If FINALS MVPs Were Given to the BEST Player… (1980s) 

Thanks to Keeps for sponsoring this video! Head to keeps.com/jonny to get 50% off your first order of hair loss treatment. Which Finals MVP of the 80s was the most impressive?

Can you do this series for DPOY? And ROY? I love your opinion and perspective on the voting process and narratives that go into these awards. Kareem has to keep the 1980 FMVP for me. Otherwise...everything else is ok

This just shows how dominant Magic and Bird were! Rare talents

This video should (rightfully so) be called "Why Magic deserves every FMVP of the 1980s" lol

I was remembering these series just yesterday, glad to see it come back!

Johnny fucking Arnett...wish I could but you a beer for all the times you've made my day! Take care brotha, and keep up the great content!

JONNY Arnett is the real MVP

Thank you very much for the content, Jonny! For me, being a basketball casual, the context you provide comes in clutch in helping me understand the game more. Much love 🙏🏻

Great list! Never did watch these Finals series but hearing your insight help me picture it a bit. Also, Magic Johnson is a beast. No wonder at one point he was considered the GOAT. Thanks as always Jonny!

Gonna be a very interesting video to watch as always so i’m looking forward to it already. Appreciate all the effort going into every video as well 💪🏽

What about "What if fmvps were given to the greatest performers pre 1969"? I'd love a video on the golden ages.

For those saying the 80s was a "weak"a era or was full of "plumbers". Here are the top 50 players of the 1980s: - Magic Johnson - Larry Bird - Michael Jordan - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Moses Malone - Isiah Thomas - Kevin McHale - Hakeem Olajuwon - Dominique Wilkins - Julius Erving - George Gervin - Sidney Moncrief - Charles Barkley - James Worthy - Alex English - Bernard King - Adrian Dantley - Clyde Drexler - Micheal Ray Richardson - Karl Malone - Robert Parish - Patrick Ewing - Mark Aguirre - Dennis Johnson - Ralph Sampson - Tom Chambers - Marques Johnson - Larry Nance - Dale Ellis - Walter Davis - Artis Gilmore - Kiki Vandeweghe - Jack Sikma - Andrew Toney - Terry Cummings - Alvin Robertson - John Stockton - Maurice Cheeks - Bobby Jones - Rolando Blackman - Dan Roundfield - Fat Lever - Reggie Theus - World B. Free - Buck Williams - Mike Mitchell - Xavier McDaniel - Otis Birdsong - Jamaal Wilkes - Gus Williams

I'm always watching you videos you know a lot abt basketball, keep going💪

I think the biggest reason why Kareem got it 1985 cause how good he performed being 37 or 38

Is finals mvp given to the best player in the final game? or is it given to the best player of the entire finals series?

Finally 😍😍😍 my favourite videos from this channel.

Love the video! Could you do a 2010s playoffs mvp video?

Love your videos!! Can we get more of this or maybe every asterisk on every finals of that decade or mvp winners

Great work as always

yess i was waiting for this one 😈😈😈

Great video idea bro, I think my favorite finals mvp story in history has gotta be the confusion behind the award in the 1978 year

I never know what to say. Great video. I enjoy these very much.

I was waiting for this such a long time.

YES SIR!! here it is i been waiting for monts :)

This is a great series can’t wait for more

Before even watching, I like the video cause I know it’ll be fire 🔥

Top content as always

Man imaging jumping into the court like that when your team wins the chip. What an era!

I'd love to see a series that highlights some lesser known amazing defenders. Because we don't hear alot about great defensive players besides some of the obvious ones. Rodman, Hakeem, Mutumbo. Ben Wallace etc etc. But we don't hear about the others. I'd love to learn about some more about lesser known, underdog type of defenders that never really got the credit they deserved. Sounds interesting to me. What do you think?

Happy to see this series back

The goat has returned with a new video

this series is back nice i like it

Good choice keeping Magic for 1980. You can’t really be the MVP if you miss an entire game and your team wins anyway. Magic was also insane all series.

