The NBA All-Star break has arrived, which means we’re about to embark on the stretch run of the season, leading up to the playoffs in April. This means that with the sample size we have, of 50+ games, the end-of-season awards picture is coming into clearer focus.
Along those lines, we got this season’s second addition to Tim Bontemps’ MVP straw poll. Bontemps, of ESPN, polls 100 national and local NBA media members across the league to paint the most accurate and predictive MVP voting projection possible from a large pool of potential voters.
Nikola Jokic led the field in the first straw poll as he continues his quest to win his fourth MVP award this season. That poll was released on December 20th and Jokic led the way with 57 first-place votes and 827 total points (10 points for a 1st place vote, 7 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 3 for 4th, and 1 for 5th).
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was hot on Jokic’s heels with 24 first-place votes and 678 points and Giannis Antetokounmpo came in third with 19 first-place votes and 643 points. Nobody else received a single first-place vote.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leads Jokic in 2nd MVP straw poll
But clearly, the minds of voters have flipped over the past couple of months, because Bontemps released the second straw poll on Friday and SGA has vaulted ahead of Jokic. The Thunder guard now leads the poll with 70 first-place votes and 910 total points.
Jokic is still in second place in the voting, the only other player to receive a first-place vote this time around, he scored 30 of them and 788 total points. This has become a two-horse race, and right now the Joker is trailing.
The crazy part of these results is that Jokic has lost so much ground despite keeping up his torrid pace of outstanding play that has led to the Nuggets’ playing much better. Jokic is currently averaging a triple-double and the team has won eight games in a row, climbing to 36-19 and within a half-game of the two seed in the West.
Jokic is third in the NBA in points per game, second in assists, third in rebounds, fourth in steals, and fourth in three-point percentage. He’s also on pace to have the highest PER for a single season in league history and is rewriting the history books left and right. It seems wild to suggest that a three-time MVP is having his best season yet, but it might be the case.
And still, Jokic has been overtaken in the eyes of the voters by SGA. Shai leads the NBA in scoring, averaging an efficient 32.5 points per game and leading a Thunder team that’s off to a 44-10 start and leads the West by a whopping eight games.
Gilgeous-Alexander is an amazing player; he would certainly be a worthy recipient of the award, but is he actually having a better season than Jokic? That seems like a tough case to be made, but it’s apparently the prevailing thought at the moment. Overall, it’s just a reminder that the voters get fatigued and the more you win, the higher the bar gets to win again.
The goalposts are being moved for Jokic and it feels like for him to get enough votes to win a fourth, he’s going to have to achieve a much higher standard than any other player. If anyone can pull that off it’s Jokic, but this is another reminder that it’s going to be extremely difficult for him to win yet another MVP award.