1994 Pippen should have been mvp

[Roundball_Rock]

it doesn't look like it had many views or replies.

Of course. No one really cares who the MVP should have been 26 or 27 years ago. That's not what this thread was. The theme in this thread, after the cavalry showed up (not the OP's intent), was "Pippen shouldn't have finished 3rd" or "Why Pippen sucked" not "who should have been MVP in 94'". That's what drew the usual suspects here but 93' isn't relevant to their (non-existent) agenda. Ewing is a tool to argue Pippen shouldn't have been even 3rd. That's it.

I didn't mean you. I meant the others who came in through the thread.

[insidious301]

Yeah that is bogus and a clear double standard. Since Pippen is attached to the hip with Jordan, you're going to get more buzz. It is similar to a poster giving Pippen praise, and a Jordan Stan thinking you're putting them on equal footing. I have only been active recently, but that has been my experience posting here.

EWING 4 PREZ!

[HoopsNY]

You posted a 1993 MVP race thread. How many of these people advocated for Ewing then? I believe zero even though his case was stronger then.

90% of the people on this forum are probably too young to have remembered Ewing, let alone the 1993-94 season. You realize that's 26 years ago? The point isn't what people were saying then; the point is to evaluate how players ARE ranked in that given season.

None of this is a case for either Ewing or Shaq as MVP. It's the same line throughout this thread "Pippen shouldn't have even finished 3rd" from Team Jordan, which some take to greater extremes but the consistency is every MJ fan, outside of Phoenix who isn't part of the crusade, said Pippen was not only not MVP but should have finished worse than he actually did. (You also cherry picked statistics that favor Ewing --nothing about VORP, BPM, assists, steals conveniently.)

I never said that these guys do in fact deserve the MVP over Hakeem or Robinson. I'm saying it puts them in the conversation, and at the very least makes Ewing and Shaq comparable to Pippen more than Ewing and Shaq being comparable to Hakeem to Robinson. Is that better?

Furthermore, the statistics are close. My entire point was to show that they are in fact comparable. I'm sorry you're disturbed by this.

Ewing: 24.5/11.2/2.3/1.1/2.7 on 50/29/76

PER: 22.9
TS%: .551
WS: 13.1
WS/48: .211
OBPM: 2.5
DBPM: 2.7
VORP: 5.5

Pippen: 22.0/8.7/5.6/2.9/0.8 on 49/32/66

PER: 23.2
TS%: .544
WS: 11.2
WS/48: .191
OBPM: 4.5
DBPM: 3.2
VORP: 6.8

So Ewing leads 8 categories here while Pippen leads in 7. Pippen led his team to 55 wins while Ewing led his to 57. Ewing led his team to the second best SRS and the best defense in the league.

But this is all "cherry picking." How ironic it is that the Knicks ended up beating Chicago, winning the ECF, and ultimately coming within 1 game of winning a championship. But no. Not comparable at all, cause to Roundball, Ewing is akin to David Wingate or some other nobody. Lord forgive us for drawing such a comparison between him and Scottie Pippen, thinking that Ewing had a similar case for MVP!!!

[HoopsNY]

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Ewing was the MVP either. With how it is voted upon though, Ewing could have gotten more recognition. We saw Chicago win less games than years prior yet the league still gave Jordan MVP. The criteria is often unclear.

This is all fair. My problem was with you calling Shaq "not a real" candidate. By the numbers, Shaq wouldn't have won MVP by a longshot. But neither would Pippen. They still garnered enough votes to be legitimate candidates though.

Nothing about this is unfair, except in Roundball's mind. I guess you must be an MJ stan too!

The same reason we have to talk about Pippen's scoring every day when you all will praise Miller as a great scorer for scoring 1 more point in the next breath.

Maybe because Miller was able to average more points on less FGA, with higher efficiency numbers? I'm not even saying Miller was a better player than Pippen. He wasn't. But I'd take him as a scorer over Pippen. Why not?

[insidious301]

Nothing about this is unfair, except in Roundball's mind. I guess you must be an MJ stan too!

I wear Nike. Drink Gatorade and chew bubble gum. What else tipped you off?

Maybe because Miller was able to average more points on less FGA, with higher efficiency numbers? I'm not even saying Miller was a better player than Pippen. He wasn't. But I'd take him as a scorer over Pippen. Why not?

Yeah Miller was a better scorer. Come to think of it? His game was a lot like Dale Ellis'.

[Roundball_Rock]

If Ewing ever was going to win MVP it would have been in 1993. A lot of the arguments made for him here (but not in the 93' thread ) are thin reeds.

Wins/seeding:

The people pushing Ewing here are the same people pushing Shaq (50 wins). Do wins matter or not? For Ewing we keep hearing 57 wins. That's weak in context. First, MVP voters then would know the 57th win meant nothing as the Knicks-Bulls played a meaningless game. It is no different than a football team winning in Week 17 in a meaningless game. No one cares for MVP voting purposes.

Second, MVP voters would know the Bulls with Pippen performed at a higher level than the Knicks with Ewing. It doesn't make logical sense to argue team performance for MVP in favor of the guy whose team performed worse with him (logically, assuming--as has been done in this thread--the two teams are equal, it implies the other guy was more "valuable").

Third, even if we credit the 57th win, so what? The Spurs won 56, Bulls 55, Rockets 58. Atlanta 57, Phoenix 56. 57 isn't impressive when half a dozen teams are in the same bracket--and three of those have MVP candidates.

Fourth, no one cares about getting the 2 seed. I have never heard "Player X led a team to the 2 seed" as an argument for MVP. If you get the 1 seed it would matter.

In 1993 the Knicks had the 1 seed and they had a gap to the teams behind them. The third best record in the NBA was 57 wins and then came a couple teams at 55. They were 2 games out for the best record in the NBA in 93'; in 94' they were 6 games back.

*Ewing's play:

Ewing was all-NBA over Robinson, Shaq in 93'; in 94' he didn't even make all-NBA. I have never heard of a MVP who didn't make all-NBA. Have you?

As the Tribune article noted, it hurt Ewing's MVP consideration that he kept getting crushed by Hakeem and Robinson. If you are the "MVP", why are you getting annihilated and embarrassed by the two best players at your own position?

*Narrative:

Jordan won in 91', 92' and it is almost impossible to win three straight. MJ's chances were diminished going into 93' due to voter bias and the Bulls slipping from 67 wins to 57 further damaged him. Barkley had a strong narrative going but Ewing had the next best. Hakeem? The Rockets won 55 games. As we have seen argued throughout this thread, 55 isn't enough to be MVP. In 94' the door was more closed. Hakeem benefited from being 2nd in 93' in the "his turn" sense, Pippen had a great narrative, Robinson and his team had a rebound year with Rodman to give him a narrative, and Shaq emerged as a top 5 player.

Yeah Miller was a better scorer.

No one disputes that--the issue is the exaggerated sense. The way they talk about the two is Miller was Curry and Pippen was Draymond Green. The difference in the ECF was 1 PPG (same as the RS--they rely heavily on Miller scoring 26 in the first round but he didn't come close to that with the pressure and stakes higher in real series...). The "efficiency" difference? 2 FGA--and even that factors in Pippen taking end of quarter and end of shot clock bailouts/heaves that Miller didn't take since his team didn't put the ball in his hands nearly as much.

It is laughable that 21/23 PPG is hyped as this awesome scoring--when we see people criticized for scoring around that all the time on ISH. Duncan is getting hit for that in a thread on the front page, for instance.

[And1AllDay]

Rodman said it best

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