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

[frica]

SGA is the best player on the best team, and the advanced stats suggest he's having a historic season. (If he can keep it up, the highest single season ws/48 of any past player ever)

If only those same advanced stats didn't have Jokic comically ahead of SGA.

[RB34]

Please stop with the SGA is carrying the Thunder narrative. This is not a carry job. This is an MVP on an extremely talented and well put together team.

Multiple All-D caliber players, multiple role players that can shoot, pass and defend. Their 4th-5th best player just had a 33/19 game.

extremely talented ?
wiggins, hartenstein, caruso, isaiah joe, carlson, wallace and half a year of chet isn't even close to extremely talented.

it's MVP SGA + a well put together SUPPORTING cast.

Delusional.

[greekman]

I want to highlight how well Stephon Castle is playing, Wemby is certainly not solo carrying that team. And Castle has some of the best defensive advanced stats in the league on rapm.

there's vassell and fox too. who is helping sga to 12-1 record without williams ?

[frica]

In terms of WS/48 Chet and Hartenstein are #6 and #7.
In terms of WS #6 and #15.
The rest of the cast have very good numbers too.

It's a cast any previous champion would have loved to play with.

[Archx]

Please stop with the SGA is carrying the Thunder narrative. This is not a carry job. This is an MVP on an extremely talented and well put together team.

Multiple All-D caliber players, multiple role players that can shoot, pass and defend. Their 4th-5th best player just had a 33/19 game.

extremely talented ?
wiggins, hartenstein, caruso, isaiah joe, carlson, wallace and half a year of chet isn't even close to extremely talented.

it's MVP SGA + a well put together SUPPORTING cast.

Delusional.

Heh yeah. Looks like OKC has a two or three solutions for every problem. It will take an absolute monumental effort from someone to beat this team in a playoff series. This is an all time great team and they still have some injuries lol.

[greekman]

Please stop with the SGA is carrying the Thunder narrative. This is not a carry job. This is an MVP on an extremely talented and well put together team.

Multiple All-D caliber players, multiple role players that can shoot, pass and defend. Their 4th-5th best player just had a 33/19 game.

extremely talented ?
wiggins, hartenstein, caruso, isaiah joe, carlson, wallace and half a year of chet isn't even close to extremely talented.

it's MVP SGA + a well put together SUPPORTING cast.

Delusional.

aaron gordon the 3rd best player had a 50 point game 2 weeks ago. jamaal murray averaged 30 ppg after the first week +.

[Exp0sed]

Please stop with the SGA is carrying the Thunder narrative. This is not a carry job. This is an MVP on an extremely talented and well put together team.

Multiple All-D caliber players, multiple role players that can shoot, pass and defend. Their 4th-5th best player just had a 33/19 game.

Presti is a genius no doubt, seems like every guy on that roster could have a much bigger role on a different team. with that said, both last year and this year thus far, the numbers consitently paint SGA as the primay driver of the team's success. no1 is doubting the Thunder are a "well put together team" to say the least but without SGA on the court - those guys do alot worse

fwiw, unlike past iterations of these Nuggets, it's fair to say this Nuggets team is also very well constructed in general and speficially constructed to maximizing the Joker's strengths, just like the squad around SGA is built to maximize his

SGA is def carrying the Thunder, I don't see an argument for the contrary tbh. does he have a great system, org, coach, GM and players around him? ofc..but so does Jokic. yes, the Thunder without SGA on the court have been suprisingly better than the Nuggets without Jokic on the court but still they are much better with SGA than without him, which would kinda be the definition of a carry job

btw, Jokic's on\off etc. are absoultely ridicilous atm meaning, despite the Nuggets having guys like AG and Murray who started the season very well and others playing well (more or less), they still can't seem to do much without Jokic on the court while being basically the best team in the league with him on the court, in that sense - Jokic's Nuggets are also a massive carry job...

both are pretty close in the race so far imo, both are cooking the entire league, consistently and literally every night, both are leading their teams to elite SRS and records and have the benefit of playing around 30 mpg (which actually hurts their raw stats but demonstrates just how dominant both have been)

I thought Jokic was slightly better last season than SGA individually, but he missed some games (including 4 games around the birth of his child) and OKC obviously had like 15 more wins, so that individual gap in favour of Jokic was negated by playing less games than SGA and by OKC winning alot more (even tho much of that was due to Okc's vastly superior depth)

this season thus far, the individual gap between the two is significantly larger and games played are even, so atm it's clearly Jokic ahead, even if the Thunder one less loss and even if it was a few games, the gap rn would still tilt it in favour of the Joker

but the season is very young obviously

[_NoMas]

extremely talented ?
wiggins, hartenstein, caruso, isaiah joe, carlson, wallace and half a year of chet isn't even close to extremely talented.

it's MVP SGA + a well put together SUPPORTING cast.

