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

[Optms]

Hahaha. Why am I a hater? I literally just made a valid point about his shot attempts and defensive effort being too low at times.
I still have him 1A and 1B with SGA in the MVP race. I am only playfully jabbing at you guys for being so god damned sensitive about anything negative about Jokic, it's kind of hilarious. We are allowed to criticize him. I can criticize SGA as well, he pushes off and he foulbaits at times like the foul call he got against Murray last night. That's lame, but its how the game has "evolved" for better or worse, and way too many players like Brunson, SGA, Luka, Reaves and Mitchell do it. Jokic flops at times as well. Jordan pushed off on his famous 98 shot vs the Jazz as well so idk.

Jokic being a flopper and a defensive liability isn't even debatable at this point to anyone being objective. Lots of gaslighting going on around this guy for the last year or so.

Never gonna sit here and tell you Luka is a good defender.

Jokic's cult just got new member. Not for people with epilepsy, sensitive...

Watch on YouTube

Click bait video that has nothing to do with the convo you quoted.

For the record- Lebron's direct qoute was "I would say this. There has not been a more dominant complete player in the sense of all attributes that you just mentioned (Nash)"

After being asked if he is the best offensive player he (Lebron) ever played against. LeGOAT never said yes or what the title of the video claims. Bron isn't out there claiming Joker is a good defender. When he does, then he'll join the cult.

[BelgradeNugget]

Jokic being a flopper and a defensive liability isn't even debatable at this point to anyone being objective. Lots of gaslighting going on around this guy for the last year or so.

Never gonna sit here and tell you Luka is a good defender.

Jokic's cult just got new member. Not for people with epilepsy, sensitive...

Watch on YouTube

Click bait video that has nothing to do with the convo you quoted.

For the record- Lebron's direct qoute was "I would say this. There has not been a more dominant complete player in the sense of all attributes that you just mentioned (Nash)"

After being asked if he is the best offensive player he (Lebron) ever played against. LeGOAT never said yes or what the title of the video claims. Bron isn't out there claiming Joker is a good defender. When he does, then he'll join the cult.

Why you as cultist-Jokic-hater keep repeating defense when original discussion was about the number of shots Jokic takes? It is offense right. LeBron said there has not been more dominant complete player in a sense of all attributes he brings on offense.

BTW if you like LeBron as it looks like you do, I'll remind you of a story some 20 years ago when both LeBron and Carmelo came to NBA. There was a game in which Cavs were down at the end, LeBron drive the lane, drove 2 defenders and kick the ball to open teammate in the corner. Made right play. Teammate missed. So next thing I saw on ESPN was young SAS bragging how LeBron should never do this, how Melo would always take last shot because he has Mamba mentality like late Kobe who never did the right play in that situation but took a shot. I listened and tough what is this fool talking about. This fool influenced new generations of US players.

So is Jokic wrong for trying to make the right plays every time like LeBron?

[Doctor MJ]

I think SGA’s lack of verticality in his game is part of why he’s appealing to casual fans like MJ and Kobe were. Also is just a more quiet reserved person than MJ and Kobe were https://youtu.be/nARzNjqNoko?si=ZfVLFuilPmqrNktq

There is much more to differ between Kobe and SGA that makes the footwork and modrange the only thing simillar to totally different players and personalities.

I'm curious what you would say the on-court differences between Kobe and Shai are that made Kobe super-popular and Shai not given that you seem to be rejecting perception of verticality as of particular significance, and while we all agree that Kobe's personality was a factor, it wouldn't have counted for much if he were helpless on the court.

[Peregrine01]

I think SGA’s lack of verticality in his game is part of why he’s appealing to casual fans like MJ and Kobe were. Also is just a more quiet reserved person than MJ and Kobe were https://youtu.be/nARzNjqNoko?si=ZfVLFuilPmqrNktq

There is much more to differ between Kobe and SGA that makes the footwork and modrange the only thing simillar to totally different players and personalities.

I'm curious what you would say the on-court differences between Kobe and Shai are that made Kobe super-popular and Shai not given that you seem to be rejecting perception of verticality as of particular significance, and while we all agree that Kobe's personality was a factor, it wouldn't have counted for much if he were helpless on the court.

There is this sentiment around Shai that he grifts a lot and that Kobe didn't and had to rely on skill.

[TinmanZBoy]

MVP stats, not MVP effect…. Dodge responsibility taking over the damn game

[_NoMas]

At this point if you don’t think SGA is mvp you are bias lol. Joker just threw brick after brick in the clutch, coupled with zero defence against the 6 win Mavs

[Handlez]

Shai easily in the lead.

