Is the NBA’s MVP award up for grabs?
· Yahoo Sports
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Fact or Fiction: The NBA’s MVP award is up for grabs
In my opinion, Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić is the best basketball player in the world, and he probably deserves the NBA’s MVP award for a fourth time in six seasons.
He probably deserved it last season, too. He is leading the league in rebounds and assists per game, while ranking among the league’s leaders in scoring. This is unprecedented. And his injury-riddled team is still holding on to a home playoff seed in the Western Conference.
This is not meant to take anything away from the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who brought home the MVP honor last season, before guiding his team to the NBA championship and adding a Finals MVP trophy to his collection. A scoring machine and the clear-cut leader of a defending champion, he is a deserving candidate once again.
The two betting favorites for the award meet on Friday night at 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Except, if Jokić misses just two more games this season, he will be ineligible for the MVP, because of a rule requiring players to participate in at least 65 games to qualify for the award. Likewise, SGA just missed nine straight games with an abdomen strain, and he, too, is a re-aggravation away from missing out on the chance to win consecutive MVP honors.
And if that’s the case, then San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama, who serves as the game’s best defensive player and one heck of an offensive player, too, for a team that is nipping at the heels of Gilgeous-Alexander’s Thunder, is not so bad a choice, either.
Then again, he has missed 14 games as well. Now, we could rage against the 65-game rule, which was implemented to encourage players to participate in 80% of a regular season, or we could accept it, and appreciate that it is steering us in ways we may not normally think.
Speaking of ways we normally think: ESPN’s MVP straw poll, which on a few occasions each year tracks how a 100-person media panel will lean at season’s end, leads to a bit of groupthink among voters. Consider this: On March 30, 2023, Joel Embiid narrowly edged Jokić in the poll, despite fewer first-place votes; two weeks later, when official votes were tallied, Embiid received 73 of 100 possible first-place votes. The tide followed a narrative.
In the latest straw poll, SGA increased a lead over Jokić. We can see where this is headed.
But what if neither Jokić nor SGA is eligible? Every voter may have to dig deeper into his or her own idea of what valuable means as it pertains to a whole host of worthy candidates.
Sometimes it is the best player on the best team, as it was last season with SGA. Other times it is the best player alive, which is what happened when Jokić won in three of four seasons. Or the panel makes a statistical case for someone else, as it was with Embiid.
Think of MVPs of recent past. James Harden was a statistical monster and a great player on a great team. Russell Westbrook was a force of nature. Giannis Antetokounmpo was some combination of both. And Stephen Curry took us all on a ride for a couple seasons.
Maybe that is what SGA and Jokić are doing now. They have been 1-2 in each of the last seven ESPN straw polls. This is the beauty of MVP. It can be whatever you want it to be, and most of the time we know it when we see it, but what if we fail to see it in 65 games?
That will present a real conundrum for voters, who have grown accustomed to slotting Jokić and SGA into the top two positions, and who may have to pivot if neither crosses the threshold. But even if SGA and Jokić are eligible, someone could state a solid case over a not-insignificantly greater sample size, and they have six more weeks to prove their point.
Seriously, how much value is there in availability? A lot, right? Wasn’t that why the NBA implemented the 65-game rule in the first place? Then again, voters were smart enough to consider games played before the 65-game rule, and they are smart enough now to weigh it whether or not Jokić and SGA qualify. So, let us add some spice to a debate gone stale.
After all, are the additional games played by Cade Cunningham more valuable to the East-leading Detroit Pistons, who now statistically own the NBA’s best record, than everything SGA has done for the Thunder this season? A single voter in ESPN’s straw poll thought so.
But more may get on board if the Pistons keep rolling. Last year’s vote was for the best player on the best team, not the guy with the best statistics — and not a guy considered the world’s best player. Who is to say the best player on the best team this season will not be Cunningham? Maybe he deserves more consideration, even if SGA remains eligible.
Heck, Wembanyama’s Spurs could overtake both the Pistons and the Thunder, and what then? We might actually have to acknowledge that defense is half the game. Or come up with a new definition of MVP, which seems to me what we do every other season anyhow.
And what about the Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown? His leadership both on and off the court has kept them in contention, despite the loss of a handful of key contributors to their 2024 championship team, including a perennial MVP candidate in Jayson Tatum. What Brown has done for Boston this season may be more valuable than anything anyone else has done for his team, considering he doesn’t have a single other All-Star around him.
You want to make the case that Luka Dončić or Donovan Mitchell are enjoying better statistical seasons than Cunningham or Brown? Go for it, if that is your jam about value.
Anthony Edwards may be more talented than any of them. Make that argument, too. Make whatever case you want. Do not, however, put Jokić and SGA atop the ballot without a second thought, just because that is what the race has been for two-plus seasons now.
Again, it is my opinion that Jokić, who I think is the best player, putting up the best stats for a team I believe will contend when healthy, is the best candidate. But I might have to reconsider my own case. Is Jokić 10% better than everyone else? Because another player might have been 10% more available than Jokić, and that makes any argument interesting.
I am just saying: This race is far from over. We might have to get creative with our definition of value, especially if the 65-game rule forces us to, and isn’t that the fun part? We got into sports, in part, for the debate of it all, and the competition, too, and both are alive and well in this year’s MVP chase. There is still plenty of time left to make a case, starting on Friday, when SGA and Jokić meet after Cunningham’s Pistons host Mitchell’s Cleveland Cavaliers.
What a league this is, really, with so many worthy MVP candidates.
Determination: Fact. The NBA’s MVP award is up for grabs.