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

[greekman]

Same as last year. Jokic with game breaking GOAT numbers (this year even more ridiculous than last). Shai with legit MVP, legendary, HOF like numbers - a step below Jokic - on a team that will have 5-10 more wins. If Jokic keeps this up though, which would be insane, I wouldnt care about the win disparity as long as Denver is a respectable mid to high 50's win team. I dont expect him to blow the best seasons of all the GOAT's out of the water though, so Shai should be a big fav, but we'll see.

jokic has murray and his 30/11 every other game. who does sga have ? a couple games of chet ?

[Alatan]

Same as last year. Jokic with game breaking GOAT numbers (this year even more ridiculous than last). Shai with legit MVP, legendary, HOF like numbers - a step below Jokic - on a team that will have 5-10 more wins. If Jokic keeps this up though, which would be insane, I wouldnt care about the win disparity as long as Denver is a respectable mid to high 50's win team. I dont expect him to blow the best seasons of all the GOAT's out of the water though, so Shai should be a big fav, but we'll see.

jokic has murray and his 30/11 every other game. who does sga have ? a couple games of chet ?

Murray literally had one 30 pt game and one 40 pt game. He also had 3 games of 15 or less points on terrible shooting.
How about you tune in to a Denver game some time and see for yourself...

[ball_takes23]

Same as last year. Jokic with game breaking GOAT numbers (this year even more ridiculous than last). Shai with legit MVP, legendary, HOF like numbers - a step below Jokic - on a team that will have 5-10 more wins. If Jokic keeps this up though, which would be insane, I wouldnt care about the win disparity as long as Denver is a respectable mid to high 50's win team. I dont expect him to blow the best seasons of all the GOAT's out of the water though, so Shai should be a big fav, but we'll see.

jokic has murray and his 30/11 every other game. who does sga have ? a couple games of chet ?

Murray literally had one 30 pt game and one 40 pt game. He also had 3 games of 15 or less points on terrible shooting.
How about you tune in to a Denver game some time and see for yourself...

he obviously never watches them, anybody who does would be touting Aaron Gordon over Murray

[Special_Puppy]

Same as last year. Jokic with game breaking GOAT numbers (this year even more ridiculous than last). Shai with legit MVP, legendary, HOF like numbers - a step below Jokic - on a team that will have 5-10 more wins. If Jokic keeps this up though, which would be insane, I wouldnt care about the win disparity as long as Denver is a respectable mid to high 50's win team. I dont expect him to blow the best seasons of all the GOAT's out of the water though, so Shai should be a big fav, but we'll see.

jokic has murray and his 30/11 every other game. who does sga have ? a couple games of chet ?

SGA has the best supporting cast in the NBA

[greekman]

Same as last year. Jokic with game breaking GOAT numbers (this year even more ridiculous than last). Shai with legit MVP, legendary, HOF like numbers - a step below Jokic - on a team that will have 5-10 more wins. If Jokic keeps this up though, which would be insane, I wouldnt care about the win disparity as long as Denver is a respectable mid to high 50's win team. I dont expect him to blow the best seasons of all the GOAT's out of the water though, so Shai should be a big fav, but we'll see.

jokic has murray and his 30/11 every other game. who does sga have ? a couple games of chet ?

Murray literally had one 30 pt game and one 40 pt game. He also had 3 games of 15 or less points on terrible shooting.
How about you tune in to a Denver game some time and see for yourself...

23/6/6 47% shooting is better than jdub ! who by the way hasn't even played a game yet.

[Snake3]

Same as last year. Jokic with game breaking GOAT numbers (this year even more ridiculous than last). Shai with legit MVP, legendary, HOF like numbers - a step below Jokic - on a team that will have 5-10 more wins. If Jokic keeps this up though, which would be insane, I wouldnt care about the win disparity as long as Denver is a respectable mid to high 50's win team. I dont expect him to blow the best seasons of all the GOAT's out of the water though, so Shai should be a big fav, but we'll see.

jokic has murray and his 30/11 every other game. who does sga have ? a couple games of chet ?

Jokic has more help offensively with his cast imo. SGA has more help defensively with his cast.

But with SGA, you have multiple all-nba type defensive players. With Jokic, he doesn't have an all-nba type of player.

