That is one of the most out-there awards I've seen given. How on earth was Ingram even a finalist, never mind the winner of MIP? Devonte Graham should have run away with this thing.
You'd think that MIP would effect winning.
But you could argue Ingram did affect winning.
Pels had a higher win % than last year pre-bubble. (a team that had AD for 70% of the season). Stepped up for a team missing Zion most of the year. Successfully kept the team in the hunt for #8. Personally I expected them to do worse, so I have no problem giving Ingram the credit. Without him, how many games do they win?
I have no problem with Ingram winning. I would guess Brown and Tatum were hurt by 2019 expectations and what they showed in the 2018 playoffs. Especially Brown, who had a down year last year, making the improvement from last year to this year look even better, but if you smoothed out the results/expectations from 2018-2020, Tatum and Brown don't look as impressive (not hating, I love where both their games are at now, just saying). Tatum's surge probably came too late in the season, so didn't show it for enough games, hurting him in the voting.
For Graham, in an era where everyone looks at advanced stats now, Graham's stats while still impressive, are less impressive than they first appear. He got 20 more minutes per game which is a big driver for him. His per36 stats went from 12/6/3.4 to 19/8/3.5, again still impressive, but not as impressive as 5/3/1 to 18/8/3 his basic stats show.
Ingram got the same minutes (but more shots, higher usage). Improved points, rebounds, assists, steals, PER, TS%, eFG%, etc. I think it's harder to go from 19/6/3 per36 to 25/7/4 than Grahams per36 improvement from 12/6/3.4 to 19/8/3.5. Ingram's PER went from 13.4 to 18.8, while Graham's was 10.3 to 15.8, that's a 5 point improvement for both, but the higher you go up the harder it is to improve, making Ingram's more impressive. Both player's shooting efficiency improved, but Ingram's improved to above the league average, while Graham is still below.
*And actually Ingram's numbers should be slightly better than I listed above, because we're not supposed to include bubble games.
Now I'm not saying I would have picked Ingram personally, but no outrage from where I'm sitting. All in all, I think a lot of guys are worthy. Can't go wrong with any of them. And to me, this is such a minor award (along with 6MOY), no big deal no matter who they choose. Of course would have been nice if Tatum or Brown won, or even Hayward.
