NBA 2019 MVP race – part 6

(Originally posted on Tuesday, 8 January 2019)

Part 6 = the end of week 12. Please remember that the season started on Tuesday, so to me every week ends with games played on Monday.

All the statistical data I used I found on this site:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/

I described my way of calculating the MVP value in this post:
Comparing NBA MVPs

Before the 2018-19 season is over I have to make mathematical projections of the MVP values. The assumption behind the projections is that every player and every team will play exactly the same way they have been playing so far (the numbers of projected team wins are rounded to whole numbers).

With the assumptions described above, according to the data from the end of week 12 the current NBA 2019 MVP race list is this:

1. Giannis Antetokounmpo:    2263.0    (projected team wins: 59)
2. Kevin Durant:    2094.4    (projected team wins: 53)
3. Joel Embiid:    1976.0    (projected team wins: 53)
4. James Harden:    1955.5    (projected team wins: 48)
5. Paul George:    1892.1    (projected team wins: 53)
6. Nikola Jokic:    1840.3    (projected team wins: 56)
7. Kawhi Leonard:    1641.9    (projected team wins: 59)
8. Damian Lillard:    1637.0    (projected team wins: 48)
9. Stephen Curry:    1534.1    (projected team wins: 53)
10. Anthony Davis:    1531.6    (projected team wins: 38)
11. Clint Capela:    1476.1    (projected team wins: 48)
12. Ben Simmons:    1473.6    (projected team wins: 53)
13. Kyrie Irving:    1471.5    (projected team wins: 50)
14. DeMar DeRozan:    1455.7    (projected team wins: 48)
15. LeBron James:    1394.9    (projected team wins: 44)
16. Tobias Harris:    1389.9    (projected team wins: 48)
17. Khris Middleton:    1388.1    (projected team wins: 59)
18. Karl-Anthony Towns:    1366.8    (projected team wins: 39)
19. Pascal Siakam:    1363.6    (projected team wins: 59)
20. Russell Westbrook:    1355.0    (projected team wins: 53)
21. Eric Bledsoe:    1350.2    (projected team wins: 59)
22. LaMarcus Aldridge:    1318.0    (projected team wins: 48)
23. Klay Thompson:    1305.9    (projected team wins: 53)
24. Danilo Gallinari:    1303.4    (projected team wins: 48)
25. Kemba Walker:    1300.0    (projected team wins: 40)
26. Jamal Murray:    1285.4    (projected team wins: 56)
27. Domantas Sabonis:    1283.0    (projected team wins: 55)
28. Steven Adams:    1274.4    (projected team wins: 53)
29. Serge Ibaka:    1247.4    (projected team wins: 59)
30. Malcolm Brogdon:    1221.1    (projected team wins: 59)

Giannis Antetokounmpo is the new leader of the race, but James Harden is going up the list very quickly (he is already at the 4th place). I think that the race will be won by one of these two players, but the next 4 or 5 players will be right behind them.

In the last two weeks LeBron James missed 7 games (so he is projected to miss 14 games overall) and his team recorded only 2 wins without him (their projected number of team wins decreased by 3) – these two things combined dragged the MVP value of LeBron James surprisingly much down. Well, he is not so valuable when his injured, right? Similarly to Stephen Curry.