Why the MVP Vote Should Take into Account the NBA Postseason

The NBA MVP award is currently voted for by a panel of sportswriters and broadcasters immediately following the regular season.

While that's the way it's been since the inception of the award, it doesn't mean that it has to stay that way. I mean, up until the 1979-80 season, the MVP award used to be voted for by the players themselves, so there's no doubt that the way voting takes place for the award can—and still should—change.

Voting for the MVP award immediately following the end of the regular season, and failing to include the NBA playoffs, is not only a major mistake, it's a disservice to the players who play the game.

Removing arguably the most important piece of every NBA season from the criteria for winning an award that is supposed to be handed out to the most valuable player in the entire league is not only wrong, it is also illogical.

Ahead are five reasons why the MVP vote should take into account the NBA postseason. 

The Postseason Means Exponentially More Than the Regular Season

The way the MVP voting is set up now values the regular season too much and devalues the postseason exponentially.

Take last season for example. The regular-season MVP, Derrick Rose, was knocked out in the Eastern Conference Finals by a more dominant Miami Heat team, led by LeBron James. In the NBA finals that followed, LeBron and the Heat got dismantled by a more complete Mavericks team led by NBA Finals MVP Dirk Nowitzki.

Watching the way that Nowitzki played in the finals and the playoffs last year, there's no doubt that his play was more important to his team's overall level of success than any other player in the league. One of the reasons why Nowitzki didn't win the award last year was because the Mavericks were only the third seed in the West, as compared to the Bulls, who were the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference.

Just look at both player's 2010-11 regular-season per-game statistics:

Dirk Nowitzki: 23 points, 2.6 assists, 7 rebounds, 51.7 field-goal percentage

Derrick Rose:  25 points, 7.7 assists, 4.1 rebounds, 44.5 field-goal percentage

When you look at that regular-season production and the fact that Nowitzki was able to carry his team to the NBA Finals, it's somewhat evident that he was more valuable to his team's success throughout the entirety of the season.

While that's only one example from a plethora of NBA seasons, it shows a glimpse of the mistake that the NBA makes by not including the postseason in its MVP voting, because the postseason performance matters significantly more than the regular season.

Value to a Team Can't Be Assessed Without Postseason Performance

Like it or not, there are players in the NBA who either fail to show up for their team or just vanish in the clutch.

Without naming any names, I'm sure we all know the specific players that I'm talking about, and the fact that those kind of players exist is reason enough to ensure that the MVP award isn't voted for and given out until the postseason is played.

Having a player on your team who produces at a ridiculously high level throughout the regular season is great, but if that player fails to perform when his team truly needs him the most, then that player's value to his team immediately decreases.

The postseason is where you find out what players are really made of and how valuable they truly are to their team, so without incorporating the postseason into the MVP award voting, the MVP award truly isn't evaluating who the most valuable player is.

Instead, the MVP award is evaluating which player is the most productive across the board for the majority of the regular season.

Postseason value and regular season value shouldn't be two different things when it comes to the evaluation of the NBA's Most Valuable Player award, but unfortunately, that's the way things currently are.  

Most NBA Teams Amp Up Their Play During the Postseason

Let's be honest here. There are teams that don't start to truly play their best basketball until the NBA playoffs begin.

Teams like the Miami Heat, Oklahoma City Thunder, Chicago Bulls, San Antonio Spurs and a few others don't play at 100 percent night in and night out during the regular season because, well, they can get away with doing that.

If you watch every regular-season game, it's quite clear that there's quite a disparity between the way teams play during the regular season and the way they step up their game during the postseason, and that needs to be taken into consideration when it comes to handing out the MVP award.

Just ask the New York Knicks if the Miami Heat team they've seen in the playoffs—the team that beat them by 33 points in their playoff opener—is the same Miami team that they played three times during the regular season.

I'll go out on a limb and assume they'd say no. 

True value can only be assessed once a player has played against the toughest competition, and that kind of competition doesn't exist until the season is on the line and the playoffs are here.

To understand which player is truly the most valuable to his team, the postseason must be accounted for because that is when teams truly start to play, and subsequently, that is the time when a player's true value is exposed. 

Postseason Performance Is More Important Than Regular Season Performance

If you ask the San Antonio Spurs how much more valuable postseason performance is than regular season performance, they'll point you back to last season's failure of getting knocked out of the playoffs by the eighth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies.

No matter how you look it, there's no debating the fact that every NBA player cares more about the postseason than they do about their success of the regular season.

Scoring 27.5 points per game and winning the regular-season MVP award means absolutely nothing if you're unable to help your team at least make it to the NBA Finals and beyond.

In the past 22 NBA seasons, the regular-season MVP winner went on to win the NBA Finals only seven times, and while those MVPs still were able to help their team attain some level of success, falling short of winning an NBA title has to at least be taken into account moving forward.

I'm not saying that players shouldn't be able to win the MVP award if they don't make it to the NBA Finals, but there's no doubt that postseason success should at least be taken into account.

Any bona fide NBA superstar would tell you winning a ring is more important than winning an MVP award, and if the players place that much value on postseason performance, the NBA should as well when they are considering which player truly brings the most value to his team. 

It Would Add Excitement to the MVP Race

There's no doubt that the MVP award creates an impressive amount of excitement for fans around the league, but it would be that much more exciting if postseason performance was included in the evaluation for which player wins the award.

Postseason performance would add excitement because oftentimes players who competed for the MVP award throughout the regular season meet in the playoffs.

For example, last season the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat faced off against each other in the Eastern Conference Finals. Last year's MVP winner, Derrick Rose, faced off against LeBron James in a number of epic showdowns.

Now, LeBron went on to drop a dud in the finals against the Dallas Mavericks, but he undoubtedly dominated his matchup with Rose, the 2011 NBA MVP. If the MVP wasn't awarded until the end of the postseason, the conversation surrounding who should have won the MVP award last season would have been that much more exciting and that much more highly debated.

The NBA is always looking for more ways to get fans involved and create excitement for its sport, and waiting until someone hoists the Larry O'Brien championship trophy would be a great way to do just that.