To a more joyful MVP debate

The game is in a wonderful place. Why can't the discourse be like that?

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Poppy Field, Claude Monet, 1886

The MVP race is heating up. The MVP race discourse is getting to the point that makes me want to log off.

We have a rampant debate over whether it is appropriate for a player with limited postseason success to win three consecutive MVPs during a period in which there is a veritable cornucopia of elite talent in the NBA. We have a rampant debate over the ethics of denying said player a third MVP based on the results of prior postseasons, without knowing what will happen in this postseason. We have a debate on unequal treatment of the Triple-Double King of the prior decade vs. the current Triple-Double King. We have debates on how much “taking over a game” matters in someone’s candidacy. We have a debate on the value of assists. We have a debate on the value of playing almost every night. We have a debate on whether an MVP needs to have their team in the top three in their conference. We have a debate on the value of individual defense. Thanks to Kendrick Perkins, we now have a debate on whether race is a factor in the current debate.

Here’s what gets me: all of these debates are worth having and worth engaging in! Well, almost all of these debates. To me, the problem isn’t the debate. It’s the vitriol that results from the debate. It’s the unsettling defensiveness and accusatory nature of the rebuttals. The loudest voices in these debates are the most dismissive and counterproductive. And they come from every angle — there isn’t a certain camp that is universally cool about it, or universally aggravating about it. There are a ton of good points and great arguments being made. They are just often drowned out by divisiveness for the sake of divisiveness. And that poisons the debate that the people who actually want to have a debate about this are trying to have. The energy changes when you start name-calling and making accusations.

So consider this is a plea for the firestarters (who are very likely not reading this newsletter) to stop it, and for the debaters to breathe a little deeper, avoid getting so defensive and simply disengage from troll discourse in hopes of actually having the debate the NBA MVP award deserves.

As for the core debate — who should win MVP with six weeks left? — I don’t have a vote, but I do care about this stuff. And I’m legitimately torn right now.