Time to talk MVP in the BBL

In my experience no question engenders such fascinating debate in British Basketball than how we should detemine the league MVP.

Should it be decided purely on stats? And if so, should it be decided on one stat alone (points scored for example) or an average across a range of stats? Then you have to ask yourself the question of whether or not it’s important that the MVP has to be part of a winning side or a side you could reasonably define as having a successful season? And what about players who are clutch and players that if you watched back the tape were the key factor in their side winning a game on more occasions than any other player across the league?

That’s enough questions for now, it’s time for some answers or at least a look at who should be in our thinking when the various criteria above are applied.

Straight away it proves difficult to isolate one thing from another as we get in to the Demarius Bolds debate. He is the league’s top scorer by a country mile and before Friday night’s games he had scored two hundred points more than third placed Jeremy Bell. The Plymouth point guard also puts his hat in the ring here as he has played four games less than Bolds. The MK man’s average though is not likely to be surpassed by anyone betwen now and the playoff final. So if you are a points scored fan hand your MVP trophy to Demarius.

I’m not giving it him based on points alone. If you roll back the tape and count the minutes and seconds, Bolds has probably had the ball in his hands this season as much as if not more than any other player. Bolds is the ultimate go to man. Would other players who are pushing the leaders be closer to or ahead of Bolds if they got the same share of the limelight? And is it unfair to even draw the comparison as surely you can’t punish Bolds for this, the main reason he gets the ball so much is because he has proven that he can deliver.

However, coaches will try and shut him down and know that if they can minimise his effect on the game then they have a great chance of winning. The same goes for putting a hand in Jeremy Bell’s face but the difference with Bell is that if you are guarding the perimeter then Williams and Colbert will put you away. The same can’t be said for the Lions. No disrespect to Coach New and his charges but while Gill, Pedroso and Northern pose a threat, neutralsing Bolds will nine times out of ten get you the win. And whether that is becasue of the way they play or becausee of the talent at their disposal is another debate. I will just recognise here though that obviously Bolds needs his team mates to get and give him the ball.

You would think that maybe you could go to field goal percentages but neither Bolds or Bell (often another go to man) make the top fifteen for FG% or 3P% currently.

All this is where Joe Chapman steps in. Chapman is the league’s second highest scorer and has amassed his points in a side that boasts several hot hands. In fact Charles Smith can also make a claim for MVP on this stat count as he is currently the league’s fourth highest scorer. Chapman however, has the fifth highest percentage from the field and lies 12th in the stat column for conversions from 20 feet. This immediately suggests that Chapman is both prolific and efficient.

I need to move away from this quickly though. I may be doing the debate an injustice but I think it is obvious that you can’t give a player the tag of MVP based on stats alone. We’re talking about a player’s value, his worth and it’s Charles Smith’s name that brings us to that halfway house of a conclusion.

We have probably all seen examples this season where players have taken the game by the scruff of its neck and have clearly been the deciding factor in the win. Jimmy Langhurst, Joe Chapman, Tommy Freeman, Cameron Rundles, Jeremy Bell, Mychal Green, Richie Gordon and Charles Smith are all players that have scored big to give their team the victory on several occassions. With Smith most notably catching fire in the BBL Cup Final. We’ve also seen other players have stellar nights with big performances from Lehmon Colbert, Bradd Wierzbicki and Nuno Pedroso amongst others. It is the consistency however that obviously goes in the favour of that first crop of players. I have to include Demarius Bolds here again also. While the Lions have not won as many games as the team’s the other players turn out for, he has obviously contributed heavily to the wins they do have.

I believe that a players percentages from the charity stripe are a good barometer for whether or not they can be considered clutch. And interestingly, three of those players who have consistently got it done for their sides in games (where they have won) feature in the top five player percentages from the line. Namely, Langhurst (92%), Freeman (90%) and Smith (87%). Jeremy Bell and Demarius Bolds are eighth and ninth respectively.

So short of writing a dissertation here I have to take shortcuts and hope that you can see the threads running through and where my final contenders come from. After digesting how many big performances they have and how they influence the outcome of games and factoring in their potential to be clutch, it naturally leads us back to the stats. But we have to take a more holistic view of those stats. To get here, we had to work through scoring records and some of that more anecdotal evidence first to achieve our final nine as it has turned out.

Mychal Green, Tommy Freeman, Richie Gordon, Jimmy Langhurst, Cameron Rundles, Demarius Bolds, Charles Smith, Joe Chapman and Jeremy Bell.

Honourable mentions for great seasons so far for Gause, Thomson, Wedemire, Northern (current highest rebounds avg) Hardy, Prezzie-Blue (current highest assists avg) and Brown who haven’t featured yet in what I have had to say.

You will obviously make your own mind up on all that I have written and will have your own opinions. We still have over two months to go and our equation needs to be worked on further before we can identify our winner. And that person may need to be just that to tip the balance, a winner, and we may determine it with something like this:

MVP = Wins in which they scored more than 25 points x their scoring average x their field goal percentage (to include 3P% to get true efficiency avg) x trophies won.

I wonder what Joe Chapman’s odds are at the bookies?! As you can see though, you can never move too far away from the points mean prizes mentality when deciding on your MVP

Stats provided by BritHoops and those quoted are prior to games played on Friday 24 February 2012.