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

[Snake3]

This obsession with plus/minus is really ridiculous. What plus/minus really measures is if the team has a good bench player playing the same position.

Hahaha! There are different plus/minus stats. All of them use different formulas.

The advanced ones, some ppl could take too seriously. Especially the defensive plus/minus. And some ppl may ignore how the team construction, the lineups that they have, and the effectiveness of it could inflate a player's impact.

But plus/minus stats don't necessarily mean player A is better than player B. It doesn't even necessarily mean they have more impact than a player on a different team, truly. But it does indicate which player is doing the best at their job on their own team or they are playing their role on their team the best. But even that depends on which lineup is the most optimal.

It's easier to say player a has more impact than player b tho.

[Snake3]

This obsession with plus/minus is really ridiculous. What plus/minus really measures is if the team has a good bench player playing the same position.

Weird that Jokic has the best back up and bench he ever had and he is smashing the record. Explain that then?

Shai has a healthy lead on on-court rating tho, and starting lineup is not an area where the jalen-less thunder has a big lead on the denver starters with jokic/gordon/murray/cam (this is subject to change again without braun and gordon tho)

At some point people have to see that shai just absolutely dominates with everyone he shares the court with lol with or without co-stars

SGA is a monster.

But that could be more of an indication of how deep the team is, to be fair. They are blowing out teams, and the bench is also a +7.9 without SGA. The more telling is how much they peak with SGA imo on the offensive end. The ortg with SGA 127.4 and a 108.3 without. That's a +19.1. That's crazy.

Jokic isn't that high anymore, but it's not that far off. The ortg with Jokic is 129.2 and a 111.8 without. That's a +17.4. Also crazy, but the team isn't as reliant on Jokic with the offense anymore as OKC is reliant on SGA.

Ironically, Denver is only slightly worse without Jokic defensively than OKC is with SGA. OKC is better +6.4 defensively without SGA while Denver is only +0.8 without Jokic.


Either way, SGA is carrying more of the offensive weight with OKC. With Jokic, Denver will peak higher offensively.

But this is forever changing. Jokic was a +20 something with his net rating. SGA was around 19ish if I can recall. Giannis, I believe, had a higher net rating than both of them. He still did before he got hurt. +19.9. He even had a higher offensive +/- stat with +19.6. So, it'll be an interesting race. Sucks that Giannis got hurt.

[_NoMas]

Looks like it’s going to be a legitimate 3 horse race. Luka has most definitely entered the chat

[ball_takes23]

Looks like it’s going to be a legitimate 3 horse race. Luka has most definitely entered the chat

Luka’s just not consistent enough. He has games like tonight where he can hit the ceiling of the top 2 players but his average game is still well below the level of an average Jokic/SGA game. At the end of the season you can take the 20 worst games from Jokic/sga/Luka and about 15 of them would belong to Luka.

[Mavrelous]

There is a repeated fallacy going on for 5 years now, that Jokic on/off means he is the driver of DEN success, and his extremely high on/off means he is carrying that team, this is why he should be favoured over others (Embiid in 22 and 23, Luka in 24, and SGA in 25 and this year).
While Jokic is indeed the offensive engine, and the driver of team success as the franchise player, his on/off is a product of his supporting cast that is being constantly maligned.
The Nuggets are tightly knit unit to supplement Jokic with the necessary defense, 2 man game partner and spacing.
This reflects heavily on stats like EPM, and RAPM.
This isn't something new, Curry had +20 on/off with the elite Ws dynasty, and +8 in the 20/21 season, the 20/21 season was arguably bigger carry job.
Luka had +4 on/off pre deadline in 23/24 (while putting up 50/15 on Christmas and 73 on the Hawks) next to terrible and injury riddled supporting cast, and +20 post deadline with elite supporting cast that went to the finals.
A good supporting cast drives up the on/off not down as is being constantly portrayed.

If I'm right, I fully expect Jokic on/off to take a massive nosedive now with Gordon and Braun out, not just his net rating, but his on/off, because this is the 1st time he has a truly imbalanced roster, since Gordon was next to him most of the way and he always had elite perimeter defender in addition, this is the 1st time he is missing his defensive anchor and the perimeter defender on the team.

[Bob8]

Looks like it’s going to be a legitimate 3 horse race. Luka has most definitely entered the chat

Luka’s just not consistent enough. He has games like tonight where he can hit the ceiling of the top 2 players but his average game is still well below the level of an average Jokic/SGA game. At the end of the season you can take the 20 worst games from Jokic/sga/Luka and about 15 of them would belong to Luka.

I guess inconsistency was the reason for him averaging only 34/9/10 with 62% TS in 23/24 season.

He's very inconsistent this year too, already 4 games under 30 points and only 5 40+ games. Just imagine how much would his average 35/9/9 be, if he was consistent?

Yes I know, Christian Brown has almost 2x better +/-, on/off, clearly Luka is much worse player.

[_NoMas]

Looks like it’s going to be a legitimate 3 horse race. Luka has most definitely entered the chat

Luka’s just not consistent enough. He has games like tonight where he can hit the ceiling of the top 2 players but his average game is still well below the level of an average Jokic/SGA game. At the end of the season you can take the 20 worst games from Jokic/sga/Luka and about 15 of them would belong to Luka.

