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

[zimpy27]

Who ya got?

[chilluminati]

Cade Cunningham.

Outside of being an irrational homer, Jokic or SGA. I'm gonna vote Shai.

[Bornstellar]

Victor. Calling it now.

[Caneman786]

Giannis

[cupcakesnake]

I can picture strong seasons from Wemby, Luka, and Giannis, but I also don't think there's likely to be a ton of team success there. Sometimes that detracts from the campaign, and sometimes it doesn't.

SGA and Jokic will chug right along, but are unlikely to excite voters. Still, another player will have to take it from them, because we know they'll be very good and so will their teams.

I don't see Mobley quite getting to MVP territory, and he'd have to more clearly eclipse Donovan Mitchell.

Ant is the kind of player voters could get very excited about if the Wolves are a top seed, but he's another guy I don't see quite being at MVP level. He'd need a pretty big leap, imo. His scoring efficiency and playmaking would both need significant improvements for him to compete with the other players mentioned.

[Chuck Everett]

Jalen Brunson and Cade Cunningham are my darkhorse candidates. If Paolo and Franz don't tear their obliques again, then I believe Banchero will be ready to have a top-7 MVP caliber season.

Wouldn't shock me to see all three guys make first team All-NBA.

As for my pick: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (and this will be his last MVP as J-Dub and Chet form an official big 3 with him moving forward).

[EmpireFalls]

The voters will be looking for a reason to not give it to SGA this year imo. Nuggets should be well improved so I’d say Joker.

Wemby is a dark horse. Lakers/Bucks are just too bad to actually have MVP winners on their team. Also, quietly, I like the odds on Ant if he takes a leap.

[Wolfgang630]

Joker will win it as long as Denver wins close to 60 games

[ExplosionsInDaSky]

I went with Wemby. I think he's on another level this year and I think the Spurs will actually be a decent team.

[Packbuckman]

Giannis as bucks surprise everyone and win over 50 games

[azcatz11]

Jalen Brunson and Cade Cunningham are my darkhorse candidates. If Paolo and Franz don't tear their obliques again, then I believe Banchero will be ready to have a top-7 MVP caliber season.

Wouldn't shock me to see all three guys make first team All-NBA.

As for my pick: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (and this will be his last MVP as J-Dub and Chet form an official big 3 with him moving forward).

I like the Brunson pick also especially if the Knicks are the best team in the east and win 60 games. He's going to have a ton of hype if he has a big season. Odds are 10000-1 also you are getting great value.

I don't see a path for Cade they won't win enough games.

$100 on Brunson though...nets $10k. I may do that

[Chuck Everett]

Jalen Brunson and Cade Cunningham are my darkhorse candidates. If Paolo and Franz don't tear their obliques again, then I believe Banchero will be ready to have a top-7 MVP caliber season.

Wouldn't shock me to see all three guys make first team All-NBA.

As for my pick: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (and this will be his last MVP as J-Dub and Chet form an official big 3 with him moving forward).

I like the Brunson pick also especially if the Knicks are the best team in the east and win 60 games. He's going to have a ton of hype if he has a big season. Odds are 10000-1 also you are getting great value.

I don't see a path for Cade they won't win enough games.

$100 on Brunson though...nets $10k. I may do that

Damn. The guy is arguably a top-5 valuable player in this league and those are his odds? Ridiculous. You know some lunatic is going to put a million on it and possibly make a fortune. If I was a gambler, I might be that lunatic.

With good health, Pistons will punch around 48-53 wins. They win 54+, he should be in the conversation, without question. It really depends on Ausar, Duren and Ivey continuing to show their growth. As a reformed Cade-detractor, he has turned me into a believer. He has arrived.

[zimpy27]

Wemby would be the youngest to ever win MVP if he did it this season, he'd beat out Derrick Rose by a month.

[zimpy27]

I can picture strong seasons from Wemby, Luka, and Giannis, but I also don't think there's likely to be a ton of team success there. Sometimes that detracts from the campaign, and sometimes it doesn't.

