NBA Awards
In the NBA, players are awarded MVP, DPOY, etc. by a voting system run by sports writers (formerly, voting was done by players). For the MVP in particular, writers vote for first through fifth places. 10 points are assigned for a first place vote, 8 points for a second place vote, and so on.
Following the 2015-16 NBA season, Stephen Curry became the first ever unanimous MVP of the league. The most amount of points a player could have gotten that year was 1310 since there were 131 voting media members. The second place finisher, Kawhi Leonard, scored 634 points via some combination of second through fifth place votes. Kawhi’s point total was 48.4% of the total possible points.
If we use our imagination, we can think of Kawhi’s season amounting to 48.4% of an MVP season, or 0.484 MVPs. If we sum all of Kawhi’s MVP percentages over his career, he would net an expected 1.16 MVPs.
I collected data from the 1955-1956 through the 2022-2023 NBA & ABA seasons. For each major NBA/ABA award, we can figure out each player’s expected total. This should not be taken too seriously, but rather be seen as a fun exploration.
Most Valuable Player
View Table
Some interesting notes:
- The player with the most expected MVPs is LeBron James followed closely by Michael Jordan.
- The player with the highest expected number of expected wins without actually winning one is Jerry West.
- The player with the lowest number of expected wins while having a real win is Bill Walton.
Defensive Player of the Year
View Table
Some interesting notes:
- The player with the most expected DPOY is Rudy Gobert followed closely by Ben Wallace.
- The player with the highest expected number of expected wins without actually winning one is Bruce Bowen. Bowen and Tim Duncan are the only players with an expected wins above one.
- The player with the lowest number of expected wins while having a real win is Marc Gasol.