Who got screwed up the most in NBA history?

Voting for MVP is never easy, though some years there are more clear winners than others. And yet, there are also times when a player might seem like an obvious choice for MVP but he still doesn’t win the award. To determine which players were most overlooked for the MVP title, we looked back at each season and identified the player with the highest Global Rating.

For those unaware, Global Rating is a metric we’re using to measure the on-court impact of NBA players. And if you’re wondering how it accurate it might be in selecting MVPs, it correctly predicted the last two recipients of the award (both Nikola Jokic).

As it turns out, it was the megastars who got hurt in MVP voting the most. Per our research, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, LeBron James and Michael Jordan, winners of 19 MVP awards, should have actually combined for 37 Maurice Podoloff trophies (now renamed after Jordan).

For this exercise, we awarded 10, seven, five, three or one point to the Top 5 finishers in both Global Rating ranking and the actual MVP vote and found the difference.

Wilt Chamberlain

Malcolm Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

Global Rating MVPs. vs. actual MVPs: 9-4
Global Rating points: 111
MVP points: 54
Difference: 57

According to Global Rating, Chamberlain should have won MVP as the league’s top player nine times instead of four, which was courtesy of Bill Russell winning the award more than was warranted. Lest we forget, Russell won five MVP awards while making 1st Team All-NBA just three times, indicating he wasn’t considered the league’s top center some seasons yet was still named MVP anyway.

That could have to do with the fact players voted for MVP until 1979-80 while the media handled All-NBA voting (and is just another example of media making better award choices than players).

As you’ll see below, some of the Global Rating vs. Actual MVP decisions were razor tight. That was not the case for Chamberlain, who had hugely better years, per our metric, than the players who…