2024-25 NBA MVP Discussion Thread (Pt. 2)

[bisme37]

The previous poll became outdated so here's a new one!

I asked for input both here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=115742962#p115742962 and here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2419666, and after reading response and seeing the poll results, this is what I came up with.

If you feel the poll needs adjustment after a while, quote me and I'll reevaluate.

It's set up so you can change you vote as often as you'd like.

Enjoy the discussion and go MVP candidates!

(Results of original poll here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2413288 )

[Bornstellar]

Jokic is like two tiers above everyone else at this point, no one else is even close. Giannis/SGA/Tatum are a distant second/third/fourth

[Wolfgang630]

Jokic is like two tiers above everyone else at this point, no one else is even close. Giannis/SGA/Tatum are a distant second/third/fourth

Looks like we’re one and done here. Lol

[One_and_Done]

Jokic is the best RS player right now, but this award has always factored in team success. It would be weird if Jokic was exempt from that. There's a very good chance another player like SGA will have so much more team success that Jokic doesn't get it.

[KamikazeK]

Don't care about anything else, if they just give another one to jokic then I'm never going to care about this stupid award again. Some things are more important than stats, like making it actually interesting who wins instead of just yawn another one for jokic every year. Lame and boring.

[mediocrityrules]

I feel like the poll is only going to be interesting if the vote is just for who we believe is in second place right now.

[BigGargamel]

Don't care about anything else, if they just give another one to jokic then I'm never going to care about this stupid award again. Some things are more important than stats, like making it actually interesting who wins instead of just yawn another one for jokic every year. Lame and boring.

LOL what a bad take. How about another player step up and make it interesting then?

[Bornstellar]

Jokic is the best RS player right now, but this award has always factored in team success. It would be weird if Jokic was exempt from that. There's a very good chance another player like SGA will have so much more team success that Jokic doesn't get it.

As long as Denver is around 50 wins and in the playoffs, if he continues playing like this he is going to win handily imo

[One_and_Done]

Jokic is the best RS player right now, but this award has always factored in team success. It would be weird if Jokic was exempt from that. There's a very good chance another player like SGA will have so much more team success that Jokic doesn't get it.

As long as Denver is around 50 wins and in the playoffs, if he continues playing like this he is going to win handily imo

Meh. If the Nuggets win 50 and the Thunder win 65 I could see Shai getting the nod. Honestly, his support cast isn't much better with Chet out, they've been so hurt J.Will is playing the 5. If your stats aren't translating to wins it should be held against you. This will especially be possible if the Thunder blow out the Nuggets on national TV and Shai looks awesome.

[Bornstellar]

Jokic is the best RS player right now, but this award has always factored in team success. It would be weird if Jokic was exempt from that. There's a very good chance another player like SGA will have so much more team success that Jokic doesn't get it.

As long as Denver is around 50 wins and in the playoffs, if he continues playing like this he is going to win handily imo

Meh. If the Nuggets win 50 and the Thunder win 65 I could see Shai getting the nod. Honestly, his support cast isn't much better with Chet out, they've been so hurt J.Will is playing the 5. If your stats aren't translating to wins it should be held against you. This will especially be possible if the Thunder blow out the Nuggets on national TV and Shai looks awesome.

Disagree on their supporting casts. Thunder have a superior supporting cast though (even without Chet), and the guys voting for the award know that. That's why someone like Tatum was not even in the MVP discussion last season despite being the main guy on a 60+ win team. Jokic has also lost guys like Gordon to injury, KCP to FA, and Murray has looked washed. This will all play into his MVP narrative imo, and his individual stats are too hard to ignore. OKC has no chance of winning 65 games either

[One_and_Done]

As long as Denver is around 50 wins and in the playoffs, if he continues playing like this he is going to win handily imo

Meh. If the Nuggets win 50 and the Thunder win 65 I could see Shai getting the nod. Honestly, his support cast isn't much better with Chet out, they've been so hurt J.Will is playing the 5. If your stats aren't translating to wins it should be held against you. This will especially be possible if the Thunder blow out the Nuggets on national TV and Shai looks awesome.

