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

[lethalizer]

Jokic has the strongest case here and will probably win this one.

Though I have to say, If any star suffered back to back game 7 losses come playoff time, those players' legacy would take a huge hit. Jokic somehow goes unscathed, I genuinely don't know why.

Even if you argued that OKC was favored by a mile last season, the Minnesota game 7 prior to that they were definitely favored to win, yet gave up a huge lead and just... lost.

Just an observation by my end.

[Doctor MJ]

Jokic has the strongest case here and will probably win this one.

Though I have to say, If any star suffered back to back game 7 losses come playoff time, those players' legacy would take a huge hit. Jokic somehow goes unscathed, I genuinely don't know why.

Even if you argued that OKC was favored by a mile last season, the Minnesota game 7 prior to that they were definitely favored to win, yet gave up a huge lead and just... lost.

Just an observation by my end.

I think you need to zoom out to make sure you're not overindexing on only part of the story.

You're saying Jokic specifically has BIG problems in Game 7's, which I'd say means that to anyone reading this without knowledge of Jokic's career, he must have a bad Game 7 record.

But he doesn't. He's 4-3 in Game 7's, which means that since he came into the league, the only other MVP to win as many Game 7's as him is Steph. And that's before you remember that Jokic cut his teeth leading some epic comebacks in playoff series.

[Handlez]

Wemby's likely not going to win MVP this season, but the Spurs would legitimately be 0-12 without him right now. Maaaybe 1-11. He's that valuable to our team, especially defensively. The fact that we go from the #2-ranked defense in the NBA with him on the floor to the 27th-ranked defense when he sits is ridiculous. Spurs desperately need more 3&D guys around him.

Unfortunately we are going to find out how true this is. Ruled out vs SAC with calf tightness, I imagine the Spurs will be super cautious with it being calf-related and will hold Wemby out for a week or longer

That's a big blow for his MVP case, as well. He's up against guys that tend to play pretty regurlaly

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Wemby was never a real MVP candidate.

Just the new flavor of the month.

He'll have to wait for the Jokic and Shai era to fall off.

[zero rings]

Jokic has the strongest case here and will probably win this one.

Though I have to say, If any star suffered back to back game 7 losses come playoff time, those players' legacy would take a huge hit. Jokic somehow goes unscathed, I genuinely don't know why.

Even if you argued that OKC was favored by a mile last season, the Minnesota game 7 prior to that they were definitely favored to win, yet gave up a huge lead and just... lost.

Just an observation by my end.

Who says his legacy didn't take a hit?

If the Nuggets had won those series and gone on to win the championship, Jokic would be a unanimous top 10 player of all time, if not top 5. Instead, he's sitting around 15 on most people's lists.

He still has a lot of work to do in the playoffs.

[Ambrose]

Jokic has the strongest case here and will probably win this one.

Though I have to say, If any star suffered back to back game 7 losses come playoff time, those players' legacy would take a huge hit. Jokic somehow goes unscathed, I genuinely don't know why.

Even if you argued that OKC was favored by a mile last season, the Minnesota game 7 prior to that they were definitely favored to win, yet gave up a huge lead and just... lost.

Just an observation by my end.

Probably because he hasn't lost back to back game 7s. Poor observation.

[Johnny Firpo]

He played bad defense, and had 6 turnovers with 4 minutes left in the 3rd period. It was certainly not a great game from him, but just a good one, as expected when he faces a better defense. They would lose this game if Anthony Edwards wasn't the worst player on the court.

...aS eXPetEd WHeN hE fACeS BeTtEr dEFeNCes... GTFO

Expected*
Wolves, OKC and Finland send their regards. You gonna cry?

LMAO, at least you do not pretend to be an objective fan.

[Infinite Llamas]

San Antonio plays Denver on Black Friday. Let’s hope both are healthy by then.

[AleksandarN]

This makes for some wild reading. I'd find it really hard to justify some other team playing good defense on a guy who gets 27 pts on 72.9 ts %, 12 reb, 11 ast

"Great guys! We stopped him"

It just really shows some people will just never be satisfied if a player isn't perfect/optimally efficient.

You always leave out the turnovers bit to make it look better for yourself, don't you? Can you see defense from the stats as well? But you can't make the same Jokic simp posts like everyone else if you point out the bad things, so lets always include the cool stats. 27 points is not a crazy amount of points. If Jokic scores only 27 against OKC they will likely lose. If Jokic scores 27 pts and Edwards doesn't go 0-8 from three and play like the worst player out there, they likely lose.

This was Jokic's worst game since opening night, he still had a triple double in a road win, and you're acting like he's been exposed as a fraud.

Give me a break.

On top of that playing with an injuried wrist.

[web123888]

Jokic deserves it unanimously without anyone else getting a 1st place vote, which says a lot given how amazing SGA / Luka / Giannis are.

[Cubbies2120]

Jokic has the strongest case here and will probably win this one.

Though I have to say, If any star suffered back to back game 7 losses come playoff time, those players' legacy would take a huge hit. Jokic somehow goes unscathed, I genuinely don't know why.

Even if you argued that OKC was favored by a mile last season, the Minnesota game 7 prior to that they were definitely favored to win, yet gave up a huge lead and just... lost.

Just an observation by my end.

I think the context matters. The Wolves game 7, outside of Jamal Murray, the ENTIRE TEAM combined for 21 points on 8/28 shooting (28.5%).

Has there been a single elimination game (forget game 7) won by a team where players outside the top 2 played so poorly? Ever?

Then, vs OKC, they were massive underdogs going into the series and got even more injured as time went on (Gordon getting injured with 6 seconds to go in game 6 was icing on the cake ). We'll likely get a rematch of Jokic vs. SGA this year, hopefully w/ both teams healthy. OKC will again be favored by the books, but the Nuggets being significantly deeper will make the series much more even.

[TheGeneral99]

If the Nuggets win around 60 games or so it has to go to Jokic.

The reason Jokic didn't get it last year was because the Nuggets finished 50-32 while the Thunder won like 67 games.

[lethalizer]

Jokic has the strongest case here and will probably win this one.

Though I have to say, If any star suffered back to back game 7 losses come playoff time, those players' legacy would take a huge hit. Jokic somehow goes unscathed, I genuinely don't know why.

Even if you argued that OKC was favored by a mile last season, the Minnesota game 7 prior to that they were definitely favored to win, yet gave up a huge lead and just... lost.

Just an observation by my end.

I think you need to zoom out to make sure you're not overindexing on only part of the story.

You're saying Jokic specifically has BIG problems in Game 7's, which I'd say means that to anyone reading this without knowledge of Jokic's career, he must have a bad Game 7 record.

But he doesn't. He's 4-3 in Game 7's, which means that since he came into the league, the only other MVP to win as many Game 7's as him is Steph. And that's before you remember that Jokic cut his teeth leading some epic comebacks in playoff series.

I think Jokic has been the best player in the world for a while now, and I agree with most of your points.

I'm just saying, Jokic is a 3 time MVP. One of the 9 players all time to accomplish said feat.

If someone like Bron, Jordan, Bird or Magic lost two game 7s in consecutive years during their primes, I can't even imagine the convos happening.

The overindexing point I agree with, but that overindexing point gets made for the all time greats. Jokic didn't go through that as far as I could see.

Maybe once his career is done it'll get brought up more, I don't know.