MVP ... Other Than Jordan

Dateline: 06/04/97

At the end of the regular season, I decided to stay out of the MVP ranting and raving, mainly because I thought people were ranting and raving the right things. Michael Jordan was the best player in basketball again, but Karl Malone had an outstanding year, so he should win the prize as a lifetime achievement award.

Now, at the request of a few readers, I will post the numbers. Of course, these are not the normal numbers that you have already seen, but the numbers of wins and losses that can be attributed to each of the players that received votes in the MVP race. One could ask the question "Should the player with the most wins or the player with the highest winning percentage win the MVP?" But -- yawn -- Michael Jordan was best in both...

Player MVP
Points
Win% W L
Karl Malone 986 0.934 15.6 1.1
Michael Jordan 957 0.958 16.1 0.7
Grant Hill 376 0.919 15.4 1.4
Tim Hardaway 238 0.893 13.6 1.6
Glen Rice 134 0.739 11.2 4.0
Gary Payton 105 0.883 13.7 1.8
Hakeem Olajuwon 95 0.758 11.7 3.8
Patrick Ewing 57 0.821 12.8 2.8
Anthony Mason 7 0.882 11.6 1.6
Shaquille O'Neal 7 0.874 9.4 1.4
Scottie Pippen 6 0.926 13.5 1.1
Alonzo Mourning 5 0.818 9.9 2.2
Dikembe Mutombo 4 0.889 11.2 1.4
Mitch Richmond 4 0.727 11.3 4.2
John Stockton 3 0.952 11.6 0.6
Charles Barkley 2 0.917 8.9 0.8
Allen Iverson 1 0.243 3.8 11.7
Tom Gugliotta 1 0.424 6.8 9.2
Kevin Johnson 1 0.883 10.5 1.4
Steve Smith 1 0.754 9.3 3.0

The individual wins and losses shown above reflect the players' offensive and defensive contributions. When they are summed up for all the players on one team, the total amounts to a figure around the total team wins.