Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
Yeah he's got a way better case for MIP than MVP. Improved his FT%, 3PT%, BPM, AST% etc.
My only concern is that his improvement hasn't been uniform. His BLK% is down, for example, as is his REB%, and his TS% is actually lower than it was in his season with us: largely because he's only shooting 65% at the rim: he shot 69% at the rim in his season in NOLA and 73% at the rim his last season in LA, for comparison. The major different in a lot of ways is just the 3pt shooting, which is great (and accounts for the extra ppg) and the passing but a lot of that is just role: NYC is letting him be a primary ball handler a lot of the time which obviously increases those numbers, but it's not resulting in a particularly good offense. NYC has a bottom 10 offense, it's their defense that's been carrying them and Randle isn't a huge part of that honestly. He's been better this year but not spectacular or anything.
I think Shai has an argument for it but he's just missed too many games.
Jaylen Brown has a really good argument for it as well. He's averaging career highs in points, steals, blocks, and assists, shooting career highs from 2pt range and from 3 on career high 3 point attempts. Has also taken a big playmaking bump, almost doubling his previous years AST% without seeing any real rise in TOV%.
Zach LaVine also, he's gone from 49% from 2, 38% from 3, 80% from the line last year to 57/42/86 this year (that's a TS% jump from 57% to 63%). Career highs in points/rebounds/assists, huge leap in his impact metrics (from .091 WS/48 last year to .136 this year, and a jump from 1.82 LEBRON to 2.44 this year).
I do think Randle would be a deserving winner but I don't think it's a unanimous thing where nobody else is competing.