When the Thunder got out to a 24-1 start to the season without Jalen Williams, it looked like a second straight MVP Award for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was a near certainty. But Nikola Jokic kept it interesting with his incredible play, and slowly, despite mounting injuries, the Nuggets drifted towards Oklahoma City at the top of the standings.
But then, Jokic went down with a knee injury, and what felt like a 50-50 MVP race tilted squarely back in SGA’s favor. In fact, it seemed like all hope was lost with the missed games piling up for the Joker, and he appeared set to miss enough time that he would be ineligible anyway.
With a little help from a weather cancellation in Memphis, the Nuggets’ superstar was able to return after 16 games off, giving him a smidge of wiggle room, as he can miss one more game this season and still hit the minimum threshold of 65 games played to be eligible for honors and awards.
Still, the gap between the Thunder and Nuggets, plus the difference in games played, was simply too much, and Shai remained the massive favorite. But then, on February 4th, the Thunder announced that SGA was dealing with an abdominal strain and would be reevaluated after the All-Star break.
SGA in danger of missing 65-game cutoff
Now, the break has come and gone, and the Thunder announced on Thursday that Gilgeous-Alexander will miss at least another week before being reevaluated. SGA has already missed 7 games, and with this week off, he’ll miss at least another 4. That puts him at 11 missed games on the season, which isn’t far off at all from the Joker’s 16.
There’s no guarantee that Shai will be good to go in a week, either. If this lingers, he could miss the 65 games altogether. At the same time, that’s true for Jokic as well. Both the Thunder and Nuggets are chasing bigger goals and focused on winning a title far above all else. They’re going to want and need their best players at the peak of their powers, and that doesn’t mean pushing them to hit a made-up benchmark to chase individual awards.
Nobody wants to root for injuries or crunch the numbers on games played, but the reality of the situation is that we’ve now got a very interesting MVP race. This update probably makes it closer to a coin flip again, but it’s not crazy to consider a chaotic third option, in which neither Jokic nor SGA hits 65 games.
That would be a nightmare scenario for the NBA, leaving the league with egg on its face as they’d be forced to name a clearly inferior player as MVP due to unintended ripple effects from their own silly rule. It’s just one more storyline to watch down the stretch of this crazy season.