Who do you think wins MVP this season? (2025-26 NBA MVP Discussion Thread)

[Chokic]

How does Shai only have 13% of the vote? This place is loco.

Hes now taken the mantle of embiid.

Embiid never approached this level, and last year, while Jokic fans cried about it, it was consensus SGA is the MVP, Embiid was never a consensus MVP.

Sga is playing like a man possessed. The last mvp jokic won Embiid was on his way to winning unanimous mvp before going down with injury.

[MavsDirk41]

I doubt Luka makes it to 65 games with league leading usage and third highest mpg. I would have expected a slight dip with Lebron's return and Reaves having shown he can carry the offensive load from time to time, but Luka's usage and mpg slightly tipped up for the 3 Lebron games.

With or without James Luka is carrying that team.

Luka is their best player, but carrying is kinda crazy when Austin is playing like a legit top 15 player

Yea fair point. He is playing great for sure. He was a great pickup.

[jg77]

How does Shai only have 13% of the vote? This place is loco.

Luka and Jokic have large fanbases. It's similar to the LeBron days tbh.

[Castle Black]

How does Shai only have 13% of the vote? This place is loco.

Because he plays on the most stacked team we’ve seen in a decade and arguably the best team in the 21st Century… that’s why. As great as he is, a huge part of his MVP narrative is his team’s record, which — again — shows how great of a TEAM he’s on. In no world is SGA more “valuable” to his team than Nikola Jokic is to his. It’s really not even close tbh. Jokic’s historical On/Off Metrics show this.

OKC is still a playoff team without SGA, and may very well be a 50+ win team without him. That’s how good and how deep they are. The Denver Nuggets would be battling for a top-10 pick without Jokic… That’s how valuable he is.

Furthermore, Jokic is putting up video game numbers on historical efficiency so far, and he’s leading his team to victories despite missing 2 starters and with far less talent and depth around him than SGA has. It’s pretty simple. He’s not only the best player in the world, but he’s also the most valuable.

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[Doctor MJ]

How does Shai only have 13% of the vote? This place is loco.

Luka and Jokic have large fanbases. It's similar to the LeBron days tbh.

Whatever Jokic fanbase exists, it’s kinda besides the point because he’s been the dominant valuable player every year for many years now.

In the other hand, I’d say the Luka fanbase has long made him more a factor in these threads than he warrants based on his candidacy, and Shai surpassing Luka from the same draft class I’d say really bothers them.


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[MrBigShot]

No disrespect to SGA, Luka, or Giannis, who are all having seasons that would be runaway MVP in a lot of other years, but Jokic is literally in his own stratosphere.

Jokic so far: 30/13/11 on 63/43/85 shooting splits. 37 PER, 73 TS%, 0.413 win shares/48

He is video game-like.

[falcolombardi]

No disrespect to SGA, Luka, or Giannis, who are all having seasons that would be runaway MVP in a lot of other years, but Jokic is literally in his own stratosphere.

Jokic so far: 30/13/11 on 63/43/85 shooting splits. 37 PER, 73 TS%, 0.413 win shares/48

He is video game-like.

I know is a cliche to say this but most points/rebounds/assists =/= more impact.

Is hilarious as a okc fan to be on the other side of this now after the westbrook triple double era so i acnowledge the irony

we are overcorrecting -hard- by essentially ignoring team dominance in favour of efficiency (which shai has been shrinking the gap with with jokic without even accounting for turnovers) + counting stats (which similarly overvalues defensive rebounding by forwards and centers compared to guards and ignores one of the most valuable stats -turnovers- again)

All the "yes but shai team is better" arguments boil down to acting like denver is doing the same with less, when is doing less with less instead. The logical reasoning that jokic has a worse team doing worse is bettee than a bettee team doing better is all backwards

[falcolombardi]

How does Shai only have 13% of the vote? This place is loco.

Luka and Jokic have large fanbases. It's similar to the LeBron days tbh.

Whatever Jokic fanbase exists, it’s kinda besides the point because he’s been the dominant valuable player every year for many years now.

In the other hand, I’d say the Luka fanbase has long made him more a factor in these threads than he warrants based on his candidacy, and Shai surpassing Luka from the same draft class I’d say really bothers them.


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Denver fans/writers have for the most part been the most ardous haters of shai since last season. In social media being a sports writer who writes about denver goes hand in hand to leading the anti shai campaigns and i dont think that is a coincidence

A similar logic is happening with his fans being worried that shai could pass him in awards (2 mvp/2fmvp/2 rings) this year

[MrBigShot]

No disrespect to SGA, Luka, or Giannis, who are all having seasons that would be runaway MVP in a lot of other years, but Jokic is literally in his own stratosphere.

Jokic so far: 30/13/11 on 63/43/85 shooting splits. 37 PER, 73 TS%, 0.413 win shares/48

He is video game-like.

I know is a cliche to say this but most points/rebounds/assists =/= more impact.

Is hilarious as a okc fan to be on the other side of this now after the westbrook triple double era so i acnowledge the irony

we are overcorrecting -hard- by essentially ignoring team dominance in favour of efficiency (which shai has been shrinking the gap with with jokic without even accounting for turnovers) + counting stats (which similarly overvalues defensive rebounding by forwards and centers compared to guards and ignores one of the most valuable stats -turnovers- again)

All the "yes but shai team is better" arguments boil down to acting like denver is doing the same with less, when is doing less with less instead. The logical reasoning that jokic has a worse team doing worse is bettee than a bettee team doing better is all backwards

Raw stats are not the reason people are praising Jokic. If that was the basis for who is the MVP frontrunner right now, it would be Luka who is putting up a near 35 point triple double.

