Conference Finals MVPs, Finals MVP Chase, and Thibodeau

Photo: Public Domain

Playoff MVPs

After the Pacers finished off the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals last week, Pascal Siakam was voted Conference Finals MVP ahead of Tyrese Haliburton. This caused something of a stir. I think it's silly even to have MVPs in the playoff rounds, but I decided to look into it.

For each Pacers victory, I ranked the top eight players by the sum of their game score plus +/-. I assigned eight points for the top player, seven points for the second-best, down to one point for the eighth. 

Haliburton topped his teammates in Games 1 and 4; Siakam was third and second in those games. Siakam was the leader in Games 2 and 6, with Haliburton finishing fourth and second. (The Knicks won Games 3 and 5.) 

Adding the points together, Siakam finished with 29 (6+8+7+8) and Haliburton finished with 28 (8+5+8+7). So, those who voted for Siakam were not wrong.

In the Western Conference Finals, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander easily led his team in all four victories. No controversy there.

In Game 1 of the Finals, Obi Toppin from the Pacers' bench is now in the lead for Finals MVP. He came through with a strong 3-point shooting night in the unlikely Indiana win. Using the same metric as with the Conference Finals, he has 8 points for the Finals MVP Chase. Haliburton is in second place. Siakam, considered the second-best player on the team behind Haliburton, had a dismal +/- and is sixth. 

Can Tom Thibodeau win a championship?

On the June 6 Bill Simmons podcast, beginning around 53:40, Simmons and Zach Lowe discussed the replacement for fired Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau. Thibodeau has a reputation for overplaying his starters, wearing them out, and not allowing his bench players to get into a rhythm. That criticism aside, Lowe compared him to recent (and fired) NBA championship coaches like Mike Malone (2023 Nuggets), Mike Budenholzer (2021 Bucks), and Frank Vogel (2020 Lakers), saying none of them are elite like Rick Carlisle and Erik Spoelstra in making in-game adjustments. However, like them, Thibodeau can "absolutely" win a championship with the "right talent, right year, right circumstances" because he can raise the floor of a team.

When Lowe said "right talent," my mind went to "superstar." Malone had Nikola Jokic, Budenholzer had Giannis Antetokounmpo, Frank Vogel had LeBron James (with Anthony Davis). 

It is rare for an NBA team to win a championship without a very special player. Forty-one of the last fifty Finals-winning teams had at least one player who was an MVP that season or a previous one. Two had first-team All-NBAers who were future MVPs (Bill Walton, 1977 Trail Blazers, and Larry Bird, 1982 Celtics). The 1975 Warriors had Rick Barry, and the 2019 Raptors had Kawhi Leonard, among the best players who never won the MVP. The 2024 Celtics had perennial All-NBA first-teamer Jayson Tatum. The 1989 and 1990 Pistons were led by Isiah Thomas, who had been a five-time All-NBAer.

Only two title-winning teams, the 2005 Pistons, coached by Larry Brown, and the 1979 Supersonics, coached by Lenny Wilkens, had no players who had been a first-team All-NBAer or named to 2021's 75-member 75th Anniversary Team.

I decided to look at Thibodeau's talent over his 13-season career. The only players he's had who were ever selected First-Team All-NBA were Derrick Rose (who also won an MVP) and Joakim Noah. They each earned the honor once and never made any other All-NBA team. 

Thibs's Bulls teams, 2010-15, included a young Jimmy Butler for four seasons, and a still-great Pau Gasol for one. However, it's hard to fathom who could have beaten LeBron James and his Heat and Cavaliers teams of this period.

Since then, the best players Thibs has coached are Karl-Anthony Towns, Julius Randle, and Jalen Brunson. None have ever been selected for the First-Team All-NBA or made any All-NBA team more than three times, and they've all been in the league a long time.

They're very good, but not elite. That is, they're not MVP-caliber, which is what you need to win a title. 

I don't know where Tom Thibodeau will go next, or when. Wherever he winds up, I hope he has a truly great player and a solid roster. Then we can see if Thibs really can coach a team to an NBA title.

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Our Democracy

 

Silver dollar certificate, 1886. Photo Credit: Neuroforever

Today (June 5, 2025) is the 142nd birthday of John Maynard Keynes, the English theorist behind Keynesian economics. Keynesianism advocates using the State and its central bank to stabilize the market economy. It calls for government deficit spending to create jobs in periods of high unemployment, and tax hikes during an "overheated" economy to control price inflation.

Keynes's birthday provoked three thoughts, which aren't really about him, but about the nature of his work.

First, the purpose of economics is the same as the purpose of democracy: to stave off revolution. We're told that the government exists to protect our rights. However, the state is based on violence, and all it accomplishes is through violence or the threat of violence. All existing States are inheritors or usurpers of previous States from time immemorial. The rulers rule for the benefit of themselves, their friends, and their allies. 

Democratic institutions and the encouragement of civic participation are concessions by the rulers to keep us emotionally invested in the regime. When the State commits awful crimes and oppresses us, we're encouraged to point our finger at our neighbor who voted for these "leaders" and not at the institutions of the State.. When people organize for the voting booth, they're not organizing revolutions.

