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

Whateva · Post #21 » by **Whateva** » Thu Oct 16, 2025 7:36 pm

Sounds boring, but it will be SGA again.
Not enough wins for the rest.

Whopper_Sr · Post #22 » by **Whopper_Sr** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 3:22 am

Luka either takes it or it goes to a default winner.

Post #23 » by **MoneyTalks41890** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 12:03 pm

Read on Twitter

zero rings · Post #24 » by **zero rings** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 2:32 pm

The SGA disrespect is actually wild, and I’m a Jokic fan. OKC is going to win 65+ games again and Shai will average his usual 32/5/6 on amazing efficiency.

MVP is basically a stats + wins awards, and nobody is going to have a better combination of stats + wins than him. If the Nuggets have a great year and win close to 60, maybe Jokic can take it.

Giannis, Luka, and Wemby are fighting for 3rd place barring injury. I don’t see any of those teams being good enough.

WarriorGM · Post #25 » by **WarriorGM** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 2:52 pm

Luka is kind of due for one but I'm unsure this Lakers team is going to be good enough. I'm not terribly sold on SGA. He had a great year on a great team and won a championship but for him to have 2 MVPs with someone like Luka at 0 seems strange to me.

Post #26 » by **Mavrelous** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 2:55 pm

Cade should get a nod if Pistons are HCA team.

LeBronSpaghetti · Post #27 » by **LeBronSpaghetti** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 2:56 pm

Probably Luka due to narrative and him being “due”. Also he plays for the Lakers.

zero rings · Post #28 » by **zero rings** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 3:14 pm

LeBronSpaghetti wrote:Probably Luka due to narrative and him being “due”. Also he plays for the Lakers.

Luka has been the preseason MVP darling for 6 years now, and he hasn’t finished higher than 3rd.

No doubt he’ll get a boost playing for the Lakers, but he’ll still need to take the award with a career year.

Archx · Post #29 » by **Archx** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 3:24 pm

zero rings wrote:
LeBronSpaghetti wrote:Probably Luka due to narrative and him being “due”. Also he plays for the Lakers.

Luka has been the preseason MVP darling for 6 years now, and he hasn’t finished higher than 3rd.

No doubt he’ll get a boost playing for the Lakers, but he’ll still need to take the award with a career year.

I also have a hard time believing he'll win it just because he's on the Lakers. His 23/24 campaign was historic, Mavs had no business being as good as they were due to many different circumstances including major injuries to starting caliber players and other role players and the mid season trade roster reshuffle. And yet, he somehow ended only 3rd as you said. Lakers also don't have good enough squad to finish at least in the top3 standings.

OkcSinceSGA · Post #30 » by **OkcSinceSGA** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 4:04 pm

Wemby or Luka most likely. SGA had to have a lot break perfectly to beat Jokic and I think Jokic is hitting the Michael Jordan wall of voter fatigue. If the Lakers or Spurs can be in the mix for a top 4-5 seed and either of these two go supernova. I'll pick them.

LeBronSpaghetti · Post #31 » by **LeBronSpaghetti** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 4:12 pm

OkcSinceSGA wrote:Wemby or Luka most likely. SGA had to have a lot break perfectly to beat Jokic and I think Jokic is hitting the Michael Jordan wall of voter fatigue. If the Lakers or Spurs can be in the mix for a top 4-5 seed and either of these two go supernova. I'll pick them.

This is basically exactly how I see it too

GeorgeSears · Post #32 » by **GeorgeSears** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 7:44 pm

I'm going with Luka.

I think he'll put up James Harden 2018-2019 numbers and The Lakers will probably be a top 5 team in the West.

Also, if last 5 years taught us anything it's that voter fatigue is very real. Meaning unless Jokic averages a triple double AND the Nuggets are top 2 in the West, he's not getting it. Shai will probably have to put up 35+ ppg and the Thunder will have to win like 65 games. The standards for them are higher.

Woodsanity · Post #33 » by **Woodsanity** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 7:53 pm

OkcSinceSGA wrote:Wemby or Luka most likely. SGA had to have a lot break perfectly to beat Jokic and I think Jokic is hitting the Michael Jordan wall of voter fatigue. If the Lakers or Spurs can be in the mix for a top 4-5 seed and either of these two go supernova. I'll pick them.

I think its clearly SGA. Jokic voter fatigue and will have a lesser record than SGA for sure. SGA has a great team and will win 60-65 easily. He hasn't hit voter fatigue yet. Wemby and Luka won't have the wins needed and their numbers will at best be similar to SGA.

NZB2323 · Post #34 » by **NZB2323** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 7:56 pm

zero rings wrote:The SGA disrespect is actually wild, and I’m a Jokic fan. OKC is going to win 65+ games again and Shai will average his usual 32/5/6 on amazing efficiency.

MVP is basically a stats + wins awards, and nobody is going to have a better combination of stats + wins than him. If the Nuggets have a great year and win close to 60, maybe Jokic can take it.

Giannis, Luka, and Wemby are fighting for 3rd place barring injury. I don’t see any of those teams being good enough.

I think in order to repeat, SGA will have to have more wins and better stats than last year. Otherwise voters will look for someone else to vote for, and Jokic finally has a bench and may have the best regular season record of his career next year.

Special_Puppy · Post #35 » by **Special_Puppy** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 8:03 pm

I want to note that players winning B2B MVPs is pretty common. Jokic just did it. Giannis did it recently. Curry did it. LeBron did it. Nash did it. Duncan did it.

Patches Perry · Post #36 » by **Patches Perry** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 8:05 pm

I think things are kind of lined up for Luka of the Lakers can win enough games.

