AT THE END OF MARVEL’S ENDGAME (2019), Tony Stark, after receiving the one-finger signal from Doctor Strange, gathered what remained of his strength and armor and, in a seismic show of heroism, charged at Thanos. He managed to remove the rings from the gauntlet and snapped his fingers after saying, “And I.. Am… Iron Man.” This time, his friends and fellow heroes didn’t vanish. The snap resulted in the dematerialization of Thanos’ forces (Marvel Universe Entertainment). I can still hear the cheers from the theater as the threatening armada literally disintegrated into nothingness.
As memorable as Stark’s line was, it was in response to a line that I thought was much more significant. “I… am… inevitable,” Thanos had said. At that point in the movie, he did appear as an unstoppable force that could simply be explained in the present as is and be thought of in the future as will be. Well, evidently the inevitable was evitable. But that doesn’t dismiss the idea that there are such things that have to be recognized as inevitable; a collective set of will happens.
Was the NBA’s Regular Season MVP award being named after Michael Jordan inevitable? Yes, but I didn’t see it coming. I’m affirming this retrospectively. It only seems logical now, right? Not exactly. Removing one name in favor of another in terms of monuments and/or awards doesn’t happen frequently. That being said, a good deal of time has passed since the naming of the regular season’s MVP award after Maurice Podoloff.
A Very Brief History of Maurice Podoloff and the Award Named After Him
The trophy was named after Podoloff and its first recipient was from the 1955-56 season of the NBA. Podoloff (JD, Yale University) was a lawyer who became president of the American Hockey League and the Basketball Association of America (BAA). He was instrumental in overseeing a deal that joined the BAA and the National Basketball League to form the National Basketball Association (NBA). He became the first president with his tenure going from 1946–1963. That’s almost 20 years at the helm of the NBA.
Despite the fact that Podoloff wasn’t a professional athlete, it is understandable why he had an award named after him. The first recipient was the legendary Bob Pettit for the aforestated 1955-56 season. The most recent was Nikola Jokic for the 2020-21 season. There have been over 60 recipients featuring some of the biggest names that have ever laced up sneakers to play professional ball on the hard maple wood (Marc Mellon). These include the likes of Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, and Lebron James.
Inadmissible Mentionables
Why not name the trophy after one of them?
With the exception of Kareem, who stands as the sole recipient of six regular season MVP awards, the others mentioned here have won it four times. Lebron, being an active player, may stand a chance of winning it for another season but that is not likely. In fact, I will go on to predict that it will not happen. He hasn’t won one since the 2012-13 season. He has been in the league since 2003. At this point, he is better off reserving his energy for playoff runs as opposed to regular-season accolades. Winning another championship will actually do drastically more for his legacy.
Not only are there no guarantees that Lebron will win against the amazing plethora of young phenoms, but he has already suffered a substantial blemish in his career for not making it to the 2022 playoffs despite having a team that was built with the intention of reaching striking distance of the NBA championship (Dave McMenamin). After all, the Lakers did not pick up Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook to be part of a gallery of relics and accessories. (This is despite many saying that the Westbrook pickup was a result of dysfunction on the side of management.)
There is still some chance that a more recent recipient like Giannis, who has already won it twice, might end up with such accolades at some point in the future. However, like Kareem, he isn’t part of the universal conversation on candidates for the Greatest of All Time (GOAT) title. Thus, it is highly likely that the skill set and trajectory of his career won’t lead to being factored in one who should have such a trophy named after him. In any case, he isn’t at a place in his career for such considerations at the moment.
Lebron and Giannis being current players also quickly dismisses them from any award-naming conversations. (Giannis isn’t in the ballpark, to be honest). That leaves one for serious consideration.
Kareem is Inadmissable
Let’s return to Kareem. He has been the MVP for the regular season six times. He has also won the NBA championship the same number of times. It can arguably be said that those stats should have placed him in a position to at least be a serious contender. Winning the MVP six times places him ahead of Jordan. Why not name the trophy after Kareem? Or, better yet, why is Kareem not a legitimate option?
Obviously, Kareem has an award already named after him in the form of the Social Justice Champion award (NBA.com). While this automatically disqualifies him from having another trophy named after him, I suggest that NBA officials had long thought of these changes and had disqualified Kareem based on other reasons.
The following is the reason that I think it wouldn’t make sense during this period.
