Okay, so I’ve been messing around with this “losing playoff MVP” idea, and I gotta say, it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. Started off super hyped, thinking I’d crack the code, you know?
First, I dug into a bunch of past playoff series. I mean, a lot. I spent hours just looking at box scores, game recaps, the whole nine yards. I wanted to find those players who, even though their team got knocked out, still balled out like crazy.
Then, I created this clumsy spreadsheet. I am not an Excel wizard, not at all. I jotted down all stats. I manually filled the players’ names, points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks—everything I could think of. My goal was to see if there were any patterns, you know, like did these losing MVPs all have crazy high scoring averages or something?
- Figuring out what “MVP” even means on a losing team.
- Was I going for pure stats, or did I need to factor in, like, heart and hustle?
- Making sense of all the numbers.
After I finished filling my clumsy spreadsheet, I tried to sort through the data. To find some kind of insight. I mean, I think I spotted a few guys who consistently put up big numbers in losing efforts, but I have no confidence that I can say I “figured it out.”
The Struggle Was Real
The biggest problem? So I have a few names, I might even call them my “losing playoff MVPs.” But it felt way more art than science, you know? I mean, there have been many awesome performances.
So, yeah, that’s where I’m at. My “losing playoff MVP” project is more of a “losing playoff MVP exploration.”
