With approximately five remaining weeks in 2024-25 NBA Regular season, the MVP race is still in the air. Except for an injury, it is a career of two men among Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokić, but there are many interesting debates to be difficult for the positioning of the players behind them.
In the upper part, you cannot be wrong with SGA, the favorite of the bets or Jokić, which personally I still think is having the best season. But for the first time, I have decided to push SGA above Jokić in my ranking after his Set of 51 points.
No, a game should not make a difference. But at the same time, it is so difficult to separate these types that it will actually end up being largely decided in the details. With a reminder that this is not how I think the real vote will break, but I think so ought Go, let’s go to classification.
1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Gilgeous-Alexander remains the favorite of the bets (-550 for the +350 Nikola Jokić) and has only improved his case averaging 33.4 points, 7 assists, 5.8 rebounds, 1.4 robberies and 1.3 blocks in 54/50/89 shooting divisions into seven games from the jump to the entire star. SGA leads the league in 50 -point games with four (including 51 against the Rockets on Monday), and the four have arrived in the last 19 games.
SGA, the general score leader with 33.9 PPG, also leads the League in 40 -point games (9), 30 -point games (37) and 20 -point games (59). The only game in which he did not reach 20 points throughout the season was when he put 18 in the Spurs in the first week of the season. Make the calculations, and there are 56 consecutive games with at least 20 points. The next highest type on that list is Jalen Brunson with eight.
It is Jokić who is more synonymous with the ignition/off discussion, and legitimately (Denver falls from the cliff when he sits), but it is SGA in Plus-750 for the season that carries that column by a long shot. That is more than 250 points better than Jokic and 350 points better than the next tallest Thunder player.
It is becoming increasingly impossible to deny the case of SGA. He has never won MVP and Jokic has won it three times, and I don’t care what anyone says, voter fatigue is something real. The Thunder are the best team in the West Conference and Denver has passed to No. 3. SGA is a much larger part of an elite defense in addition to its offensive domain. In short, he feels like his time.
And that is not to qualify what would surely be a well -deserved victory. It’s just the truth. He has been building towards this award just like Joel Embiid in the years that preceded his progress from MVP. Eventually, voters cannot deny you more almost independently of your competition.
2. Nikola Jokić
While SGA has been writing down the clouds, Jokić has averaged 14 rebounds and 12 assists for play from the break. He gave the Pacers 19 assists and the Pistons 15 in a period of four days. The scores of their box are comic: 29, 17 and 9 against Charlotte; 32, 14 and 10 against Milwaukee; 23, 17 and 15 against Detroit.
Jokić continues on the path of the highest story in history while averaging a triple double. Throughout the League, it occupies the third place in annotations, third in rebounds, second in assists and tied in third place in robberies. Being the first three in those four traditional categories are crazy. The boys win MVP with one of them. SGA occupies the first three in two of them.
Jokić is a single man offensive to some extent that no other star in the league can claim, but SGA is, and it has been so excellent that I think Jokić is losing ground, especially if Denver slides in the classification. For him to be any type of threat to SGA, it seems that Denver has to finish in the top two, and for now the Lakers have jumped to the Nuggets.
Giannis was lost a couple of weeks and, therefore, he only played six games in February, but since he has returned he has put 9/29/9 in a victory over Dallas and 12/26/10 in a victory over Atlanta. Giannis does not have the opportunity to win the MVP, as is the case of all players who are not SGA/Jokić on this list, so it is simply a matter of ordering order and for that its advantage in Jayson Tatum is being reduced.
I would not be surprised if many voters really have JT about Giannis at this time, but we do not lose the notion of the fact that Giannis is on his way to becoming the first player in the history of the League in averaging at least 30 points, 10 rebounds and six assists with 60% of shots. Last year he was the first to average 30-10-5 in 60%.
Keep in mind that Giannis is not a block to meet the 65 games MVP requirement. Upon entering Wednesday, he has only played in 47 games, which means that he has to adapt in 18 of the last 22 bucks games to be eligible. That also goes to All-NBA.
4. Jayson Tatum
Tatum was too fast to make fun of the cavaliers with a “Get the FK out of here“Disiegeing after burying a corner 3 to put the Celtics 25-3 in the first four minutes of the confrontation of the Eastern Conference, which Cleveland returned to win last Friday. That said, do not lose sight of the fact that Tatum ended with 46 points, 16 rebounds, nine assists and three blocks.
He is the most expendable player in this list by virtue of the talent for which he is surrounded in Boston, but an end of Top the five MVP stops adequately recognizes the best player of one of the best teams in the league.
Tatum’s 45/35 shooting divisions will not be surprised, but it is still one of the four players with an average of at least 26 points, eight rebounds, five assists and one robbery for game. The other three are Jokic, Giannis and Luka Dončić. If you are in that group in a potential team of 60 victories while you also play a strong defense, you have reached the state of the first five MVP.
There are many valuable candidates for this position, including LeBron James, who has just appointed the player of the West Conference and has the Lakers in seed No. 2, Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Donovan Mitchell, Anthony Edwards or even Stephen Curry if the warriors can maintain this emergence.
But I go with Cunningham, who, at this time, is achieving the minor miracle of raising the pistons (!!!) in a top-seis seed with a legitimate shot in the top four. If “more valuable” means the player whose team could less allow him to lose it, Cunningham probably heads everyone. The Pistons could be the worst team in the league without him.
Cunningham is one of the two players with an average of at least 25 points, nine assists and six boards. The other is Jokić. His shooting numbers are very similar to those of Tatum, but like Tatum, the pressure that Cunningham puts on the defenses is a superstar. He is constantly getting into painting, and his ability to punish defenders who move under the screens of his ball by stopping 3 have taken their threat to another level.
In a nutshell: at this time last season, the Pistons had won nine games. This year, there are 35-27. That jump of 26 victories year after year is, with much, the largest in the league, and it must be disproportionately due to the impact that Cunningham has on the entire court. Honestly, I would not mind putting Cunningham fourth on this list with LeBron Fifth and Tatum leaving the first five. Reasonable minds may disagree at this point in the classification.
