The race between Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has a clear winner, it’s just not the one NBA media is acting like it is.
The MVP race should be over. In fact, it probably is over… for the wrong person.
It’s been known for months that this year’s race is between two stars: Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. All available polls, betting markets and vibe-checks support that interpretation. Gilgeous-Alexander leads the NBA in scoring on the best team in the league, and Jokic is averaging a 29-point triple-double. Seems like a decent debate, right?
I’d love for it to be, but Gilgeous-Alexander might be about to run away with it for no good reason. He had 70% of the first-place votes in ESPN’s recent straw poll of voters — to Jokic’s 29% — and is a -460 favorite to win the award over at FanDuel Sportsbook, with Jokic at +380.
That’s a steep hill for the Nuggets big man, and the ESPN straw poll is astonishingly predictive, given that it features NBA insider Tim Bontemps asking real voters. It’s also (probably) self-reinforcing, with voters often hesitant to go against an overwhelming public consensus, especially since votes are public now. It’s going to be hard for Jokic to beat these odds.
But there is no legitimate statistical argument that Gilgeous-Alexander is having a better season than Jokic. There is no legitimate basketball argument that he is a better player than Jokic, and it’s basically impossible to argue that he is the “most valuable player” to his team over Jokic, since the Nuggets have literally no idea what to do when the three-time MVP is off the court, as their net rating drops from 11.9 when he’s on to -10.3 when he’s off. For SGA, it goes from 17.7 to 1.0, which means the Thunder are still positive when he’s off the court. In short: the Nuggets positively suck without Jokic, while the Thunder are still pretty good.
You want some advanced stats? In VORP (Value Over Replacement), Jokic is by far the most valuable guy (8.0), with Gilgeous-Alexander in second (6.9). Jokic is first in win shares (13.4). First in win shares per 48 minutes (.324). First in PER (32.7). First in both offensive (10.4) and defensive (3.6) box score plus-minus.
The only argument that Gilgeous-Alexander has going for him is that “winning” is the only stat that matters: he’s the best player on the best team in a loaded West. This is an irrefutable argument, since anyone who advocates for a stat being more important than winning is immediately laughed out of whatever group chat they find themselves in. “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Yeah… I get it.
But it’s also the wrong approach when it comes to an award meant for an individual player rather than a team. If this was the “best team” award, SGA would win that… but that’s what the NBA championship is for. On an individual basis, it’s not even close. In fact, Jokic isn’t just outdoing his MVP opponent, he’s outdoing all previous versions of himself. And he’s won three MVPs already!
Sure, Gilgeous-Alexander is leading the league in scoring, but is way less efficient, scoring three more points per game than Jokic on two more shots and significantly worse shooting splits (52% from the field and 36% from three vs 58% and 44% for Jokic, respectively). Jokic, on the other hand, is scoring a career-high 29 points per game, making an absurd 44% of his threes on decent volume, and is averaging a triple-double, which would make him the third person ever to do that.
And he’s doing all this with a much lower usage rate — Gilgeous-Alexander is third in the league (34.4), Jokic is 19th (29.2). Sure, Gilgeous-Alexander’s team is the best it has ever been, but he’s so obviously not as good of an individual player as Jokic, and is only barely outperforming previous iterations of himself.
So let’s review: Jokic is the better player, is having a better statistical season, is more important to his team and is outdoing all previous versions of himself. Gilgeous-Alexander’s team is better. That’s a four-to-one advantage for Jokic. So how on earth is Gilgeous-Alexander just getting penciled in?
It’s because of the silver bullet he has in the chamber: voter fatigue.
The voters don’t change much year over year, and the media members with the power to make the objectively right choice have probably already made that choice three times in the last four years. And only five guys ever have won more than three MVPs: LeBron James, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. So Jokic would be joining a pretty prestigious list.
And maybe all this is actually Jokic’s fault. Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t bad, he’s amazing but so clearly not the best player alive. But Jokic, the actual best player alive, refuses to puff his chest out and tell everyone. Joel Embiid’s 2022 win was also statistically really hard to defend, but Embiid cared about it and campaigned for the award. Jokic could have won that year too, but he didn’t care, and still doesn’t. And the fact that Gilgeous-Alexander winning his first might be the more interesting story than someone who doesn’t care winning again for the writers who vote — who are always in search of the more interesting narrative — may cost Jokic yet another MVP.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s MVP case has some new car smell that Jokic’s does not. Maybe voters are hesitant to anoint Jokic, a one-time champion (so far), into such hallowed company, but they shouldn’t be! His greatness — and I do mean greatness greatness — is undeniable, and he’s by far the best player of the decade. Why should voters deny him the company he’s already in?
There is no good reason to. Even if the MVP is a narrative award, the completely absurd dominance of Nikola Jokic is a better narrative than Sam Presti having a bunch of cost-controlled young guys that allowed him to sign Isaiah Hartenstein and trade for Alex Caruso so that SGA could finally reach his title-contending destiny. There are good teams every year, but a player like Jokic comes around once every generation. The MVP award should reflect that.
