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A player can’t just win MVP every year.
An example of that is regarding His Airness himself, Jordan.
Jordan could have justifiably won league MVP every year after his second season, besides his 17-game 1994-95 campaign. In the 10 full seasons Jordan played after his second campaign, he led the league in scoring all 10 times while doubling as one of the best perimeter defenders of all time, leading the NBA in steals three times in that time span.
Afterward, despite being at the absolute peak of arguably the greatest career the NBA has ever seen, Jordan still lost MVP in 1992-93 to Charles Barkley and in 1996-97 to Karl Malone.
In 1992-93, Jordan a league-leading 32.6 points and 2.8 steals per game while chipping in 6.7 rebounds and 5.5 assists on 49.5 percent shooting from the floor. He also led the NBA in VORP (Barkley finished fourth), BPM (Barkley finished second) and WS/48 (Barkley finished second).
Maybe the logic was that the Bulls struggled a bit that regular season coming off of back-to-back titles – and by struggled we mean they merely went 57-25 – so it would be a good time to give MVP to someone else.
In fairness, Barkley was spectacular that year, putting up 25.6 points, 12.2 rebounds and 5.1 assists while leading the Phoenix Suns to a 62-20 regular season, but there’s no doubt who the best player in the league was that year, as was proven in the 1993 Finals when Jordan led the Bulls to their third straight championship… which came against Barkley and Co.
The story was quite similar in 1996-97, with Jordan leading the league in points at 29.6 to go with 4.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 1.7 steals while likewise again leading the NBA in VORP (Malone finished third), BPM (Malone finished second) and WS/48 (Malone finished second).
The in-season wins argument doesn’t apply here as well, though, as Jordan’s Bulls went 69-13 while Malone’s Jazz went 64-18, though the Mailman did have a fantastic season, putting up 27.4 points, 9.9 rebounds and 4.5 assists.
Still, as was the case in 1992-93, there was one clear best player in the world at that time in Jordan, and he once again proved in that year’s Finals, guiding the Bulls to a championship over Malone and the Jazz.
Jordan made up for losing out on those two MVP awards by taking home Finals MVP instead.
We could go on and on, but you get the picture. Jordan had a strong argument to win league MVP every year besides his first two, his baseball comeback season and his Washington Wizards tenure.
