Shai Gilgeous-Alexander vs. Nikola Jokić: Who’s the MVP?

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One head-to-head result in early March does not, by itself, decide something as massive as which player will wind up winning the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award. It can, however, provide an opportunity to make an emphatic statement. Like, for example, capping your league-leading 11th 40-point game of the season with a late-fourth-quarter run to help turn a tight game into yet another blowout win.

Plenty of pundits seized the opportunity on Sunday to argue that the Thunder’s marquee matinee win over the Nuggets all but secured the first MVP trophy of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s career. And if Nikola Jokić returns serve on Monday night, when Oklahoma City and Denver play the second half of their two-game set, with a monster game leading to a Nuggets win, chances are that many of those same pundits will seize the opportunity to swing the other way — or, at least, declare the MVP race Up in the Air and Too Close to Call.

To some extent, that’s just the nature of contemporary commentary. For the most part, though, it’s also the natural outgrowth of two unbelievable players having two unbelievable seasons and, in the process, constructing two damn good cases for why they should wind up hoisting the award come season’s end.

The case for Gilgeous-Alexander

Gilgeous-Alexander’s case opens with a time-honored, easy-to-grasp handle: The Best Player on the Best Team. Which — with apologies to the Cleveland Cavaliers, who enter Monday’s action on their second 14-game winning streak of the season, and with an NBA-best record of 54-10 — is what the Thunder have been since the season tipped off in October.

Oklahoma City sits at 53-11, ranking top-four on both ends of the court, with the league’s best efficiency differential, the highest era-adjusted net rating of any team since the 1996 Bulls, and the largest average margin of victory in NBA history. Gilgeous-Alexander leads the way, averaging a league-leading 32.9 points, 5.1 rebounds, 6.2 assists and 1.8 steals per game, shooting 52.5% from the field, 37.2% from 3-point range and 89.9% from the free-throw line — good for a true shooting percentage of…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/shai-gilgeous-alexander-vs-nikola-jokic-whos-the-mvp-182618638.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2025-03-10 18:26:00

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