SGA got the best supporting cast in the nba. I don't know if they are the most talented overall, but defensively, they are the best. And their chemistry is great. But that doesn't mean SGA impact on the team isn't amazing.

[greekman]

Same as last year. Jokic with game breaking GOAT numbers (this year even more ridiculous than last). Shai with legit MVP, legendary, HOF like numbers - a step below Jokic - on a team that will have 5-10 more wins. If Jokic keeps this up though, which would be insane, I wouldnt care about the win disparity as long as Denver is a respectable mid to high 50's win team. I dont expect him to blow the best seasons of all the GOAT's out of the water though, so Shai should be a big fav, but we'll see.

jokic has murray and his 30/11 every other game. who does sga have ? a couple games of chet ?

Jokic has more help offensively with his cast imo. SGA has more help defensively with his cast.

But with SGA, you have multiple all-nba type defensive players. With Jokic, he doesn't have an all-nba type of player.

?

[greekman]

Same as last year. Jokic with game breaking GOAT numbers (this year even more ridiculous than last). Shai with legit MVP, legendary, HOF like numbers - a step below Jokic - on a team that will have 5-10 more wins. If Jokic keeps this up though, which would be insane, I wouldnt care about the win disparity as long as Denver is a respectable mid to high 50's win team. I dont expect him to blow the best seasons of all the GOAT's out of the water though, so Shai should be a big fav, but we'll see.

jokic has murray and his 30/11 every other game. who does sga have ? a couple games of chet ?

SGA has the best supporting cast in the NBA

the team is built around sga. replace him with any other top player and it falls apart because the talent isn't there.

[greekman]

jokic has murray and his 30/11 every other game. who does sga have ? a couple games of chet ?

Murray literally had one 30 pt game and one 40 pt game. He also had 3 games of 15 or less points on terrible shooting.
How about you tune in to a Denver game some time and see for yourself...

he obviously never watches them, anybody who does would be touting Aaron Gordon over Murray

gordon doesn't have a track record murray does. even this season his stats are more consistent but definitely not better.

[Special_Puppy]

jokic has murray and his 30/11 every other game. who does sga have ? a couple games of chet ?

SGA has the best supporting cast in the NBA

the team is built around sga. replace him with any other top player and it falls apart because the talent isn't there.

The team has literally been +8 with SGA off the court the past 2 seasons

[greekman]

SGA has the best supporting cast in the NBA

the team is built around sga. replace him with any other top player and it falls apart because the talent isn't there.

The team has literally been +8 with SGA off the court the past 2 seasons

the team never even made the playoffs without sga.

[Snake3]

jokic has murray and his 30/11 every other game. who does sga have ? a couple games of chet ?

Jokic has more help offensively with his cast imo. SGA has more help defensively with his cast.

But with SGA, you have multiple all-nba type defensive players. With Jokic, he doesn't have an all-nba type of player.

?

Dort and J-Dub were all defensive players last year. They were the only team in the nba to have 2 players on the All-NBA defense team.

Not to mention you have Caruso, Hartenstein. Chet is solid too. He wouldn't have gotten last year, even despite the injuries, cuz I don't think he was better than Zu, Gobert, or Dray. He wasn't better than Wemby either, but he was no slouch and was still a great rim protector. Teams shot -18% below league average against him under 6ft. That's better than Wemby, but smaller sample size. But even if you look at the other advanced stats, he's right there among the best.

It's totally fair to say that SGA got the league's top-tier best defensive players on his squad. Jokic doesn't have stuff like that on defense or offense. Not to say he doesn't have any help, but SGA got more. And they are + without him too.

[greekman]

Jokic has more help offensively with his cast imo. SGA has more help defensively with his cast.

But with SGA, you have multiple all-nba type defensive players. With Jokic, he doesn't have an all-nba type of player.

?

Dort and J-Dub were all defensive players last year. They were the only team in the nba to have 2 players on the All-NBA defense team.

Not to mention you have Caruso, Hartenstein. Chet is solid too. He wouldn't have gotten last year, even despite the injuries, cuz I don't think he was better than Zu, Gobert, or Dray. He wasn't better than Wemby either, but he was no slouch and was still a great rim protector. Teams shot -18% below league average against him under 6ft. That's better than Wemby, but smaller sample size. But even if you look at the other advanced stats, he's right there among the best.

