If you look at the betting markets, the race for the 2024-25 NBA MVP isn’t particularly close. Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is listed as a -850 favorite at a handful of books. Nuggets big man and three-time MVP winner Nikola Jokić is seen as a 4-to-1 or 5-to-1 underdog.
It feels a lot closer than that. Painfully close, as this story from CBS Sports’ Bill Reiter details. Two weeks ago, I finally came down off the Jokić hill and put Gilgeous-Alexander at the top of my MVP rankings. But then when my editor came calling for an internal CBS Sports MVP straw poll over the weekend, I changed my mind right back to Jokić.
I looked at it, and thought about it, some more over the last few days, and I’ll be damned if I haven’t switched back to SGA. Maybe the odds are right and SGA will win comfortably, but this feels like it’s headed for a photo finish. It feels right to vote for each guy, and perhaps more tellingly, it feels criminally wrong to not vote for each guy.
‘So close it’s painful:’ NBA insiders pick sides in SGA-Jokić MVP race that feels ’50-50′ despite current odds
Bill Reiter
But I’m an SGA guy at this point. For now, that’s where I’m staying. To be clear, this ranking isn’t a reflection of who I think will win the MVP, but rather who I think should win it, and that goes for the 2-5 finishers, too.
For nearly all of the season, those two ideas haven’t lined up in my rankings. I stuck with Jokić as the deserving winner for as long as I could despite always believing SGA would actually win. Now I’m aligned on both fronts. I believe SGA should win, and I believe he will win.
With that, let’s get to the MVP rankings entering play on Wednesday, March 19.
1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder
Over eight games in March, Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 37.6 points and seven assists on blistering 54/40/95 shooting splits. Even by SGA’s standards, those are preposterous numbers. He’s scored at least 40 points in four of those games and 51 in one. He went into Boston and beat the Celtics without Jalen Williams. The guy just won’t stop dominating.
SGA leads the league in 50-point games, 40-point games, 30-point games and 20-point games, of which he’s piled up an astounding 63 straight, and overall scoring at 33.0 PPG. He also ranks second in total steals, which highlights the two-way impact probably best reflected in his plus-719 individual point differential that’s by far the best mark in the league and almost 350 points better than the next-highest Thunder player.
Yes, SGA has more help that Jokić, but this isn’t a sum-of-the-parts situation like Cleveland where every night there’s a different best player. This is SGA’s show, and that plus-minus number drives that point home.
Oh by the way, the Thunder are going to sail past 60 wins as the runaway No. 1 seed in the Western Conference. At a certain point, you just have to concede that as great as Jokić has been, Gilgeous-Alexander is the deserving MVP and I believe the final vote tally will validate that.
Looking for more discussion on the NBA’s MVP race? Bill Reiter and John Gonzalez discussed SGA vs. Jokić in depth on Wednesday’s Beyond the Arc podcast.
2. Nikola Jokić, Nuggets
Fifty years from now some kid is going to be scrolling through whatever version of Basketball-Reference they’re using on Mars and see that a guy who finished third in scoring, second in assists, third in rebounding and fourth in steals per game DIDN’T win MVP and think we were out of our minds.
Maybe we are.
It actually does feel clinically insane that Jokić might not win MVP despite having the best season of a career that has already seen him win three MVPs. To be top four in all four of those categories is ridiculous. By season’s end, Jokic will be the second player in history, joining Oscar Robertson, to average at least 29 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists. Robinson shot 48% that year. Jokić is shooting 57%, including 41% on more than four 3s per game.
Perhaps the best MVP argument for Jokić is what happens to the Nuggets, who crater by almost 21 points per 100 possessions when Jokic sits, per Cleaning the Glass, when you take him away. While the Thunder would at least be a play-in team without SGA, the Nuggets would certainly be in the lottery and maybe one of the six or seven worst teams in the league without Jokić. Yet here they are tied for the West’s No. 2 seed.
Still, SGA, and by extension OKC, has just been too great and it just feels like his time. Voter fatigue is real; if it wasn’t, Michael Jordan would’ve won MVP every season. Jokić is the best player in the world by a comfortable margin, but he’s going to take second in this MVP race the same way he did a few years when it was just Joel Embiid’s time, and this time around I’m more OK with that.
Giannis isn’t a lock to make it to the 65-game threshold for MVP consideration, but he should get there barring some sort of 10-day injury over the next three weeks (he needs to play in nine of Milwaukee’s final 14 games).
Giannis has no chance to actually win the MVP, as is the case for every non-SGA/Jokić player on this list, so it’s simply a matter of finishing order, and for that his lead on Jayson Tatum, for my money, is very slim and open to interpretation.
But assuming he does get to the 65 games, I’ll slot Giannis as the forgotten bronze medalist as the only player in NBA history — not this year, but in history — to average at least 30 points, 12 rebounds, six assists and one block for a team that, much like Jokić and Denver, would be residing at the bottom of the standings without him.
4. Jayson Tatum, Celtics
Boston being so collectively loaded combined with his pedestrian shooting efficiency makes Tatum an easy MVP candidate to skip over. But he’s clearly Boston’s best player and has developed as a true star in every area of the game.
Tatum is the league’s sixth-leading scorer at over 27 PPG. He’s one of just three players, joining Jokic and Luka Doncic, averaging at least 25 points, eight rebounds, five assists and one steal this season. The 5.9 assists are by far a career high, and the rebounds are right there.
Since the All-Star break, Tatum is grabbing nine boards and dishing out seven assists per game. He’s just so well rounded, and even on such a talented Celtics team, Tatum is the guy who draws the disproportionate defensive attention.
Before LeBron went down, the Lakers had won eight of nine games. As soon as he went out, they lost three straight. Yes, the addition of Luka Dončić has made the Lakers a contender in some people’s mind, but the simple truth is LeBron has had this team playing way above expectations all season.
To think that the Lakers, who many people, including myself, picked to finished with a win total in the 30s, are tied in the loss column for the No. 2 seed with less than a month to play is a testament to the power than the King still wields.
Forget the age qualifier: LeBron is the only non-Jokić player in the league averaging at least 25 points, eight assists and eight rebounds on better than 50% shooting. He’s been defending like crazy, too. He could be 100 years old and it wouldn’t change the fact that he’s still one of the best players in the league.
This No. 5 MVP slot is the dealer’s choice. Two weeks ago, I had Cade Cunningham in this slot and you won’t get an argument from me if you still think Cunningham deserve higher recognition than LeBron; what he’s doing with the Pistons this season is a minor miracle. There’s Donovan Mitchell and Anthony Edwards; Stephen Curry could even factor in on the fringes given the tear he’s gone on since Jimmy Butler refilled his tank.
But for me, it’s LeBron (who needs to return from injury and play seven more games to hit the 65-game threshold). Again, the Lakers were supposed to be a play-in team and they’re fighting for a top-two seed. Even with Dončić, they immediately lost three straight games when LeBron went out. He deserves top-five billing this season.
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