SGA and Jokic will chug right along, but are unlikely to excite voters. Still, another player will have to take it from them, because we know they'll be very good and so will their teams.

I don't see Mobley quite getting to MVP territory, and he'd have to more clearly eclipse Donovan Mitchell.

Ant is the kind of player voters could get very excited about if the Wolves are a top seed, but he's another guy I don't see quite being at MVP level. He'd need a pretty big leap, imo. His scoring efficiency and playmaking would both need significant improvements for him to compete with the other players mentioned.

Yeah Mobley and Davis adds were scraping the bottle a bit. I thought of 2-way guys that could put up big stats on a top tier team.

I think one of Luka, Jokic, SGA

I don't think Bucks or Spurs will be good enough teams.

[MrGoat]

This may be the year for Luka. He looked really good in his first preseason game and looked much more comfortable than he looked at any time last season post trade, and with LeBron to miss the first part of the season he will be primed to put up some outrageous numbers. Being in the LA market won't hurt either

[Clav]

Jalen Brunson and Cade Cunningham are my darkhorse candidates. If Paolo and Franz don't tear their obliques again, then I believe Banchero will be ready to have a top-7 MVP caliber season.

Wouldn't shock me to see all three guys make first team All-NBA.

As for my pick: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (and this will be his last MVP as J-Dub and Chet form an official big 3 with him moving forward).

I like the Brunson pick also especially if the Knicks are the best team in the east and win 60 games. He's going to have a ton of hype if he has a big season. Odds are 10000-1 also you are getting great value.

I don't see a path for Cade they won't win enough games.

$100 on Brunson though...nets $10k. I may do that

Damn. The guy is arguably a top-5 valuable player in this league and those are his odds? Ridiculous. You know some lunatic is going to put a million on it and possibly make a fortune. If I was a gambler, I might be that lunatic.

With good health, Pistons will punch around 48-53 wins. They win 54+, he should be in the conversation, without question. It really depends on Ausar, Duren and Ivey continuing to show their growth. As a reformed Cade-detractor, he has turned me into a believer. He has arrived.

Surely Pistons are up in the top teams, but NYK could be the 1 seed or 2 seed. Those odds are decent to me because it will be hard for Cade (who might put up monster stats) in DET to get MVP without a top-1/2 seed. Brunson as the top-1/2 seed is not the only star on his team pulling weight, but he'll be in the biggest market and leads 4Qs for NYK to win games, I actually think Brunson's case is a stronger one if Knicks really dominate this year.

West teams could beat up on each other and not have this runaway season with OKC out in front by double digit wins. That could play in the East MVP candidates favour. Curious year it will be...I need to sneak in Banchero's odds are about the same as Brunson's.


Despite all that junk I wrote, I voted Jokic

[Rdude22]

Hmmm

If OKC wins 60+ games again with SGA averaging his usual 32/7/5, he’ll likely win it again.

In an ironic way, if Jokic still “needs” to avg a 30pt triple double for his team to win, they likely wouldn’t win more than their usual 50-55 games… and it’ll be the same situation last year with voters.

Luka, Giannis, and Wemby may have big numbers on teams that don’t win 50 games.

So i understand why Shai is the Vegas betting favorite with Jokic 2nd and everyone else after. The win margin will likely be more impressive than the stat margins

[SlimShady83]

Luka

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[The-Power]

I expect Jokic, Giannis, SGA, Victor and very possibly Luka to all play at an MVP-worthy level when on the court. Here's to hoping that they all stay healthy enough to make this a great year for MVP contention (and, by extension, NBA basketball in general).

[Catchall]

Wembanyama is a top-3 MVP candidate now. Jokic and Luka are the other two serious candidates. Shai is probably 4th. I'm not sure who the league will give it to.

Giannis' unstable situation with the Bucks probably takes him out of the MVP discussion, but I think he's more of a top-5 guy right now.