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Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has a comfortable lead over Nikola Jokic in ESPN's final MVP straw poll for the 24-25 season. Gilgeous-Alexander claimed 77 of 100 first-place votes and had 931 total points, while Jokic received the other 23 first-place votes and had 769 total points. Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokic had all 200 of the first-place and second-place votes.

Giannis Antetokounmpo finished third with 53 third-place votes, 37 fourth-place votes and five fifth-place votes. Jayson Tatum had 41 third-place votes, 51 fourth-place votes and five fifth place votes.

Donovan Mitchell finished fifth with a comfortable lead over LeBron James and Cade Cunningham.

Barring an unforeseen end to the season, Gilgeous-Alexander will win the first MVP of his career, while Jokic will finish first or second in MVP voting for the fifth straight season.

Via Tim Bontemps/ESPN

highway robbery

While SGA is undoubtedly deserves MVP as well ... Jokic is playing the best basketball of his already illustrious career ( multiple MVPs, Championship ).

Crazy to think that when all is said and done & we look back at Joker's career, he should have had 5 MVP awards by the age of 30 ( losing two awards to Embiid & likely SGA ).

Those 16 extra wins helps a lot.

fuller4379 wrote:Those 16 extra wins helps a lot.

They shouldn’t given context. Jokić had a depleted roster and had to carry denver to be in their position meanwhile okc been relatively healthy roster all season minus Chet.

I don't like AI in art etc, but for raw data analysis I find it quite useful. I did a "deep research" AI run that took about 45 minutes, taking all possible data "we" could think of into account. It was very very very close and almost refused to decide but in the end it had to be SGA.

Personally I'd still vote for Joker

If the Thunder win at least 69 games, it’s no contest

Jokic the real MVP

No wonder why Adam Silver referred to the NBA as an entertainment industry (similar to WWE); apparently scripts do get written.

I think history will judge this as the wrong decision. Barkley vs. Jordan in '93, Malone vs. Jordan in '97, and Rose vs. LeBron in '11 come to mind as decisions that were based on voter fatigue and/or a promoted narrative.

Damn Jokic is unfortunate.

xchange55 wrote:No wonder why Adam Silver referred to the NBA as an entertainment industry (similar to WWE); apparently scripts do get written.

As long as the people making predictions are the ones casting votes, they will continue to vote for their own predictions. The only way to prevent this is to disqualify people that make predictions from voting.

Skipwhethers wrote:I think history will judge this as the wrong decision. Barkley vs. Jordan in '93, Malone vs. Jordan in '97, and Rose vs. LeBron in '11 come to mind as decisions that were based on voter fatigue and/or a promoted narrative.

I believe it's wrong in the moment, but history won't remember the disparity between the supporting casts of these two teams. I believe OKC without SGA still gets home court. (They might still finish as the #1 seed.) DEN without Jokic is a lottery team at best. I'll hear arguments on who is better, but Jokic is unquestionably more important to his team's success.

Three years from now it might be SGA losing out to a younger player due to the same voter fatigue/media prediction scenario's.

Pickled Prunes wrote:

xchange55 wrote:No wonder why Adam Silver referred to the NBA as an entertainment industry (similar to WWE); apparently scripts do get written.

As long as the people making predictions are the ones casting votes, they will continue to vote for their own predictions. The only way to prevent this is to disqualify people that make predictions from voting.

Skipwhethers wrote:I think history will judge this as the wrong decision. Barkley vs. Jordan in '93, Malone vs. Jordan in '97, and Rose vs. LeBron in '11 come to mind as decisions that were based on voter fatigue and/or a promoted narrative.

I believe it's wrong in the moment, but history won't remember the disparity between the supporting casts of these two teams. I believe OKC without SGA still gets home court. (They might still finish as the #1 seed.) DEN without Jokic is a lottery team at best. I'll hear arguments on who is better, but Jokic is unquestionably more important to his team's success.

Three years from now it might be SGA losing out to a younger player due to the same voter fatigue/media prediction scenario's.

Does OKC still have negative plus/minus with SGA off the floor?

Jondiggs wrote:

fuller4379 wrote:Those 16 extra wins helps a lot.

They shouldn’t given context. Jokić had a depleted roster and had to carry denver to be in their position meanwhile okc been relatively healthy roster all season minus Chet.

Chet is the second best player on the team arguably.

DoItALL9 wrote:

Pickled Prunes wrote:

xchange55 wrote:No wonder why Adam Silver referred to the NBA as an entertainment industry (similar to WWE); apparently scripts do get written.

As long as the people making predictions are the ones casting votes, they will continue to vote for their own predictions. The only way to prevent this is to disqualify people that make predictions from voting.

Skipwhethers wrote:I think history will judge this as the wrong decision. Barkley vs. Jordan in '93, Malone vs. Jordan in '97, and Rose vs. LeBron in '11 come to mind as decisions that were based on voter fatigue and/or a promoted narrative.

I believe it's wrong in the moment, but history won't remember the disparity between the supporting casts of these two teams. I believe OKC without SGA still gets home court. (They might still finish as the #1 seed.) DEN without Jokic is a lottery team at best. I'll hear arguments on who is better, but Jokic is unquestionably more important to his team's success.

Three years from now it might be SGA losing out to a younger player due to the same voter fatigue/media prediction scenario's.

Does OKC still have negative plus/minus with SGA off the floor?

He's playing 34+ MPG, so you have to take into account who's on the floor when he isn't. Is it the five would-be starters if he wasn't playing? Usually not.

It is tough to find any lineup that includes more than two starters that played significant minutes without SGA, but here are some potential starting lineups: Their total minutes and their NetRtg
I. Hartenstein - L. Dort - I. Joe - J. Williams - C. Wallace: 10 MIN/41.4 NetRtg
I. Hartenstein - I. Joe - A. Wiggins - J. Williams - C. Wallace: 35 MIN/20.7 NetRtg
A. Caruso - A. Wiggins - C. Holmgren - J. Williams - C. Wallace: 18 MIN/81.0 NetRtg
A. Caruso - I. Hartenstein - A. Wiggins - J. Williams - A. Mitchell: 18 MIN/45.9 NetRtg
I. Hartenstein - K. Williams - L. Dort - I. Joe - A. Wiggins: 10 MIN/80.0 NetRtg
A. Caruso - I. Hartenstein - I. Joe - A. Wiggins - C. Holmgren: 11 MIN/48.0 NetRtg
I. Joe - A. Wiggins - C. Holmgren - J. Williams - A. Mitchell: 25 MIN/42.3 NetRtg

(+/-) Doesn't have a lot to do with what a team would do if a specific player were not available. Situation matters. By removing SGA you are removing most of Dort and Chet's minutes as well.