A riddle for you: If Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić is enjoying the greatest statistical regular season in NBA history, and yet Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the betting favorite for MVP, according to BetMGM, would that make the Oklahoma City Thunder point guard’s award campaign the most impressive ever?
With a handful of games to play before votes are tallied, let’s take one last look at this year’s MVP race.
SGA’s advantage
Jokić’s 29.7 points and 10.2 assists per game have generated a total of 3,485 points over 65 appearances. Meanwhile, Gilgeous-Alexander’s nightly averages of 32.8 points and 6.4 assists have yielded a total of 3,525 points in 72 games. While Jokić has had his hand in more points per contest (53.6 to 49), Gilgeous-Alexander’s availability for an additional seven games gives him the overall edge in offensive production.
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Objectively, this is Gilgeous-Alexander’s advantage. Forty points over seven games. But should it be?
(Amber Matsumoto/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
The Nuggets are 4-7 in Jokić’s absence and have been outscored by 8.3 points per 100 possessions when he is not on the floor. One is a 30-win pace; the other is a 19-win pace. Either is bad. The Thunder are 2-1 in the games that Gilgeous-Alexander has missed and have outscored opponents by 4.2 points per 100 possessions when he is not on the court. One is a 55-win pace; the other is a 52-win pace. Both are good.
Statistically speaking, Jokić has elevated a roster that would otherwise be a lottery team into a top seed (Denver is currently third in the Western Conference, two losses behind the Houston Rockets); Gilgeous-Alexander has lifted a team that could compete for the No. 1 seed into one that is running away with it.
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One can subjectively argue that making good teams great is more valuable than making bad teams good.
Jokić’s pressure points
Jokić is averaging a 36-12-9 (on 64% true shooting) per 36 minutes in the clutch, when games are within five points in the last five minutes. SGA has averaged a 39-5-4 (66 TS%) in similar situations. Both rule.
Only Jokić has played in 30 clutch games to Gilgeous-Alexander’s 20. In other words, 46% of Jokić’s production this season has come in games that come down to the wire, as opposed to 28% for SGA. Significantly more of Jokić’s numbers have come under higher pressure. This is another objective fact.
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Then again, one could still subjectively argue that Gilgeous-Alexander has put his team in position to win games by large margins, though we have already established that he has a more talented supporting cast.
Think about it this way: Jokić has been operating at a deficit all season. Every time he comes out of the game, on average, opponents are either cutting into Denver’s lead or expanding their own advantage. The opposite is true for Gilgeous-Alexander. The Thunder are statistically stretching their leads in his absence.
Consider that. Jokić’s production has come under significantly greater duress.
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And that production is arguably the greatest in history. He ranks top three in the NBA in points, rebounds, assists and steals per game. Nobody has ever even ranked top 10 in all four categories. The man just posted a 61-point triple-double on Tuesday against one of the the league’s elite defenses.
To beat that in this race would require the most impressive MVP campaign ever, would it not?
Best player on the best team?
There is precedent. In the 1961-62 season, when players (not media) voted for MVP, Bill Russell edged Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson for the award. Chamberlain’s 50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds per game led the NBA, and Robertson became the first player ever to average a triple-double (31-13-11). But Russell was at the helm of a three-time defending champion that finished six games better than the NBA field.
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The Thunder’s 63-12 record is currently three games better than the East-leading Cleveland Cavaliers. Oklahoma City leads the Western Conference by 14.5 games. This is Gilgeous-Alexander’s other edge.
It is fine to name the best player on the best team the MVP. As Indiana Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton said, “I grew up in an era when the best player on the best team wins MVP every time.”
That was not necessarily the case for Haliburton, who was born in February 2000:
It certainly was not true last season, when the Boston Celtics finished seven games better than every other team in the league and Jayson Tatum finished sixth in the MVP voting. He arguably has the fewest holes in his game of anyone across the NBA, but the strength of his team was actually held against him.
Final thoughts
Tatum markedly trailed some of the top MVP candidates in advanced statistical measures last season, and that paved the way for his candidacy to be roundly dismissed by the voters (he did not receive a single first- or second-place vote in 2024). Such is far from the case for Gilgeous-Alexander this season.
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He and Jokić split the difference on the most respected all-encompassing advanced statistical metrics.
Oklahoma City’s record may be the tiebreaker in this race, though not necessarily because Gilgeous-Alexander has made the Thunder better than Jokić has made the Nuggets. If you swapped, say, Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren for Jokić and Jamal Murray, it should be pretty well accepted that OKC would still be better. Imagine Jokić with all that depth, shooting and defense around him. Imagine.
In the highest-profile instance of a player winning MVP over one of the great statistical regular seasons in history, when Russell did it against both Chamberlain and Robertson in 1962, the players picked the guy who everyone at the time accepted as the greatest player in the sport’s history, a three-time defending champion en route to eight straight. Will the voters consider Gilgeous-Alexander’s season on that scale?
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Maybe it belongs.
But if you polled people, most would say Jokić — the MVP in three of the last four seasons and a Finals MVP in the year he did not win the regular-season award — is the best player alive. And this his best year.
This year’s MVP race truly is a toss-up. A riddle. Tie goes to the guy who played more games, I guess.
