Are Giannis Antetokounmpo’s MVP days behind him?

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There’s one player in NBA history who has averaged more than 30 points, 10 rebounds and five assists per game while making more than 60% of his shots. He did it last season, and he’s doing it again this season.

He plays Thursday night, in a marquee matchup between two of just 11 players ever with multiple Most Valuable Player trophies and an NBA Finals MVP on their mantels.

He’s the one who enters that nationally televised tilt with basically no shot at winning MVP again this season.

“At this point in my career, I had the conversation with my brother — I was like, ‘Man, it’s crazy to me,’” Giannis Antetokounmpo told Yahoo Sports senior NBA reporter Vincent Goodwill back in December. “I had just come to a realization that I might never win another MVP.”

This is where Antetokounmpo now finds himself, 12 years into his career: in the unenviable position of chasing not only monstrously productive peers, but his own ghost. How did he get here? How did we get here?

(Mallory Bielecki/Yahoo Sports Illustration)

Even now, the sheer tonnage of Antetokounmpo’s production remains staggering. He enters Thursday second in the NBA in scoring, sixth in rebounding and eighth in field goal percentage, with a usage rate nearly twice as high as any of the seven players ahead of him. He’s 18th in the NBA in points created by assist, too, with his dimes producing more buckets than point guards like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyrese Maxey; of the 193 players who’ve logged at least 1,000 minutes this season, only Chris Paul and Utah rookie Isaiah Collier have created more 3-pointers per 100 possessions than Giannis, according to PBP Stats.

Open the aperture out to consider more advanced statistics, and Antetokounmpo still shines. He sits third in the NBA this season in value over replacement player, player efficiency rating, box plus-minus and Kostya Medvedovsky’s DARKO skill projections; fifth in The BBall Index’s LEBRON metric and Neil Paine’s Estimated RAPTOR; tied for sixth in estimated plus-minus; eighth in ESPN’s wins above replacement; and ninth in win shares per 48 minutes.

His best game remains…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/are-giannis-antetokounmpos-mvp-days-behind-him-161816582.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2025-02-27 16:18:00

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