Can’t wait for the 90’s to recent vids

By the way Kareem didn’t even go to Philly for game 6 so they couldn’t even physically give it to him since he wasn’t here, magic did deserve it mostly due to that legendary game.

You should do a video in which you discuss ROTY awards since there have been many times in which these are tightly contested.

U need to turn this into a series because I get geeked for these list bro

Every single Finals match ups in the 80s featured either Magic or Bird. That’s crazy

Guys put that notification bell on, this is one of the greatest basketball channels. You make me so happy when u upload your videos and they make me feel better through the day, thank you for your research and dedication ♡

I love this series ;)

Based on what you told in the video I would actually give the 1980 award to Kareem and keep Maxwell for the 1981 award. I have not watched those series myself, so this is really purely based on the information in this video.

hope you're doing well Johnny!

Can you please make a video about if the finals MVP existed way before 1969 the first year it was given who would’ve won it.

Love it here

YES YES YEEEEEEEEEEESSSS MY PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED, JONNY KNOW I'VE BEEN ASKING

And people have the gull to say that John Stockton and Steph Curry are better point guards than Earvin Magic Johnson.......please,

Let’s gooo, we didn’t do those videos in a while.

How is this guy not hired by Fox Sports and/or ESPN?

Not to out myself as a casual but I haven't watched any of these series'but these videos still go hard

I'd let Kareem keep his. That scoring and efficiency against one of the best post defenses in nba history deserves the FMVP imo

Babe wake up , Jonny released a new video

People forget Jordan was active during many of these years, since he started playing in1984... He was great since being a rookie, but it just goes to show how fantastic these Lakers/76ers/Celtics/Pistons teams were, and how important having other greats like Pippen is to a team winning a championship.

Do a 1970s finals mvp video and go into Jerry West's 1969 finals MVP in more detail as well.

Now do the 90s... Great video, BTW!

Can you bring back the versus series?

agree with everything but 1980 Kareem was on another level on both ends of the floor

Video idea that you could likely write from memory: forgotten nobodys that were propably a ring away from HOF.

I think Worthy should keep it. One of the best finals Game 7 performance of all time if you ask me. But I can't say that Magic didn't deserve it either

We need you to do this for DPOY I feel like there were so many snubs

And the MVP goes to Jonny Arnett! 😁

Yo do one for all nba teams

I honestly just watch to see his smooth transitions to the sponsorships

miss those kind of battle of the boards. that skinny dude larry going up there grabbing the ball without fear..

Basically if you won an FMVP in the 80s but your name wasn’t Erving Johnson give it back

I was thinking during the intro that if rebounds, assists, and shooting percentages weren't weighed in pretty well on par with scoring, in this video, that it wasn't worth much. My apologies. It was done right. Thanks.

Do a series on every MVP and who should be the mvp

don't forget that larry scored 8 points in 2 games of the series in 81

Rename the video to "why magic Johnson deserved every fmvp

Can you do a real mvp like the playoffs and regular season mvp

Did Rambis just poster 2 guys? Did anyone notice that

a video on Dream Team 2 (94 FIBA team)

Do the 60’s next

I'd disagree still with that 1980/81 FMVP's, but I appreciate your opinion

Did Mj DIRTY before that Keeps add 😄

I am disappointed not to see any player from the losing team winning the MVP, I thought that is what the video was about

Finals MVPs are about who made the biggest impact to win the series when it mattered the most. In 1988 when it mattered most was in Game 7, it was a taffy pull for 6 games, Worthy was by far the best in game 7 and he was great in Game 6, 2 elimination games, he also had a great 24 and 10 boards in game 2. His stats would be better if not for a horrid game he had with 7 points in foul trouble. In 1985 for example, the biggest game was Game 2 and that is where Kareem won the MVP by altering the destiny of the series and changing momentum.

I still think 1985 belonged to Kareem, he was pretty much every on the stat sheet and on top of his crazy scoring with really good FG % he did a shit ton of assists too.

