The NBA Most Valuable Player hasn’t been decided yet — the way it should be with a little over a month left in the regular season.
Let’s be honest here. There was a point in recent years where the MVP discussion got really toxic, race got involved and it felt really icky — not that introducing race as far as voters’ preferences is so insulting, but the entire discussion got away from having great basketball at the center of it all.
Luckily that’s not the case between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and three-time MVP Nikola Jokić. Seemingly every night one of the candidates puts a strong mark in his favor for the award. Jokić’s historic 30-20-20 night against Phoenix on Friday night. Gilgeous-Alexander’s 40-piece against Jokić’s Nuggets two days later.
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It’s becoming appointment viewing in ways these teams usually aren’t — not that they aren’t good teams with compelling stories, not that the Nuggets haven’t been worthy champions still deserving of consideration to get back to the Finals this spring, or that Oklahoma City hasn’t been building from the ground up the last few years, ready to cash in this year. But Jokić shuns the praise and Oklahoma City hasn’t been great at marketing itself historically.
But even now nobody can deny we are witnessing one of the great MVP races in modern history.
Jokić has been the win-shares-per-48-minutes king — a statistical model that has been the greatest indicator of MVP through history — and is having a career year across the board with the raw numbers. His win shares per 48 minutes are a career-high .316 and he’s averaging a triple-double for the first time in his career. His 28.9 points, a career-high. His 10.5 assists, a career-high. Ditto for his 43 percent accuracy from 3-point range — he’s shooting better from there than Stephen Curry, albeit on lesser volume, but he’s taking a career-high 4.5 triples per game.
Gilgeous-Alexander leads the league in scoring at nearly 33 points and drops in 6.2 assists per game —career-highs in both.
Sensing a trend here, folks?
He’s dropped 40 points in 11 games this year, hitting the 50 mark four times. He’s third in the NBA in steals and gets more than a block a game — and from the guard position that’s entering Michael Jordan-Dwyane Wade territory.
The Thunder have been wire-to-wire the best team in the Western Conference. In some ways with all the drama and upheaval in Los Angeles, Dallas and Golden State, the Thunder have been easy to overlook.
The Cavaliers are rightly the league’s darlings (more on them later), but the Thunder are a mere 1.5 games behind them in overall record at 53-12 — a lock to cross the 60-win threshold.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s two-way play is the catalyst for that. And his win shares per 48 minutes? .315 — better than every Jokić season except for this one.
Nuggets coach Michael Malone, an entertaining type prone to a bit of hyperbole, stated it’s not even a close race between the two. That’s patently false. You can stick up for your guy without insulting anyone else — and hopefully it doesn’t get worse than this.
There’s no defined criteria for MVP and it doesn’t have to be. It’s one of those “you know it when you see it” type of things. That’s what makes it fun.
Charles Barkley had the most first-place votes in 1990, but finished second to winner Magic Johnson — which meant Jordan, who averaged 33.6 points, 6.9 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 2.8 steals for a team that went to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals that ensuing May, finished third. Third!
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The contention from here in 1997 is Karl Malone got somewhat of a sympathy vote over Jordan, despite Jordan leading his Bulls to 69 wins. It felt egregious then and still feels that way now.
Steve Nash winning two in 2004 and 2005 doesn’t feel so egregious when you consider the way he played, ushering in a new style with the Phoenix Suns in their seven-seconds-or-less days, pioneering the game we see today. Shaquille O’Neal is still crowing about it, and Kobe Bryant fans feel he was robbed in 2006 (he actually finished fourth, so … ), but time seems to bear out validation from here.
You had to be there to understand.
And perhaps that’s where this year will eventually land.
But whomever gets the vote, it’ll be because a voter feels the player had the best season and not because it’s an indictment of the other candidate.
Again, that’s fun and thankfully not toxic.
Cavs, Celtics on collision course
It feels like we’re on a collision course for the Eastern Conference finals. The champion Boston Celtics against the surprising Cavaliers, who are on a crazy pace.
All the win streaks. The three All-Stars. The league-best 29-4 home record.
The Western Conference looks to be far more volatile, even with the aforementioned Thunder leading the pack. There are a number of possible combinations for a conference final — achieving Adam Silver’s dream of an unpredictable league where playoff outcomes aren’t predetermined.
(There are annoyances with that to some degree, fans like knowing who to love and who to hate, but this isn’t all bad.)
However, in the East a classic matchup could be on the horizon, unless the Milwaukee Bucks crash the party in the second round — which wouldn’t be a terrible thing or impossible to consider with the Kyle Kuzma addition paying dividends and Bobby Portis anxious to get back from his PED suspension before the regular season ends.
But barring that — and barring only that, New York Knicks fans — having a champion eager to repeat against a hungry challenger sporting an impressive regular-season record and having revenge as a motivator considering their playoff matchup last year, makes for compelling basketball.
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We were treated to a preview of sorts recently, with the Cavaliers storming back from a deep deficit on the road to beat the Celtics on national TV. Maybe it was just one game of 82 for the Celtics — you’d be hard-pressed to find many games that have big meaning for champions once they climb the mountain — or maybe it was the Cavaliers sending a message that they won’t be bullied, that they’re far more than a credible foil and that their offense can walk any team down in any building.
That last point could be the scariest of all, especially if Donovan Mitchell stays healthy and is fresh enough for a playoff run. The collective NBA world has asked him to tone down his game, to allow Darius Garland and Evan Mobley to flourish and grow.
Check, check.
Mobley is the most intriguing prospect here, and certainly could be the wild card in a potential series. Will the Celtics have a healthy Kristaps Porziņģis to counter? Will Al Horford and Jrue Holiday replicate their performances from last year’s playoffs?
It feels very unpredictable right now, but it seems like we can look forward to an ornery champion against a determined challenger.
Don’t discount Detroit
The easiest thing to predict in the playoffs, seemingly, is a quick flame-out for a team experiencing an unexpected year-over-year turnaround.
But one shouldn’t discount the Detroit Pistons in a first-round series. Their 7-3 post All-Star mark trails only the aforementioned Cavaliers and Celtics in the East, and so far their overall improvement in winning percentage of .383 ranks among the highest in NBA history — well on their way to their most successful season since 2007-08.
That level of satisfaction usually leads to a more experienced team taking advantage of them in a playoff setting, but dismiss them at your own peril. Isaiah Stewart may have his own highlight film of confrontations, but it obscures his All-Defense-level play — nobody has blocked more shots post-All-Star break than Stewart and he’s averaging 2.3 swats in that stretch, in just 18.8 minutes.
They’re sporting the fourth-best defensive rating since the break, trailing the Lakers, Cavaliers and Bucks.
And their best defender could very well be second-year forward Ausar Thompson. His minutes are just starting to fully increase; he missed the early part of this season recovering from a blood clot that cost him the back end of his rookie year and everyone has been careful since. Because of the 18 games he missed to start the season he doesn’t qualify for awards, but statistically, he would be tied for second in steals per game behind Atlanta’s Dyson Daniels and he’s a downright pest on that end.
The Pistons’ schedule to finish the season is hellacious, but they’re one of a handful with winning records at home and on the road. Logic suggests a competitive showing in the first round constitutes an uber successful year, but they could get greedy if they remain at six (the fourth seed is a game away). If they play a potentially depleted and shallow Knicks team in Round 1, the Knicks could wind up going home early.