In Lebron James and Hyper Fan-Migration, I named Jordan, Kobe, and Lebron as basketball megastars. I argued that Jordan was the first. The criteria were that one had to be of (1) international fame and (2) included in the GOAT conversation. In the current era, these categories walk hand in hand. Once you are at this level, the number of championships matters. All three have a respectable amount of championships. However, within this class of three, Jordan has more.
In fairness, Kareem simply wasn’t on the scene when basketball reached international notoriety. This leaves him out of the GOAT conversation. He is inadmissible from that standpoint. Even if he was, there is no certainty that he would have been seen as the megastar. This, of course, is an argument from silence.
Why Jordan? Why Now?
The NBA’s 75th Anniversary
The celebration of the NBA’s 75th anniversary provides the opportunity to adjust or reinvent. While the naming of the trophy after Jordan could have occurred before this year, it makes sense that it happened around this time. In ESPN’s ranking of the 75th top players, the aforementioned Kareem came in third place and Lebron came in second. Jordan was ranked number one. If there is a sizable contestation to this, I have yet to hear it. The article went as far as referring to Jordan as the GOAT (ESPN).
This wasn’t the NBA’s doing. While the NBA provided the names of who is on the list, ESPN took it upon itself to rank them. There are many positions and persons that were left out that are being disputed in regard to the ranking. I was surprised to see where Curry and Durant were ranked. In my book, Kobe is top five dead or alive. But I have no arguments against the tippity top. Jordan being placed as number one, and simultaneously referred to as the GOAT, was done in a casual fashion which conveys that this isn’t new or shocking. They weren’t unveiling some big secret that nobody was aware of.
Kobe’s Legacy
“On January 26, 2020, a helicopter carrying former pro basketball player Kobe Bryant” crashed killing everyone on board (History.com). Although Kobe had already retired at this point, he was still hugely popular and young. The world anticipated great things from him in his post-basketball life. We started to see it. In 2018, Kobe won an academy award for 2017’s Dear Basketball. Kobe, among other highlights, also created a show featuring his breakdown of basketball analysis called Detail (cf. Retirement Wisdom & Bleacher Report).
We were robbed of getting more from the great one. In seeking out ways to cope with our collective grief, we accepted the NBA’s offerings. “On May 15, 2021, Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame” (Matthew Barrero).
While this rapid induction is significant, it is not surprising given the heights he has reached. It is the naming of a trophy after Bryant that brings us down this road. Sam Quinn writes of NBA commissioner Adam Silver pulling “a sheet off of a mystery object, revealing a newly renamed trophy for that All-Star Game MVP award.” It was the Kia NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant MVP Award (CBS Sports). Thus, Kobe, generally considered the second coming of Jordan–or at least the closest one, has an MVP trophy named after him.
But Michael Jordan had no award named after him.
Inevitably, the Inevitable
Combing the trophy named after Kobe with the 75th year anniversary opens the door for a major trophy to be named after Jordan. All the stars were aligned. All the cards fell into place. The timing just seemed right. It was perfect to do something as monumental as naming one of the most important awards in the league after the GOAT. It was inevitable. It was always on the horizon but we never paid attention to the signs.
Jordan’s legacy was already cemented as arguably the GOAT. That made him the largest figure looming on the international basketball terrain. This was perhaps the only accolade that could have been added to his legacy. If you’ve ever seen him play, you would have noticed that there is an it factor that goes beyond superior skill. It’s not that Jordan was capable of doing what no other basketball player could do. It was that he did what nobody has done.
Epilogue: Wait. . . The Award
Descriptions of the meaning behind the design of the award are available online. Obviously, twenty-three and six have significant meaning. But I found myself wondering, why this model? It appears to be a figure en route to a one-handed dunk. This is fitting for Jordan. However, it is not iconic in my opinion. An iconic award should be a model that features one of Jordan’s greatest moves. It should be his recognized signature. Sure, he was a great dunker. But a one-handed dunk won’t do when there is something greater out there.
Why not the Jumpman logo? Perhaps the issue may simply be that it could not be the Jumpman because its already a trademarked logo. That is unfortunate. It is the perfect representation of Jordan. It should be what an MVP award named after Jordan should look like. Alas, the law has ruined another opportunity to have something great.
As a Jordan fan, I was disappointed. I went through various videos of Jordan dunking to see if there was something else that could have been used. One that popped up was Jordan’s version of the cradle dunk. While it is not his signature move, I feel that a model could have been created of him being mid-flight in the process of completing that move.
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Notes & References
Featured image credit – NBA Youtube channel
Lebron James’ NBA stats – Basketballreference.com
“Legends profile: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar” – NBA.com