I don’t think the voters look that deeply into it tbh. He’s going to be on a top 3 seed, in the lakers jersey, averaging 35-9-9. If they can stay within 10 games of OKC I can very easily see him getting MVP, especially after some feel he deserved it in 2024.

[ball_takes23]

Looks like it’s going to be a legitimate 3 horse race. Luka has most definitely entered the chat

Luka’s just not consistent enough. He has games like tonight where he can hit the ceiling of the top 2 players but his average game is still well below the level of an average Jokic/SGA game. At the end of the season you can take the 20 worst games from Jokic/sga/Luka and about 15 of them would belong to Luka.

I guess inconsistency was the reason for him averaging only 34/9/10 with 62% TS in 23/24 season.

2024 was his best ever season and he still finished behind Jokic and SGA in the mvp race. And since that time Luka is still pretty much the exact same player while Jokic and SGA have both somehow gotten even better.

[Yuri36]

Looks like it’s going to be a legitimate 3 horse race. Luka has most definitely entered the chat

Luka’s just not consistent enough. He has games like tonight where he can hit the ceiling of the top 2 players but his average game is still well below the level of an average Jokic/SGA game. At the end of the season you can take the 20 worst games from Jokic/sga/Luka and about 15 of them would belong to Luka.

Yeah, not consistent while averaging 34 pts, 9 rbds, 9 assists and 2 steals per game......you gotta love some guys there
Oh wait I forgot, advanced stats is the only thing that matters in NBA now

[Yuri36]

Looks like it’s going to be a legitimate 3 horse race. Luka has most definitely entered the chat

Luka’s just not consistent enough. He has games like tonight where he can hit the ceiling of the top 2 players but his average game is still well below the level of an average Jokic/SGA game. At the end of the season you can take the 20 worst games from Jokic/sga/Luka and about 15 of them would belong to Luka.

I guess inconsistency was the reason for him averaging only 34/9/10 with 62% TS in 23/24 season.

He's very inconsistent this year too, already 4 games under 30 points and only 5 40+ games. Just imagine how much would his average 35/9/9 be, if he was consistent?

Yeah some people are really trying to find anything to discredit his MVP credentials.
Soon, watch them saying you just can't win a MVP title while averaging 80% on FT line (which btw obviously hugely affects his efficiency)....

[Yuri36]

Luka’s just not consistent enough. He has games like tonight where he can hit the ceiling of the top 2 players but his average game is still well below the level of an average Jokic/SGA game. At the end of the season you can take the 20 worst games from Jokic/sga/Luka and about 15 of them would belong to Luka.

I guess inconsistency was the reason for him averaging only 34/9/10 with 62% TS in 23/24 season.

2024 was his best ever season and he still finished behind Jokic and SGA in the mvp race. And since that time Luka is still pretty much the exact same player while Jokic and SGA have both somehow gotten even better.

The fact he finished behind SGA in that season remains one of the most shocking thing I've ever seen in term of MVP rankings since I follow NBA and i'm not exaggerating.

Oh and also, i'm not sure where SGA has gotten better since then (his team certainly have though).

[ball_takes23]

Looks like it’s going to be a legitimate 3 horse race. Luka has most definitely entered the chat

Luka’s just not consistent enough. He has games like tonight where he can hit the ceiling of the top 2 players but his average game is still well below the level of an average Jokic/SGA game. At the end of the season you can take the 20 worst games from Jokic/sga/Luka and about 15 of them would belong to Luka.

I don’t think the voters look that deeply into it tbh. He’s going to be on a top 3 seed, in the lakers jersey, averaging 35-9-9. If they can stay within 10 games of OKC I can very easily see him getting MVP, especially after some feel he deserved it in 2024.

The voters are a lot more savvy now and can recognize that putting up 33 on 70% TS and 2 TOV in 30 minutes is a completely different level from putting up 35 in 35 minutes on 60% TS and 4 TOV. Luka would have a much better shot in this race if we were in the pre-advanced stats era.

[Bob8]

Looks like it’s going to be a legitimate 3 horse race. Luka has most definitely entered the chat

Luka’s just not consistent enough. He has games like tonight where he can hit the ceiling of the top 2 players but his average game is still well below the level of an average Jokic/SGA game. At the end of the season you can take the 20 worst games from Jokic/sga/Luka and about 15 of them would belong to Luka.

I don’t think the voters look that deeply into it tbh. He’s going to be on a top 3 seed, in the lakers jersey, averaging 35-9-9. If they can stay within 10 games of OKC I can very easily see him getting MVP, especially after some feel he deserved it in 2024.

Look into what? No one can be the best scorer in the league, if he isn't foremost consistent. Luka has played 92 games in 23/24, RS+playoffs, and has scored only 6x under 20 points. The worst scoring game was 16 points.

[Yuri36]

Luka’s just not consistent enough. He has games like tonight where he can hit the ceiling of the top 2 players but his average game is still well below the level of an average Jokic/SGA game. At the end of the season you can take the 20 worst games from Jokic/sga/Luka and about 15 of them would belong to Luka.

