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Simon Becker's avatar

Check out this article about NBA groupthink! It covers a lot of the same points you talked about:

https://open.substack.com/pub/basketballpoetry/p/the-stunning-numbers-behind-the-mvps?r=3tacxx&utm_medium=ios

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Owen Phillips's avatar

Yeah @Mike Shearer nailed it with that one

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Mike Shearer's avatar

Thanks, Simon!

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Seiji Carpenter's avatar

would be interesting to see how individual voters' contrarian behavior changes over time. i'd assume most folks get more contrarian over time, but maybe some folks get pushed back to the herd

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Owen Phillips's avatar

Good Q. I know SVG has had relatively high contrarian scores each year he’s had a vote.

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George Rising's avatar

Interesting article! For 2025 1st All-NBA, however, I think it was more objective than herding: the top 4 were obvious, and Mitchell got the 5th spot over several other equally good candidates based on rewarding the 64 wins for the Cavs.

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Owen Phillips's avatar

I think my issue is with the idea that there is an “objectively correct” choice. It’s meant to be a subjective exercise but it’s turned into something else

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George Rising's avatar

Nope. There's black and there's gray. SGA and Jokic are black: they are objectively 1st All-NBA. I challenge you to create an objective standard where they are NOT 1st All-NBA. You can't.

For Donovan Mitchell: that's more of gray area. Here's why: https://x.com/grisingTRS/status/1926679006645989470

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