It's totally fair to say that SGA got the league's top-tier best defensive players on his squad. Jokic doesn't have stuff like that on defense or offense. Not to say he doesn't have any help, but SGA got more. And they are + without him too.

sample sise and record with out him? I don't buy it. take him off the team for the next 10 games and they lose at least 6 of them.

[MMyhre]

Same as last year. Jokic with game breaking GOAT numbers (this year even more ridiculous than last). Shai with legit MVP, legendary, HOF like numbers - a step below Jokic - on a team that will have 5-10 more wins. If Jokic keeps this up though, which would be insane, I wouldnt care about the win disparity as long as Denver is a respectable mid to high 50's win team. I dont expect him to blow the best seasons of all the GOAT's out of the water though, so Shai should be a big fav, but we'll see.

jokic has murray and his 30/11 every other game. who does sga have ? a couple games of chet ?

SGA has the best supporting cast in the NBA

And yet the Thunder offense is -19.8 points worse per 100 possessions when Shai sits. That's higher than Jokic by the way.
It's about time we focus less on the supporting cast narrative, and start realizing that Shai is a generational player that is about to his his peak years.

He is getting better this season and closing in on 40 % from three for the season (averaging 2.9 threes made on 48.9 % in his last 8 games), with a lot of those shots being stepback threes in the clutch. He is also on pace to have the best volume shooting season from 10-16 feet in NBA history, surpassing Durant in 22-23. He is leading the 25-26 clutch stats by a shitton.

He is just a beast and the race is going to be between him and Jokic, again. Luka is third, Wemby & Giannis are likely out as their teams will lose a lot without them, with too bad of a record to compete with the top 2.

[Special_Puppy]

the team is built around sga. replace him with any other top player and it falls apart because the talent isn't there.

The team has literally been +8 with SGA off the court the past 2 seasons

the team never even made the playoffs without sga.

Did you mean to say “the team doesn’t even make the playoffs without SGA”

[Snake3]

?

Dort and J-Dub were all defensive players last year. They were the only team in the nba to have 2 players on the All-NBA defense team.

Not to mention you have Caruso, Hartenstein. Chet is solid too. He wouldn't have gotten last year, even despite the injuries, cuz I don't think he was better than Zu, Gobert, or Dray. He wasn't better than Wemby either, but he was no slouch and was still a great rim protector. Teams shot -18% below league average against him under 6ft. That's better than Wemby, but smaller sample size. But even if you look at the other advanced stats, he's right there among the best.

It's totally fair to say that SGA got the league's top-tier best defensive players on his squad. Jokic doesn't have stuff like that on defense or offense. Not to say he doesn't have any help, but SGA got more. And they are + without him too.

sample sise and record with out him? I don't buy it. take him off the team for the next 10 games and they lose at least 6 of them.

I'm a little confused. What don't you buy?

And with SGA off the team, we don't know how well they do. But I will trust them to win more than I would trust other teams without their best players. They wouldn't do it offensively cuz SGA provides them with generational offense. But the team provides generational defense with or without SGA. They are slightly better without. But who knows? They could suck and be below the play in without SGA.

[greekman]

Dort and J-Dub were all defensive players last year. They were the only team in the nba to have 2 players on the All-NBA defense team.

Not to mention you have Caruso, Hartenstein. Chet is solid too. He wouldn't have gotten last year, even despite the injuries, cuz I don't think he was better than Zu, Gobert, or Dray. He wasn't better than Wemby either, but he was no slouch and was still a great rim protector. Teams shot -18% below league average against him under 6ft. That's better than Wemby, but smaller sample size. But even if you look at the other advanced stats, he's right there among the best.

It's totally fair to say that SGA got the league's top-tier best defensive players on his squad. Jokic doesn't have stuff like that on defense or offense. Not to say he doesn't have any help, but SGA got more. And they are + without him too.

sample sise and record with out him? I don't buy it. take him off the team for the next 10 games and they lose at least 6 of them.

I'm a little confused. What don't you buy?

And with SGA off the team, we don't know how well they do. But I will trust them to win more than I would trust other teams without their best players. They wouldn't do offensively cuz SGA provides them with generational offense. But the team provides generational defense with or without SGA. They are slightly better without. But who knows? They could suck and be below the play in without SGA.