Disagree on their supporting casts. Thunder have a superior supporting cast though (even without Chet), and the guys voting for the award know that. That's why someone like Tatum was not even in the MVP discussion last season despite being the main guy on a 60+ win team. Jokic has also lost guys like Gordon to injury, KCP to FA, and Murray has looked washed. This will all play into his MVP narrative imo, and his individual stats are too hard to ignore. OKC has no chance of winning 65 games either

Thunder are on a 62 win pace right now. Denver is on a 49 win pace. The Thunder might win 65. The Nuggets might not win 50. It's still early days.

Tatum and Shai are a different kettle of fish. Tatum has alot more help and has proven he's not quite an MVP level guy. Shai is. He, Luka, or Giannis, are the top guys. It just depends on what their team records look like. Except Jokic apparently, whose team record won't matter for some weird reason.

Murray has looked washed, but Porter, Braun and Gordon are playing great and shooting the lights out. I'm not saying SGA has less help, but with all OKCs injuries it's close. Gordon has missed games, but look at all the OKC guys missing games, plus Caruso is shooting like trash again.

[yoyoboy]

I'm not sure Mitchell has been our best player this season to be honest. It's tough for me to gauge the order of which guys are driving the most impact on a team where it feels like so many guys are providing similarly sized contributions. I would personally argue that Garland and Mobley have been a little more valuable than Donovan this year.

I'm pretty comfortable with none of them being in the MVP conversation. People feel too obligated to reward overall team success by putting someone's name in the MVP discussion, but the truth is you have four guys who are all playing at a lower All-Star level and then two guys in Jerome and LeVert (especially Jerome) who are playing like 6MOY contenders. Nobody is playing like a top 7 player in the league though imo.

[zero rings]

Don't care about anything else, if they just give another one to jokic then I'm never going to care about this stupid award again. Some things are more important than stats, like making it actually interesting who wins instead of just yawn another one for jokic every year. Lame and boring.

Maybe one of these other guys should actually play better than him, then it wouldn’t be so boring.

[Bornstellar]

Meh. If the Nuggets win 50 and the Thunder win 65 I could see Shai getting the nod. Honestly, his support cast isn't much better with Chet out, they've been so hurt J.Will is playing the 5. If your stats aren't translating to wins it should be held against you. This will especially be possible if the Thunder blow out the Nuggets on national TV and Shai looks awesome.

Disagree on their supporting casts. Thunder have a superior supporting cast though (even without Chet), and the guys voting for the award know that. That's why someone like Tatum was not even in the MVP discussion last season despite being the main guy on a 60+ win team. Jokic has also lost guys like Gordon to injury, KCP to FA, and Murray has looked washed. This will all play into his MVP narrative imo, and his individual stats are too hard to ignore. OKC has no chance of winning 65 games either

Thunder are on a 62 win pace right now. Denver is on a 49 win pace. The Thunder might win 65. The Nuggets might not win 50. It's still early days.

Tatum and Shai are a different kettle of fish. Tatum has alot more help and has proven he's not quite an MVP level guy. Shai is. He, Luka, or Giannis, are the top guys. It just depends on what their team records look like. Except Jokic apparently, whose team record won't matter for some weird reason.

Murray has looked washed, but Porter, Braun and Gordon are playing great and shooting the lights out. I'm not saying SGA has less help, but with all OKCs injuries it's close. Gordon has missed games, but look at all the OKC guys missing games, plus Caruso is shooting like trash again.

