Jayson Tatum's Select Company & Other Thoughts

Yesterday, the Boston Celtics became the 25th team in NBA history to win 64 or more games in a single season. You’d think this would make him the frontrunner for the MVP award. He’s done everything you would want from a real leader. Before the season, he called a private meeting with his talented teammates and told them that everyone would have to sacrifice, and then he did exactly that, for the betterment of his team. Needless to say, it worked – the C’s steamrolled the league. Doing so actually worked against Tatum’s chances, as people spent the last week falling down the Recency Bias rabbit hole to give Jalen Brunson his flowers for barely getting to a full 14 wins short of the C’s. The only person I’ve seen even make the case for Tatum is Danyel Smith.

I could do a lot of complaining about this – I honestly think the media just doesn't like him that much because he always measures his words and actions, and very rarely says anything even remotely controversial or provocative – but at this point, it seems futile, so I thought I’d do something more productive. I looked at the historical precedents of such a great team not winning the MVP award. As such, let’s look at those 25 teams to win at least 64 teams:

A little context here – NBA seasons were not always 82 games. The first such season was 1967-1968. In other words, knock out the first 18 NBA seasons. There have been 57 seasons since, and we need to take out another four – two due to lockouts, and two due to COVID – to get down to the 53 seasons with 82 games. In those 53 seasons, there have been 1,345 team seasons, making those 25 teams just 1.9% of the total seasons.

Sixteen of the prior 64-win teams had a player who won the league MVP. Of the eight that didn’t, five of them were in seasons in which there was another 60-win team.

That leaves just three teams who won at least 64 games and whose best player didn’t win MVP:

As you can see, these have all been in the past 20 years, and in all three cases, the MVP was a media darling. Steve Nash is so beloved that he would go on to be a head coach for two-plus seasons without any clue as to how to do it, and the media rarely, if ever, criticized him. When he was finally fired we learned that he couldn’t even properly run a practice.

So, OK, let’s look at things from one other angle. What about teams with big leads? The C's finished seven games ahead of every other team in the NBA this season. Since the ABA merged with the NBA in time for the 1976-1977 season, there have been just eight other seasons in which the No. 1 overall seed has been at least seven games better than everyone else in the league. Six of those eight teams have had the league MVP on their team:

You can see that 2021-22 Phoenix team and the 2007-08 Boston team again. One of those teams will never be forgotten, especially around here. The other had one of the biggest chokers in sports history (Chris Paul) and a stupefyingly overrated coach (Monty Williams). The changes that came for that team in the following year were jarring and dramatic. These two paths seem to succinctly sum up the two paths before the Celtics, and I am supremely confident their path will be that of the 2007-08 C’s.

Jayson Tatum is very unlikely to win MVP this season. He won’t be the first player on the league’s best team or on a historically great team who doesn’t win the MVP award, but it doesn’t happen that often. We’ll just have to settle for him hoisting the NBA Finals MVP trophy instead, just like Paul Pierce did.

How'd I Do?

Before the season, I made predictions. With the season now over, let's see how I did:

I did pretty good, I think, especially with the Eastern Conference. The West was so crowded that it made seeding screwy – Sacramento was in the top six just a couple of weeks ago – and I don't think that Memphis' glut of injuries were all that predictable. I was really, really off on the two LA teams, and the Mavericks. I feel like the Lakers prediction was somewhat on point – they've been 23-10 since the beginning of February. But I was way off on the Clippers and Mavs. Part of that is my bias – I have not cared for either team much in the past. Part of it is also because of the in-season trades both teams made, but their motivations to make trades were certainly there at the outset, so I could perhaps have accounted for them. But all in all, pretty satisfied with how I did!

Brief Play-In Thoughts

I'll be honest, I want Miami. I see this as a very similar situation to the 2022 playoffs. The year before, the injury-riddled C's lost to Brooklyn in the playoffs, and there was a lot of "woe is me, the 7-seed Nets are our reward?" talk. And then the C's wiped the floor with them. Let's exorcise those Heat demons right off the bat, and move on with the quest of winning a championship.

Having said that, I won't be surprised if the Heat lose to both the Sixers and Bulls and fall out of the playoffs altogether. But officially, I'll say the Sixers and Heat make it through as the seven and eight seeds, respectively.

In the West, I think the Lakers will win the seven-eight game, and that the Pelicans will beat the Warriors to pick up the eight seed, but I really only feel strongly about the Lakers beating the Pels.