[hagredionis]

MVP level defense lol

[TinmanZBoy]

30/20/10 triple double…

[Mavrelous]

I think SGA’s lack of verticality in his game is part of why he’s appealing to casual fans like MJ and Kobe were. Also is just a more quiet reserved person than MJ and Kobe were https://youtu.be/nARzNjqNoko?si=ZfVLFuilPmqrNktq

There is much more to differ between Kobe and SGA that makes the footwork and modrange the only thing simillar to totally different players and personalities.

I'm curious what you would say the on-court differences between Kobe and Shai are that made Kobe super-popular and Shai not given that you seem to be rejecting perception of verticality as of particular significance, and while we all agree that Kobe's personality was a factor, it wouldn't have counted for much if he were helpless on the court.

I'm not rejecting the verticality, it's part of it, I'm rejecting the notion that the mid range and foot work are what made Kobe popular and SGA shoukd be popular because of the similarity.
Kobe took much much higher difficulty shots, and missed a lot of them, effeciency was never his aim, it was Kobe show, he's the man and the team swims or sinks with him, SGA is a calculated machine who perfected effecincy of his game, this is peak Steph effeciency but from the mid range, he rarely ever takes bad shots.
The reason Kobe was popular wasn't his game but his personality and what it resulted on and off the court.
Kobe shot mid range because it was the popular shot back then, and he used it, Kobe today would be much more Ant than he is SGA, and would be taking 3s primiraly, SGA OTOH is perfecting and shot that is being ditched in his time.
SGA isn't the only flopper and foul baiter in the league, all top players except Giannis do it, but 20 years ago, this behavior wasn't popular, and players who did it were mocked and condemned (Divac for example) and I doubt Kobe would have done it, and he was popular because he wouldn't have done it.
Tanking for assets is a popular technique with all teams to roster build, anyone who followed the league 20 years ago, Kobe forcing himself to LA and the post Shaq Kobe trade request knows, Kobe would never let his team sit on a mountain of picks, tons of cap space for 2 full years, before starting building around him.
SGA wouldn't have driven Shaq out of town.

Just totally different players to me that I wouldn't draw much parallels between them.

[Mavrelous]

Last week was very pivotal week to the race, SGA has created a healthy margin from Jokic, who's basically playing .5 ball since Gordon went down, and Luka laid an egg today in probabely the worst performance by MVP calibre player, he wasn't really in it to begin with.

[Infinite Llamas]

I had to lol at that Denver/Mavs game where Joker didn’t get continuation on like 3-4 plays but they called it for Dwight freaking Powell.

Jokic hasn’t really complained to the refs this year and it hasn’t improved his whistle at all. He looked frustrated as all heck tonight and his body language hasn’t looked great since AG went down. Braun hurt. AG hurt and now Murray hurt. I just don’t think Jokic wanted to have go into carry mode this early in the season but here we are.

[Snake3]

I think the nuggets are 3-3 without AG? I knew he was important, but that important to Denver's defense?

I actually didn't think the defense would get this bad due to them having better perimeter defensive players this season. But man, they were lacking communication. Over committing when they shouldn't, not committing when they should. It could be the schemes, but they were way better with AG and CB there. Jokic lack of rim protection isn't helping any either.

I have to see what they look like again when they are healthy. They won't be healthy until sometime in Jan...maybe. But denver is dropping easy games w/o AG. I think this will get into ppl's mind when voting for MVP too since SGA didn't have J-dub for a while and dominated.

[lethalizer]

Gordon is very critical to the Nuggets defense because him and Jokic together enables the Nuggets to run a very effective zone defense.

Without it the coverages just break, and the opposing teams with fast guards can just use the PnR to get to the rim. At that point it falls on the offense to perform all the time to outscore the other team.

It sometimes works because Jokic is that good on offense. When it doesn't? You get nights like these.

[kazyv]

Gordon is very critical to the Nuggets defense because him and Jokic together enables the Nuggets to run a very effective zone defense.

Without it the coverages just break, and the opposing teams with fast guards can just use the PnR to get to the rim. At that point it falls on the offense to perform all the time to outscore the other team.

It sometimes works because Jokic is that good on offense. When it doesn't? You get nights like these.

or they can just you know... score in any number of other ways? it's not like denver has 3 all defense perimeter players out there with 5 more defense overperformers coming in from the bench. the team simply doesn't have the talent to perform on defense with all the injuries they've suffered