And the Cavs are on pace for 77 wins - do we really think that's how its going to end up? Early season records mean little and will even out over time imo. Like you said, early days

Those are fair points though. I should say while I do think Jokic is clearly leading the MVP race right now, if the Thunder do end up winning 65+ games and SGA is posting ridiculous lines (30/8/8 or something) while the Nuggets fail to reach 50 wins then I can see SGA winning it. I just don't think his overall production will change much from last season and I think they'll end up between 55-58 wins. Meanwhile, Jokic is top 2 in the 3 main offensive statistic categories (which is insane) and doing it very efficiently while dominating advanced stats. If the award is for most valuable player I think it's very difficult to argue that Jokic is not the single most valuable player in the NBA

[famicommander]

There's only one candidate right now and it's Jokic. The gap between Jokic and the #2 guy is bigger than the gap between the #2 guy and the #20 guy.

[Infinite Llamas]

Don't care about anything else, if they just give another one to jokic then I'm never going to care about this stupid award again. Some things are more important than stats, like making it actually interesting who wins instead of just yawn another one for jokic every year. Lame and boring.

Translation: “I wish my favorite player was as good as Jokic”

[Wolfgang630]

Don't care about anything else, if they just give another one to jokic then I'm never going to care about this stupid award again. Some things are more important than stats, like making it actually interesting who wins instead of just yawn another one for jokic every year. Lame and boring.

Meh. Legendary player wins many MVP’s isn’t anything new. Lebron just did it a decade and a half ago. Now it’s Jokers turn. It happens.

[phanman]

Jokic is the best RS player right now, but this award has always factored in team success. It would be weird if Jokic was exempt from that. There's a very good chance another player like SGA will have so much more team success that Jokic doesn't get it.

As long as Denver is around 50 wins and in the playoffs, if he continues playing like this he is going to win handily imo

Meh. If the Nuggets win 50 and the Thunder win 65 I could see Shai getting the nod. Honestly, his support cast isn't much better with Chet out, they've been so hurt J.Will is playing the 5. If your stats aren't translating to wins it should be held against you.

How are Jokic's stats not translating to wins? They are 8-4 with him in uniform, a 66% win rate or a 54 game pace.

This recent 5 game stretch where OKC had no centers is one where you could argue SGA's supporting cast isn't much better but with IHart now healthy, it's not even comparable. OKC has guys that get regular DNPs that would immediately contend for rotation spots in Denver.

Also JDubb this season is putting up all star worthy numbers and Chet was arguably better than he was in first 10 games. Now compare that to that roller coaster ride that is Jamal Murray and AG only limited to 7 games this year and you can see why they've struggled to close a few of those close Ls. I mean Russell friggin Westbrook is shooting a higher percentage than Jamal from deep (who is sub 40%fg and sub 35%3pt)

This will especially be possible if the Thunder blow out the Nuggets on national TV and Shai looks awesome.

Denver has already done this on November 6th, undermanned w/o Murray and AG but Jokic dropped a cool 23pts, 20reb, 16ast, 2stl, 2blk

[BigGargamel]

Jokic is the best RS player right now, but this award has always factored in team success. It would be weird if Jokic was exempt from that. There's a very good chance another player like SGA will have so much more team success that Jokic doesn't get it.

As long as Denver is around 50 wins and in the playoffs, if he continues playing like this he is going to win handily imo

Meh. If the Nuggets win 50 and the Thunder win 65 I could see Shai getting the nod. Honestly, his support cast isn't much better with Chet out, they've been so hurt J.Will is playing the 5. If your stats aren't translating to wins it should be held against you. This will especially be possible if the Thunder blow out the Nuggets on national TV and Shai looks awesome.

Nuggets are 8-4 with Jokic. His stats ALWAYS translate to wins. They're a 20 win team tops without him. He's been doing this the entire decade and we are still having this conversation?

Team record can be used to separate two close candidates, but when the gap is as high as it is now, 50 or 60 wins, giving it to anyone else would be wrong.

[One_and_Done]

You get that someone's stats can translate to wins, while still translating to FEWER wins that what another player is bringing, right?