Will injuries hurt Griffin, Curry in MVP race?

The leaders in SportsRatings' latest MVP rankings—Oklahoma's Blake Griffin and Davidson's Stephen Curry—both suffered injuries recently that led to their teams losing games. Could this create an opening for someone else?

Curry's Davidson team lost to The Citadel when playing without him, and lost to Butler upon his return. These two losses reduce Davidson's winning percentage, which is factored into the MVP formula SportsRatings uses.

Griffin was, as of February 14th, the clear leader in the MVP race. But against Texas he scored just 2 points and had only 3 rebounds, both far below his average. For Griffin, the Texas game was the equivalent of Curry's 0-point game against Loyola (MD), where Curry stood in the corner double-teamed while his teammates played 4-on-3 ball. Griffin also missed the game against Kansas, which Oklahoma lost.

In real terms—with sportswriters voting for the awards—this will make no difference. In fact, a temporary absence only underscores a player's worth, particularly when his team struggles without him. By this measure, Griffin and Curry only showed how crucial they are to their teams, but from a cold, algorithmic viewpoint, missing games means missing stats, and if someone else is surging, it could mix things up a bit.

Here are updated stats through games of Monday, February 23. In per-game production, Griffin suffers the bigger fall due to the Texas game, going from 27.4 to 26.5 Total-Performance Points per game, but he remains #1, while Curry remains 5th, dipping from 24.0 to 23.5:

	Player	Team	Per Game	Total	MVP Rating
1	Blake Griffin	Oklahoma	26.5	715.5	638.9
2	Luke Harangody	Notre Dame	25.4	609.6	353.6
3	John Bryant	Santa Clara	25.3	733.7	354.4
4	Ahmad Nivins	St. Joseph's	25.2	655.2	352.5
5	Stephen Curry	Davidson	23.5	634.5	498.7

In total production—measured for the entire season—Griffin's essentially missing two games allows Santa Clara's John Bryant to surpass him for the #1 slot. Curry slips as well, to fourth behind St. Joe's Ahmad Nivins.

	Player	Team	Per Game	Total	MVP Rating
1	John Bryant	Santa Clara	25.3	733.7	354.4
2	Blake Griffin	Oklahoma	26.5	715.5	638.9
3	Ahmad Nivins	St. Joseph's	25.5	655.2	352.5
4	Stephen Curry	Davidson	23.5	634.5	498.7
5	Luke Harangody	Notre Dame	25.4	609.6	353.6

Finally, in the MVP ratings themselves, we see that Griffin is so far ahead that it's difficult to foresee anyone catching up to him under reasonable circumstances. Unless he couldn't play the rest of the year, it's doubtful anyone will pass him. Curry, however, falls from second to fourth, just behind Hasheem Thabeet.

	Player	Team	Per Game	Total	MVP Rating
1	Blake Griffin	Oklahoma	26.5	715.5	638.9
2	DeJuan Blair	Pittsburgh	22.4	582.4	537.6
3	Hasheem Thabeet	Connecticut	20.4	550.8	508.4
4	Stephen Curry	Davidson	23.5	634.5	498.7
5	Gary Wilkinson	Utah St.	18.0	504.0	450.1

Thabeet remains third while Pitt's DeJuan Blair vaults to #2 from #4. Blair outplayed Thabeet in Pitt's win over UConn on February 16th; his 22 points and 23 rebounds gave his aggregate stats a big boost, and if Oklahoma falters against Missouri and in the Big Twelve tournament, he has the best shot at wresting the MVP away from Griffin.

Comments

[Jaker]

Griffin is as over rated as Oklahoma. I would take Curry over him any day if I was an NBA owner Griffin looks like all the other too-short inside players that dont go anywhere in the NBA.

[SportsRatings]

I dunno Jaker...at worst, Griffin will still be able to rebound. He's just too good at that. And all the projections seem to indicate him going #1, ahead of Thabeet. Curry still hasn't said if he's going pro this summer.