I don’t think the voters look that deeply into it tbh. He’s going to be on a top 3 seed, in the lakers jersey, averaging 35-9-9. If they can stay within 10 games of OKC I can very easily see him getting MVP, especially after some feel he deserved it in 2024.

The voters are a lot more savvy now and can recognize that putting up 33 on 70% TS and 2 TOV in 30 minutes is a completely different level from putting up 35 in 35 minutes on 60% TS and 4 TOV. Luka would have a much better shot in this race if we were in the pre-advanced stats era.

Talking about a totally different level, what about passing and rebounding which as by chance you totally skip in your reasoning?

[Andri]

Although I don't share it, I kind of understand the Luka 'not always consistent' argument. I would put it this way, he has, along with Jokic or even surpassing Nikola, IMO, the highest ceiling if he is on. And much higher than SGA for sure. These are facts. The production he has proved in certain games is at ATG level.

But, then, his floor from one game to another could be lower than Jokic and SGA. These two are more consistent towards their means. That doesn't mean a Luka's bad game is bad game per se, it will still be a good game in a vacuum. But probably worse than a below average game from Jokic or Shai. Mostly due to high volume shooting (less efficiency if his shot is not falling) and turnovers. And also likely his character hurts his case for certain fans.

However, I still think if you have a team that is not very good, he is likely to outperform in PO's agains expectations or odds better than SGA or even Jokic. His case will depend on Lakers, Denver and OKC records. Because his production will be there.

[Bob8]

Luka’s just not consistent enough. He has games like tonight where he can hit the ceiling of the top 2 players but his average game is still well below the level of an average Jokic/SGA game. At the end of the season you can take the 20 worst games from Jokic/sga/Luka and about 15 of them would belong to Luka.

I don’t think the voters look that deeply into it tbh. He’s going to be on a top 3 seed, in the lakers jersey, averaging 35-9-9. If they can stay within 10 games of OKC I can very easily see him getting MVP, especially after some feel he deserved it in 2024.

The voters are a lot more savvy now and can recognize that putting up 33 on 70% TS and 2 TOV in 30 minutes is a completely different level from putting up 35 in 35 minutes on 60% TS and 4 TOV. Luka would have a much better shot in this race if we were in the pre-advanced stats era.

I see you like to round up Shai's numbers and round down Luka's. Sure TOV are important but rebounds and assists aren't? Even steals are suddenly not important anymore.

I recommend all Luka's haters to rather return to +/- argument, you can't lose there, Luka is much worse player than Christian Brown and other Denver and OKC starters.

[ball_takes23]

Luka’s just not consistent enough. He has games like tonight where he can hit the ceiling of the top 2 players but his average game is still well below the level of an average Jokic/SGA game. At the end of the season you can take the 20 worst games from Jokic/sga/Luka and about 15 of them would belong to Luka.

I don’t think the voters look that deeply into it tbh. He’s going to be on a top 3 seed, in the lakers jersey, averaging 35-9-9. If they can stay within 10 games of OKC I can very easily see him getting MVP, especially after some feel he deserved it in 2024.

Look into what? No one can be the best scorer in the league, if he isn't foremost consistent. Luka has played 92 games in 23/24, RS+playoffs, and has scored only 6x under 20 points. The worst scoring game was 16 points.

That sounds pretty good until you realize SGA has scored 20+ in 90 straight games. There are levels.

[Yuri36]

I don’t think the voters look that deeply into it tbh. He’s going to be on a top 3 seed, in the lakers jersey, averaging 35-9-9. If they can stay within 10 games of OKC I can very easily see him getting MVP, especially after some feel he deserved it in 2024.

Look into what? No one can be the best scorer in the league, if he isn't foremost consistent. Luka has played 92 games in 23/24, RS+playoffs, and has scored only 6x under 20 points. The worst scoring game was 16 points.

That sounds pretty good until you realize SGA has scored 20+ in 90 straight games. There are levels.

And how many triple doubles does he have?
Well, I guess you'll say he is consistent at not getting them lol

[Bob8]

I don’t think the voters look that deeply into it tbh. He’s going to be on a top 3 seed, in the lakers jersey, averaging 35-9-9. If they can stay within 10 games of OKC I can very easily see him getting MVP, especially after some feel he deserved it in 2024.

Look into what? No one can be the best scorer in the league, if he isn't foremost consistent. Luka has played 92 games in 23/24, RS+playoffs, and has scored only 6x under 20 points. The worst scoring game was 16 points.

That sounds pretty good until you realize SGA has scored 20+ in 90 straight games. There are levels.

And there are averages which say that Luka is much better in scoring, assisting, rebounding, steals...

[Yuri36]

I think that the main argument in voters minds against Luka was and will still probably be his consistent crying behaviour towards referees (though it's getting a bit better this year so far), especially when you compare it to guys like Joker and SGA who are the definition of non sensed leaders who very rarely complains and just do their thing.

At least, I can understand that argument as he also often annoys me there and I guess exemplarity and behaviour are also two qualities you're looking in an NBA MVP.