Brunson is a good wildcard, and so is Ant. Both will be the clear best player on teams with good odds of getting #1 seed. They'd probably need some extra narrative magic to compete with statistically superior players, but I could see a series of clutch moments being that magic. Game winners etc.

Wemby will be a top 5-8 player but I'm not sure the Spurs can win enough games.

Jokic, Shai and Giannis will be right there and if none of the wildcards pan out, one of them will default win again.

zero rings · Post #37 » by **zero rings** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 8:12 pm

NZB2323 wrote:
zero rings wrote:The SGA disrespect is actually wild, and I’m a Jokic fan. OKC is going to win 65+ games again and Shai will average his usual 32/5/6 on amazing efficiency.

MVP is basically a stats + wins awards, and nobody is going to have a better combination of stats + wins than him. If the Nuggets have a great year and win close to 60, maybe Jokic can take it.

Giannis, Luka, and Wemby are fighting for 3rd place barring injury. I don’t see any of those teams being good enough.

I think in order to repeat, SGA will have to have more wins and better stats than last year. Otherwise voters will look for someone else to vote for, and Jokic finally has a bench and may have the best regular season record of his career next year.

I think Shai and the Thunder could have a repeat of last season and he’d win comfortably. 68 wins and 32/5/6 is hard to argue against. He’s not losing to Luka, Wemby, or Giannis on a 48 win team or whatever.

And while I would love to see Jokic get his 4th, the gap in wins is going to be tough to overcome. The Nuggets could improve massively and still be 10 wins shy of the Thunder.

NZB2323 · Post #38 » by **NZB2323** » Fri Oct 17, 2025 8:46 pm

zero rings wrote:
NZB2323 wrote:
zero rings wrote:The SGA disrespect is actually wild, and I’m a Jokic fan. OKC is going to win 65+ games again and Shai will average his usual 32/5/6 on amazing efficiency.

MVP is basically a stats + wins awards, and nobody is going to have a better combination of stats + wins than him. If the Nuggets have a great year and win close to 60, maybe Jokic can take it.

Giannis, Luka, and Wemby are fighting for 3rd place barring injury. I don’t see any of those teams being good enough.

I think in order to repeat, SGA will have to have more wins and better stats than last year. Otherwise voters will look for someone else to vote for, and Jokic finally has a bench and may have the best regular season record of his career next year.

I think Shai and the Thunder could have a repeat of last season and he’d win comfortably. 68 wins and 32/5/6 is hard to argue against. He’s not losing to Luka, Wemby, or Giannis on a 48 win team or whatever.

And while I would love to see Jokic get his 4th, the gap in wins is going to be tough to overcome. The Nuggets could improve massively and still be 10 wins shy of the Thunder.

I think if the Thunder win 70 games, SGA wins MVP, but their over/under is 62.5. If the Thunder win 63 games and the Nuggets win 58 games and Jokic’s stats are better, I don’t think a majority of voters will want to vote for SGA the 2nd year in a row.

keevsnick1 · Post #39 » by **keevsnick1** » Sat Oct 18, 2025 5:44 am

Sort of crazy to think that the last 7 MVP's have all gone to foreign born players, and that the top 5 in MVP odds this year are all foreign-born players.

With Jokic/Giannis figuring to stay in the conversation for the next few years, Luka and SGA just entering their MVP Prime and Wemby coming up fast we might see another 5-10 MVP's dominated by foreign born players.

Jokic: Turns 31 in February
Giannis: Turns 31 in December
SGA: 27 all year
Doncic: Turns 27 in February
Wemby: Turns 22 in January

DrModesty · Post #40 » by **DrModesty** » Sat Oct 18, 2025 9:31 am

Jokic is the clear favorite I think.

Jokic vs Shai:

- Last year SGA had an 18 game lead in wins, had him matched in the advanced stats (slightly ahead in many), was the scoring champion, played more games, led a team to 68 wins, his team had a historic point differential and his team heavily beat expectations 3 years in a row, plus Jokic had his coach fired.
- Still about a third of the voter base found a way to vote Jokic.
- Shai then got bagged all playoffs long for flopping while Jokic was jumping around like a beached whale against both the Clippers and the Thunder and it was largely excused away.
- Now that Jokic has a stronger team you would assume that difference in record will be much less than 18 games.

Shai could win it again, but Jokic is favored against him imo.

Jokic vs Giannis:

- Giannis probably isn't going to have the wins.
- Even if he does some how he will probably be behind Jokic in advanced stats as has been the case since Jokic started winning MVP's.
- Giannis will also have a weak Eastern conference held against him if they do manage to overperform.

Jokic favored again

Jokic vs Luka:

- Lakers will probably have a worse record than the Nuggets.
- Luka will probably have worse advanced stats because he always has thus far.
- LeBron being on his team will be held against him (If Lebron doesn't miss half the season)

Luka has a chance through overwhelming box score stats and having not won it before. But it would be hard to overcome a worse record and worse advanced stats.

Jokic vs Wemby

- Nuggets probably have a much better record than the Spurs
- Wemby would need to make a clear big jump

I'd have Jokic favored over Wemby too, but who knows with this one. If Wemby is who we think he is, then maybe there is no stopping him already.

I don't really view anyone else as a proper contender without injuries happening.

As far as voter fatigue is concerned. There will be some voters that feel that way for Jokic. But there are a lot of people who think he has been short changed as well (either the SGA mvp or the Embiid mvp or both being rightfully his). I doubt it will be an issue for him until he wins one more and ties LeBron. The prospect of giving him a 5th and putting him ahead of LeBron in MVP count is where I think a mass of voters will truly balk in to voter fatigue territory.

MVP in 25-26?