"But I will trust them to win more than I would trust other teams without their best players."
you think wiggins, hartenstein, caruso, joe, jaylin, dort, wallace and possibly chet (if he plays) would beat gordon, murray, cam, valanciunas, braun, brown?, hardaway ?

[Special_Puppy]

sample sise and record with out him? I don't buy it. take him off the team for the next 10 games and they lose at least 6 of them.

I'm a little confused. What don't you buy?

And with SGA off the team, we don't know how well they do. But I will trust them to win more than I would trust other teams without their best players. They wouldn't do offensively cuz SGA provides them with generational offense. But the team provides generational defense with or without SGA. They are slightly better without. But who knows? They could suck and be below the play in without SGA.

"But I will trust them to win more than I would trust other teams without their best players."
you think wiggins, hartenstein, caruso, joe, jaylin, dort, wallace and possibly chet (if he plays) would beat gordon, murray, cam, valanciunas, braun, brown?, hardaway ?

Absolute yeah? The former is much better than the latter

[Snake3]

jokic has murray and his 30/11 every other game. who does sga have ? a couple games of chet ?

SGA has the best supporting cast in the NBA

And yet the Thunder offense is -19.8 points worse per 100 possessions when Shai sits. That's higher than Jokic by the way.
It's about time we focus less on the supporting cast narrative, and start realizing that Shai is a generational player that is about to his his peak years.

He is getting better this season and closing in on 40 % from three for the season (averaging 2.9 threes made on 48.9 % in his last 8 games), with a lot of those shots being stepback threes in the clutch. He is also on pace to have the best volume shooting season from 10-16 feet in NBA history, surpassing Durant in 22-23. He is leading the 25-26 clutch stats by a shitton.

He is just a beast and the race is going to be between him and Jokic, again. Luka is third, Wemby & Giannis are likely out as their teams will lose a lot without them, with too bad of a record to compete with the top 2.

Yeah, SGA is a +20.6 offensively. That's better than Jokic is who is currently a +19.4. The fact that SGA even matches up or surpasses Jokic in the offensive category is a testament to not only how good he is, but how much the team relies on him. But Giannis is better than both of them in that regard and is a +21.8. He won't get any nods to mvp because his team won't be nearly as good as the other two, and he is probably the most injury-prone out of the three.

I think all the top 4-5 mvp candidates are great in their regard. It's natural to nitpick. So the supporting cast will always play a role in it. The better the teammates are or the better on court chemistry you have will help the individual on the court and/or help your team win games. Sometimes the lower the +/- stats are the indicator of how good the team is. You always have to use context with it.

With Jokic, for example, he has more guys who could hide and help on defense. And the team has a different defensive coach from last year. So, his defensive impact numbers should be better than last year, even though his rim protection is still net zero or slightly worse.

[Snake3]

sample sise and record with out him? I don't buy it. take him off the team for the next 10 games and they lose at least 6 of them.

I'm a little confused. What don't you buy?

And with SGA off the team, we don't know how well they do. But I will trust them to win more than I would trust other teams without their best players. They wouldn't do offensively cuz SGA provides them with generational offense. But the team provides generational defense with or without SGA. They are slightly better without. But who knows? They could suck and be below the play in without SGA.

"But I will trust them to win more than I would trust other teams without their best players."
you think wiggins, hartenstein, caruso, joe, jaylin, dort, wallace and possibly chet (if he plays) would beat gordon, murray, cam, valanciunas, braun, brown?, hardaway ?

Yeah, of course and vice versa. I don't think either team would sweep the other. And they both are capable of winning. But I would feel more comfortable with OKC if they had J-Dub and Ajay. Without them, the offense would be ugly. It would be tough for OKC without Ajay or J-Dub.

The problem, imo, with Denver in this matchup is that Murray is their only good ball handler and shot maker. And while OKC has some ball handlers in that lineup, they don't have a lot of offense. They can focus on Murray. They still have that defense and that could be what wins them the game. When Murray goes on the bench, that is trouble for Denver. Murray usually staggers the bench unit. There are gonna be times where the Thunder can outbig them with Val being on the bench too. I'm willing to bet the Thunder could outrebound them more often than not.

Nuggets would give them a challenge tho and they could win. Especially if everything is clicking. But I trust the Thunder with their defense more than I trust the Nuggets with their offense in this case. I'm willing to bet the Thunder would win more often.