Delusional.

aaron gordon the 3rd best player had a 50 point game 2 weeks ago. jamaal murray averaged 30 ppg after the first week +.

‘Jamal Murray had a good week’ LOL. You’re right, he’s basically Jokers version of what Kobe was for Shaq.

[Exp0sed]

extremely talented ?
wiggins, hartenstein, caruso, isaiah joe, carlson, wallace and half a year of chet isn't even close to extremely talented.

it's MVP SGA + a well put together SUPPORTING cast.

Delusional.

aaron gordon the 3rd best player had a 50 point game 2 weeks ago. jamaal murray averaged 30 ppg after the first week +.

fwiw, AG was clearly the 2nd best player for the Nuggets last season and is the 2nd best player this season as well. Murray was pretty bad last season but has def started this playing better (tho still pretty similar to his usual level) despite not shooting well from deep

in short, AG is the Nuggets 2nd best player

[SA37]

I am not going to fully chime in on the MVP debate until we get to the ~1/4 point of the season, but:

If Wemby were putting up Jokic's numbers, no one in here would be questioning whether or not he was the MVP.

[Mrakar]

I am not going to fully chime in on the MVP debate until we get to the ~1/4 point of the season, but:

If Wemby were putting up Jokic's numbers, no one in here would be questioning whether or not he was the MVP.

If anyone not named Jokic was putting those numbers, he would be MVP by landslide...

[CobraCommander]

Guy is just unreal. What else can you say

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Sga curb stomped Luka and said “I’m the mvp”. Then jokic said let me finish my beer then hold my empty mug…. Geee Zeus this man is literally he is sga, luka and Giannis all wrapped into a big fat man

[img]

Read on Twitter

[/img]

Pfft, much like the fans, players will say a lot of things.

Interesting- when will that happen? Maybe this year !

But as long as jokic exist luka won’t be the best player - and as long we wemby exist he won’t be the most talented-
And as long as sga exist he won’t be the most consistent

[OriAr]

It's Jokic... and the others aren't particularly close right now.
Just absolutely insane.

[MoneyTalks41890]

SGA is on track to have the second highest PER of all time (to Jokic in 21-22) which is crazy until you realize Giannis has a higher PER this season and would break the record. Which is even crazier until you consider Jokic is beating Giannis by several points, would set the new record at 39, and also has a TS of 78%.

Shaping up to be a heck of a season.

[Wolfgang630]

SGA is on track to have the second highest PER of all time (to Jokic in 21-22) which is crazy until you realize Giannis has a higher PER this season and would break the record. Which is even crazier until you consider Jokic is beating Giannis by several points, would set the new record at 39, and also has a TS of 78%.

Shaping up to be a heck of a season.

Shaping up to be one of the greatest seasons ever from the top 5 players in a season.

[GeorgeSears]

Jokic had the best game of his career last night stats wise with his highest game score (53.2). Just a bit higher than his 61 point game last season (52.7).

[frica]

SGA is on track to have the second highest PER of all time (to Jokic in 21-22) which is crazy until you realize Giannis has a higher PER this season and would break the record. Which is even crazier until you consider Jokic is beating Giannis by several points, would set the new record at 39, and also has a TS of 78%.

Shaping up to be a heck of a season.

Yea! Also looking at winshares:
Giannis has a historic season, SGA has the greatest ever. And then there's Jokic who's somehow ahead by a gigantic margin.

[MoneyTalks41890]

SGA is on track to have the second highest PER of all time (to Jokic in 21-22) which is crazy until you realize Giannis has a higher PER this season and would break the record. Which is even crazier until you consider Jokic is beating Giannis by several points, would set the new record at 39, and also has a TS of 78%.

Shaping up to be a heck of a season.

Yea! Also looking at winshares:
Giannis has a historic season, SGA has the greatest ever. And then there's Jokic who's somehow ahead by a gigantic margin.

Jokic’s BPM and VORP are comical, while he has his trademark lower usage.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2026_advanced.html

Alright, that’s enough of me complimenting Jokic. Hurting my hater cred.

[zero rings]

Please stop with the SGA is carrying the Thunder narrative. This is not a carry job. This is an MVP on an extremely talented and well put together team.

Multiple All-D caliber players, multiple role players that can shoot, pass and defend. Their 4th-5th best player just had a 33/19 game.

extremely talented ?
wiggins, hartenstein, caruso, isaiah joe, carlson, wallace and half a year of chet isn't even close to extremely talented.

it's MVP SGA + a well put together SUPPORTING cast.

Yes, they are extremely talented.

This is probably the best defensive team of the 21st century.

[Ambrose]

Before the year I picked SGA to win MVP because I didn't know how you couldn't pick him if they won 70 games. Now I know. If Jokic plays like this, it's his. Obviously, he won't end the season at these numbers (29 ppg at 77% TS, 21 BPM, .468 WS/48, 39 PER) but even massive regression can still give him the greatest offensive season ever. These numbers are literally unfathomable.