Obviously we have a lot of different interpretations of MVP, and everybody thinks their's is the best. To me, MVP means most valuable player out of the whole league, not team specific. I always looked at this from the theoretical view of if you swapped the players who are playing the best, which team would benefit the most?
Joakim Noah is more valuable to the Bulls than LeBron is to the Heat, because the Bulls would be worse off with the loss of Noah than the Heat would be with the loss of James. While I won’t debate that, to me that doesn’t make Noah more valuable than LeBron. Because if you swapped James and Noah, would James’s Bulls win more now than Noah’s Bulls? I think so without a doubt. That tells me LeBron is more valuable than Noah.
(Though granted, this method suffers when comparing players playing completely different positions, like PG and C, I think you need to take a league wide look, and not just 2 teams. Putting LeBron on all 30 teams with the way he played this year, does that make the teams better than doing the same with other top players?)
When you determine it the other way (most value to individual team), then should have Chris Bosh won in 2010? Jrue Holiday last year? Looks like he was pretty valuable to Philly as we see the difference without him. Why aren’t we talking about Al Jefferson for the award this year then? Charlotte’s already up 15 wins with him with 8 games to go. Was Michael Jordan not that valuable, because when he retired the first time, the Bulls only finished with 2 less wins?
It’s an individual award, so how good your teammates are shouldn’t really play a role in determining it.