Joe Dumars is such an underrated player

You make it pretty hard for us to disagree with you because of how precise you are, great Job on this video and you convinced me that those players did and didn’t deserve the finals mvp.

Please make a vid on if another lockout will happen, girzzlies future, if wemby, bronny and lebron could join together, and if 2017 and 18 title are the most meaningless titles

I think you should start using true shooting more than field goal percentage. Its better in saying how effecient a player actually is

Pls do the conference mvp on the EAST pls

The only one I disagree with is 81’ I think Maxwell deserved it due to the large gap in efficiency between him and Bird, despite Bird’s insane rebounding performance

I honestly dint know what a pg is anymore considering most pgs nowadays arent true pgs like steve nash, magic and stockton, cuz curry, lillard, and kyrie are more like combo guards... we might have to make new positions in basketball as we are losing what s true pg is, lamelo is like the only true pg ik

ive never clicked a video so fast

Have you ever thought of making videos on college basketball? Could be interesting

James Worthy absolutely positively deserved his Finals MVP! He dominated the biggest game, he won Game 7 and thus the 🏆 championship. Stats don’t always tell what happened in a series, and game 7, the ultimate must win or go home needs to carry that weight.

2:11

In summary : magic and bird own this decade 🤣

Magic was the oil and Kareem was the engine. Magic was the parachute and Kareem the plane

Moses Malone with average 25.8 points and 18 rebounds on 51% FG% is absolutely absurd. That man is a monster.

I agree mostly but since we are talking about just the finals (not the playoffs as a whole) and the best player whether from the losing or winning team thn my list would have to be: Only the finals: 1980=Kareem 1981=Moses 1982=Earvin 1983=Moses 1984=Bird 1985=Earvin 1986=Bird 1987=Earvin 1988=Worthy or Earvin (50% for both) 1989=Dumars The playoffs as a whole: win or lose 1980=Kareem 1981=Moses 1982=Juluis 1983=Moses 1984=Bird 1985=Earvin 1986=Bird 1987=Earvin 1988=Earvin 1989=Isiah

Let's do a kobe vs curry. Ur content is awesome plus the work you put into it

Can u do wilt vs russell or kareem versus series

10:33 im sure you mean he was the first person to achieve a triple double avg in the finals, but im pretty lebron has done this as well in 2017

IMO… 1980: Kareem (by a hair over Magic) 1981: Bird (slightly above Maxwell) 1982: Magic 1983: Moses 1984: Bird 1985: Kareem 1986: Bird 1987: Magic 1988: Magic (little bit above Worthy) 1989: Dumars (Isiah not FAR behind) … In 1980, you could say Magic, but I think he was 1b to Kareem’s 1a, and that’s because Kareem didn’t play in the decisive game6… Jabbar was definitely the better player and was having a considerably better series, while they only won game5 due to him. He even wanted to play game6 but they eventually decided it would be better for him to heal and to return in game7 if there was one (which didn’t happen), to wreck shop yet again and for LA to win the series. Magic was incredible in game6 but I think Kareem’s impact in the 5 games he played were ahead Magic’s 6 games. In 1985 though, I don’t think there’s much of an argument for Magic over Kareem in 1985… Jabbar went back to like his prime/peak level, and was also clutch as hell! Bird didn’t win it in 1981 because he was the total opposite of a media darling (contrary to Magic)… but he was flat-out the better player, and also had the overall most impact for the series. Not to mention that in the Conference Finals, the real Finals let’s call it, between the two best teams in the league that year (the Celtics and the 76ers), Larry played some unreal basketball while Boston pulled through in 7 games, in one of the best series of all-time!

What's the point of bringing up Jerry West winning the award despite being on the losing team, if all the choices in the video still go to the winning team

Have you actually watched the 1980 finals or are you going off of stats?

80 KAJ, 81 Bird, 82 Magic, 83 Moses, 84 Bird, 85 KAJ, 86 Bird, 87 Magic, 88 Magic, 89 Dumars

Id give it to cedric maxwell ngl.. more points and more efficient and mkre important in the biggest gane tbh