However, if the people are starving, they may revolt, regardless of how democratic the system is. That's where the economists come in. They inform politicians about what can and cannot be done to 1) make the people economically dependent on the State, and 2) make this dependence sustainable. That is, to stave off bankruptcy and revolution. The people won't overthrow a system if they're dependent on it and can't conceive of how to replace it.  

My second thought is that jobs are a form of social control. A significant concern of Keynes was unemployment, which was understandable given that his theories were developed during the global Great Depression of the 1930s. 

But why do people need to be employed? How much work do we really need to do to feed and shelter our families? Not a lot, if we want to live simply. Especially if we know how to build things and trade with our neighbors, we wouldn't need much money at all in daily life. However, if we don't work hard at a full-time job, we won't earn a lot of money. That means we won't pay a lot in taxes to fund the military, prisons, and interest on government debt.

That's why the State has a vested interest in keeping us working and encourages us to aspire to attain higher living standards in the form of luxuries (what American politicians call the "American Dream.")

The entire Keynesian model is based on these unspoken premises. Keep us employed so that we can buy more stuff, with the resulting taxes going to political cronies. Use the "stimulus" of deficit-based government spending and subsidies to put more money in people's pockets, increase consumer demand for stuff, and employ more people to make the stuff.

Keynes advocated fiat currency, which creates money out of thin air and whose value is based solely on the credit of the government itself. Much of the world now relies on fiat money because the U.S. dollar is a fiat currency. In the former system, bills were certificates that were exchanged for gold or silver. Precious metals could be put to other uses (jewelry, tableware, electronics); they have practical value. Under fiat currency, however, the dollar bill is inherently worthless because its only value is as a medium of exchange; the dollar can't be used for anything else.

Monetary inflation leads to higher prices, which hurts everyone, but the lowest-income people most of all. Remove all bigotry in America, and there will still be social injustice as long as there is inflation.

And that's not all. My third thought is that inflation is bad for the environment. When the Federal Reserve "prints" money, or creates more money with computer keystrokes to finance government deficit spending, it produces what otherwise would not have been made. It "stimulates" activity that would not have been stimulated. That is, it consumes energy (fossil fuels, etc), and otherwise takes from the planet what would not have been taken at that time.

All for the sake of "jobs," which are for the sake of taxes, which are for the sake of the military, prisons, government debt, and all the programs the government provides to keep us loyal and prevent revolution.

Well, the system has "worked" in that modern democracies haven't had revolutions. But there's no romance in it, and it's hard to ascribe "good intentions" to those with political power, regardless of party. Our leaders don't care if you have a job, or have good schools, or decent medical care. They don't care about you, even as they may provide these things with your taxes. You can tell how much they care about you, about human life, by their foreign policy. Those who would starve and bomb people abroad are perfectly capable of doing the same to you. The only difference is, they want your vote.

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James Leroy Wilson writes The MVP Chase (subscribe) and JL Cells (subscribe). Thank you for your subscriptions and support! You can contact James for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.

AL and NL MVP Chase Updates

Photo credit: Tage Olsin

The following is an update of the AL and NL MVP Chases through the May 31 games.

The MVP Chase reflects the number of games in which:

• The player's team won the game

• The player had three or more Bases Gained (BG): total bases + walks + steals

The chief determinant for the MVP is the sheer number of games in which the player had three or more bases gained (3+ BG) in a victory. When players have the same number of such games, I rank in order of percentage of team victories in which the player had 3+ BG.

In this list, I have included not only the number of 3+ BG in victories, but the overall record of the team when the player has 3+ BG. It gives a clue on how effective teammates are in helping win the games.

AMERICAN LEAGUE  MVP

1. Aaron Judge, Yankees: 24-9 66.7% of team victories

2. Rafael Devers, Red Sox 18-8 62.1

3. Cal Raliegh, Mariners 18-8 56.3%

4. Steven Kwan, Guardians 17-3 53.1

5. George Springer, Blue Jays 16-7 51.6

6. (T6) Paul Goldschmidt, Yankees 15-5 41.7

7. (T6) Ben Rice, Yankees 15-4 41.7

8. (T8) Spencer Torkelson, Tigers 15-7 37.5

9. (T8) Riley Greene, Tigers 15-5 37.5

10. (T10)Maikel Garcia, Royals 14-5 45.1

11. (T10) Bobby Witt Jr, Royals 14-13 45.1

 

 

NATIONAL LEAGUE

 

1. Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers 24-8 66.7% of team victories

2. Francisco Lindor, Mets 23-4 60.5

3. Kyle Tucker, Cubs 22-7 59.4

4. Kyle Schwarber, Phillies 21-5 58.3

5. James Wood, Nationals 20-8 71.4

6. Seiya Suzuki, Cubs 20-4 54.1

7. Pete Crow-Armstrong, Cubs 20-4 54.1

8. Manny Machado, Padres 17-6 50.0

9. Freddie Freeman, Dodgers 17-5 47.2

10. Pete Alonso, Mets 17-4 44.7

Subscription rates to the MVP Chase are the lowest that Substack allows: $5 per month or $30 per year (a 50% discount). You can also support me through PayPal or contact me using an alternative method. The more support I have, the more content you'll see. Contact me for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.

Check out JL Cells for my non-sports weirdness.