3rd straight. It’s apparently why, extra not too long ago, Stephen Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo every received back-to-back MVPs however didn’t win a 3rd.
However I’m right here to inform you, as a longtime awards voter, that “voter fatigue” is usually a fable—a reductive, ex-post-facto clarification that’s been approach too loosely utilized, usually by individuals who merely disagreed with a given end result.
I’m not alone. “I do not acknowledge the existence of the phrase,” says Bob Ryan, the previous longtime Boston Globe reporter and columnist, who was an NBA awards voter from the Eighties by the 2000s. “It is irrelevant.”
It’s tempting to chalk up each failed MVP repeat as proof of our collective boredom. And maybe it’s performed a task every now and then. However dig just a little deeper, and also you’ll discover a litany of different elements: The reigning MVP had a down yr (by his requirements). Or his group slipped within the standings. Or one other star merely shined brighter that season. A rigorous take a look at the info, aided by the specialists at Basketball Reference, tells us that “voter fatigue” isn’t actually a factor—or at the least a lot of 1.
It’s true that solely three NBA gamers have ever received three straight MVPs, as Jokic is aiming to do, and none since Larry Chook within the mid-80s. But there are affordable, rational explanations for almost each occasion of a failed MVP repeat (or three-peat), past some obscure notion of boredom.
It’s Actually Onerous to Win Three MVPs in a Row
To start out: what can we imply by “voter fatigue,” anyway? It appears clear that we don’t imply MVP voters refusing to provide the identical man repeat trophies: during the last 21 seasons, there have been seven back-to-back winners. Since 1980, when the media started voting, 11 gamers have received a number of MVPs, combining for 29 of the 42 trophies (69 %). So, actually, we’re speaking concerning the unwillingness of voters to award gamers a third consecutive MVP.
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