The end of the regular season is near, which means the time has come for the final award picks. Who will win the MVP? Here comes the final top 5.
By Ole Frerks
The list of NBA players who have won at least three MVP awards reads as follows: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, LeBron James.
It doesn’t get much more elite – only Malone is a player from this club who most historians probably wouldn’t include in their top 10, but the best offensive rebounder in history isn’t far from that either.
The club will – most likely – grow. According to the latest vote among official ESPN voters, Nikola Jokic will overwhelmingly win his third MVP award. And his dominance is slowly raising the question of how many more trophies he can add to his collection.
Jokic turned 29 in February, is almost never injured and is a player who is known to not thrive on his athleticism or anything like that. So far he hasn’t let up.
According to Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) and Win Shares, the current season is the best of his career. The Nuggets are well positioned to be at the top for at least a few more years.
LeBron and Wilt have four MVP awards, Jordan and Russell have five. Kareem is at the top with six, which are unlikely to be reached again quickly (the 70s were strange; many top players were in the ABA; today’s NBA offers too much competition; today a player without participation in the playoffs would never be named MVP which was the case with Kareem in 1976). Everything else? Let’s see.
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1st place: Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets) (last ranking: 1st place)
26,6 Punkte, 64,9% True Shooting, 12,4 Rebounds, 9 Assists, 1,3 Steals (77 Spiele)
The “Joker” was back in pole position by mid-March, and since then the gap has only become clearer, not least due to the form crisis and injury problems of his closest rival (see below). However, it’s not like the MVP case for Jokic necessarily needed something like that.
The Serb is again leading the league (NBA live every weekend on ProSieben MAXX and ran.de) in all possible advanced stats, including VORP, win shares, player efficiency rating and box plus/minus. He leads a team that has a good chance of finishing first in the Western Conference again, and has proven again, especially since the All-Star break, that he is currently the best player in the league.
As has been the case for several years, the Nuggets are actually hard to beat when Jokic is on the court – opposing teams always have to hope for the non-Jokic minutes in order to gain a big enough lead. With him on the court, the Nuggets’ net rating is +12.7, slightly behind his value from the previous season (+13.2), but still ahead of all other candidates.
Jokic remains an insoluble problem because he himself solves every problem on the court at a speed that is almost unmatched in history. He combines the best passing game with perhaps the best post game and the smoothest touch – and he always delivers, regardless of who is on the court next to him. The definition of an MVP, for years.
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Platz 2: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (OKC Thunder) (2)
30,4 Punkte, 63,9% True Shooting, 5,6 Rebounds, 6,2 Assists, 2,1 Steals (73 Spiele)
Since mid-March, “SGA” production has declined (25.1 PPG, 50/30/79 splits) and the question arose as to whether the new rule interpretation contributed to this – Shai only went 7 during that period. 9 times per game at the free throw line, well below the average from this season (8.6) and the previous season (10.9).
However, it is more likely that the hamstring injury caused Shai to be restricted for a longer period of time and caused him to miss six of seven games at times.
The chance of first place was lost, even though “SGA” sank a game-winner in Madison Square Garden in its only game “in between” and has been much more dominant since its return.
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Nevertheless, it belongs further – far – up. According to Estimated Plus/Minus, he is clearly the best of all candidates (+8.8), only Jokic is ahead of him in win shares, and he also reaches at least the top 4 in almost every other metric.
Gilgeous-Alexander has somewhat quieter box scores than, for example, Doncic or Giannis; he has more of a guard-untypical consistency. However, the results speak volumes: In Shai’s games, OKC is doing better (72.6% win rate) than Jokic and Doncic’s teams. His on-court net rating (+10.3) is bettered only by Jokic and Tatum among MVP candidates.
With that said, if the trend of the last few weeks continued for a little longer, Shai would probably have to vacate second place.
Platz 3: Luka Doncic (Dallas Mavericks) (4)
33,9 Punkte, 61,7% True Shooting, 9,2 Rebounds, 9,8 Assists, 1,4 Steals (70 Spiele)
Doncic’s numbers since the All-Star break: 33 points, 10.1 rebounds, 10.3 assists – on 48% from the field and 40% from outside with a good ELEVEN three-pointers per game. This is completely absurd even by his completely absurd standards. Especially since he sinks throws with great regularity that mere mortals wouldn’t even attempt in training.
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His statistical dominance is nothing new – but the team’s performance is also good at the moment. Since the break, only the Celtics and Nuggets have won more games than Dallas (18-7), which has jumped to fifth place in the West. Doncic’s on-court net rating is still well below the level of some competitors (+6.2), but it’s getting better.
What’s particularly pleasing is that Doncic is getting more and more involved with Kyrie Irving, and both are getting better at applying themselves. The Slovenian plays with more speed than before, defends (usually) a little more committed and can do more with the ball in his hands than perhaps any other NBA player; he is a monster both in isolations and out of the pick’n’roll .
Doncic still lacks a better off-ball game and a slightly better team record to win the award that has been expected of him for years (not just by the bookmakers). Maybe it will happen in 2025.
Platz 4: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks) (3)
30,4 Punkte, 64,9% True Shooting, 11,5 Rebounds, 6,5 Assists, 1,2 Steals, 1,1 Blocks (73 Spiele)
In the blowout against Boston, of all places, Giannis injured his calf without contact, and it has since been announced that he will miss the rest of the regular season. Fortunately, his Achilles tendon is intact, so he will (hopefully) be able to play again at some point in the playoffs.
As for the season so far: It’s complicated. All advanced stats see Giannis in the top 4, most in the top 3, but the Greek still has to give up his place on the podium, for only the second time in the last six years. This is not due to his offense – Giannis has never scored more efficiently and he has never distributed more assists in his career.
However, the defensive impact is not quite as great as in previous years, when he regularly made it into the top 6 in the “Defensive Player of the Year” voting. He’s still very good – the Bucks defend well in his minutes. The defensive rating allowed in his minutes (115.4) is still far higher than in any year of his career.
And the bottom line is that the Bucks are having a disappointing season. Even under Doc Rivers, not all problems have been solved; with the new coach, only 17 of 34 games have been won so far. Recently there have been several inexcusable defeats in a row. In the West, Milwaukee would be the 6 seed, and Dallas also now has more wins.
As outstanding as Giannis played individually, a legitimate MVP case is difficult to justify given this.
Platz 5: Jayson Tatum (Boston Celtics) (5)
27 Punkte, 60,5% True Shooting, 8,2 Rebounds, 4,9 Assists, 1 Steal (73 Spiele)
The first four names should appear on every ballot paper; they clearly stand out from the rest of the competition. According to Estimated Wins, the top 4 ranks between 19.6 (Shai) and 17.7 (Giannis), after which a much larger field only starts at 14.9 (Jalen Brunson). So there is a distance, especially in terms of consistency, that can also be noticed on the court.
There are therefore various candidates who are eligible for fifth place, Brunson in particular has made an impressive push again over the past few weeks. Here, as has been the case all season, Tatum gets the nod, leading by far the best team in the NBA, rarely missing and making a big contribution both offensively and defensively.
He’s far from shouldering the Celtics alone, but that doesn’t have to be held against him negatively – his adaptable skillset as the best player is one of the main reasons why the variable offense with multiple playmakers works so well in Boston. His on-court net rating (+11.4) is only better than Jokic among the MVP candidates.
2024-04-11 16:28:00
#Nikola #Jokic #outdoes
