[Ads-l] Problematic Definition of "M.V.P."

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

A recent article about the NBA is pertinent to LH's point about
recognizing individual success embedded within team failure.

Website: NBC Sports
Date: April 28, 2022
Article: How many times has the NBA MVP lost in Round 1 of the playoffs?
Author: Eric Mullin
https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/warriors/nba-playoffs-how-many-times-has-mvp-lost-first-round

[Begin excerpt]
Nikola Jokic is expected to receive his second consecutive NBA MVP
award sometime in the near future.

And when he does, his season will have already been over.

Jokic and the Denver Nuggets were eliminated in the first round of the
2022 NBA Playoffs with a Game 5 loss to the Golden State Warriors on
Wednesday.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Sun, May 1, 2022 at 5:33 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> Besides the confusion about a team's MVP vs. a league's MVP, the OED's
> definition certainly does go wrong in mentioning "best" as a criterion.
> There are even leagues with a separate "M.O.P." (Most Outstanding Player)
> which really is intended to signal the *best* performance, precisely to
> distinguish it from the *most valuable*. Then of course there are all the
> complaints about whether it makes sense to choose an MVP from a losing
> team. I recall a particularly robust dispute over whether Andre Dawson
> really deserved to be elected as MVP of the National League when his Cubs
> finished last in their division. As some maintained at the team, they could
> have finished last without him.
>
> LH
>
> On Sun, May 1, 2022 at 8:44 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> > The OED's definition of "M.V.P." is somewhat off-base. The definition is:
> > "MVP n. U.S. Sport (originally Baseball) most valuable player, (an award
> > given to) the best player in a team (also in extended use)."
> >
> > If this definition was correct, there would be 30 M.V.P. awards given in
> > baseball every year.  A better definition would be something like "an award
> > given to the player in a league who was most valuable to his or her team's
> > success."  (I realize that that definition is not entirely satisfactory
> > either, since it ignores the complexities stemming from different criteria
> > used by different sportswriters.)
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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