[slick_watts]

How does Shai only have 13% of the vote? This place is loco.

OKC is still a playoff team without SGA, and may very well be a 50+ win team without him. That’s how good and how deep they are. The Denver Nuggets would be battling for a top-10 pick without Jokic… That’s how valuable he is.

i'll never quite understand why so many nba fans like to fixate on what's going on when award candidates are off the court. neither shai nor jokic are in any control over what happens when they aren't in the game. whether the team performs well without them or poorly without them, who cares? all that should matter is what's going on when they are playing.

i get that you want to figure out the impact of these players by looking at teammate and team performance on-off or whatever, but there are tools to do that without the glib hypotheticals.

[scrabbarista]

Nick Jock is the best.

[falcolombardi]

How does Shai only have 13% of the vote? This place is loco.

OKC is still a playoff team without SGA, and may very well be a 50+ win team without him. That’s how good and how deep they are. The Denver Nuggets would be battling for a top-10 pick without Jokic… That’s how valuable he is.

i'll never quite understand why so many nba fans like to fixate on what's going on when award candidates are off the court. neither shai nor jokic are in any control over what happens when they aren't in the game. whether the team performs well without them or poorly without them, who cares? all that should matter is what's going on when they are playing.

i get that you want to figure out the impact of these players by looking at teammate and team performance on-off or whatever, but there are tools to do that without the glib hypotheticals.

Back in 2021 or 2022 the argument was used for jokic>giannis/embiid cause of this

Sixers and bucks were better than denver but the nuggets with jokic were as good as the sixers with joel or the bucks with giannis and it was a big supporting argument for jokic mvps

Now a similar thingh happens (okc without shai is better than denver without jokic) -but- okc with shai is better than denver with jokic

[scrabbarista]

Is anyone else surprised Luka is playing at an All-NBA First Team level?

There's just no way anyone could've seen that coming, imo.

[Mavrelous]

Is anyone else surpised Luka is playing at an All-NBA First Team level?

He's only beem 1st team all NBA every he's eligible except his rookie year
What's surprising about it?

[The Master]

Now a similar thingh happens (okc without shai is better than denver without jokic) -but- okc with shai is better than denver with jokic

First and foremost, Thunder are great without Shai (+6.0 net in the last two seasons without SGA), but he elevates them to the level of all-time great team (+11.6 on/off, +18 net, +12 SRS team in the last two seasons), this is a territory that only all-time great regular season performers can reach. It's really a lazy argument against Shai. The better your team is, the harder it is to (statistically) improve it further, especially nowadays with the depth that contemporary teams have, and Shai has better on/off splits than e.g. Doncic ever had, on much better teams than Doncic has ever played for.

It's still fine to have Jokic ahead, but it's really hard to objectively downplay what Shai has been doing in the regular seasons past two years.

[Homer38]

Is anyone else surprised Luka is playing at an All-NBA First Team level?

There's just no way anyone could've seen that coming, imo.

I hope you are not serious.....

[scrabbarista]

Is anyone else surpised Luka is playing at an All-NBA First Team level?

He's only beem 1st team all NBA every he's eligible except his rookie year
What's surprising about it?

But how could that be? Wasn't he traded for AD, Max and a first?

I'm so confused...

[falcolombardi]

Now a similar thingh happens (okc without shai is better than denver without jokic) -but- okc with shai is better than denver with jokic

First and foremost, Thunder are great without Shai (+6.0 net in the last two seasons without SGA), but he elevates them to the level of all-time great team (+11.6 on/off, +18 net, +12 SRS team in the last two seasons), this is a territory that only all-time great regular season performers can reach. It's really a lazy argument against Shai. The better your team is, the harder it is to (statistically) improve it further, especially nowadays with the depth that contemporary teams have, and Shai has better on/off splits than e.g. Doncic ever had, on much better teams than Doncic has ever played for.

It's still fine to have Jokic ahead, but it's really hard to objectively downplay what Shai has been doing in the regular seasons past two years.

That is essentially my point here

[Black star]

How does Shai only have 13% of the vote? This place is loco.

Because he plays on the most stacked team we’ve seen in a decade and arguably the best team in the 21st Century… that’s why. As great as he is, a huge part of his MVP narrative is his team’s record, which — again — shows how great of a TEAM he’s on. In no world is SGA more “valuable” to his team than Nikola Jokic is to his. It’s really not even close tbh. Jokic’s historical On/Off Metrics show this.

OKC is still a playoff team without SGA, and may very well be a 50+ win team without him. That’s how good and how deep they are. The Denver Nuggets would be battling for a top-10 pick without Jokic… That’s how valuable he is.

Furthermore, Jokic is putting up video game numbers on historical efficiency so far, and he’s leading his team to victories despite missing 2 starters and with far less talent and depth around him than SGA has. It’s pretty simple. He’s not only the best player in the world, but he’s also the most valuable.

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By this logic a guy like Michael Jordan, who won 4 of his 5 MVPs on 60 and 70 win teams, would also have no argument against Jokic because his Bulls team actually did win 50 plus games without him. And yet the difference between being the greatest dynasty of the 90s and just another contender was MJ. That's INSANELY valuable.

This idea that floor raising a bad team is intrinsically more valuable than ceiling raising a good team is false.

[bbms]

call jokic yeah, he's in, but there's no one else invited to this party. you guys are more intelligent than that i swear

nba courts currently have two owners, the rest are just paying rent

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