The NBA regular season is in full swing and that means MVP discourse is as well. It may seem early, but in this day and age, it’s never too early for fans, media members, and bettors to be thinking about the league’s end-of-season awards; especially the big one, Most Valuable Player.
Nikola Jokic has won the award for three of the past four seasons and was the favorite last time we checked in on the ladder. NBA.com’s Shaun Powell puts out a weekly MVP Ladder, ranking the top 10 candidates for the league’s most prestigious regular season award.
Jokic still sits atop MVP ladder
And after another week in the books, the Joker is still leading the way. In fact, the entire top 5 stayed the same as last week with Jokic in first, Giannis Antetokounmpo second, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander third, Luka Doncic in fourth, and Jayson Tatum fifth.
Even despite the Nuggets’ ugly Christmas Day loss with Jokic only putting up 2 assists, he kept his spot on top of the leaderboard with Powell even noting the meager assist number was mostly due to the inability of his teammates to finish.
Mounting losses for Nuggets could derail Jokic’s MVP campaign
Powell notes in the article that win-loss record will become more and more important in his ladder and to the MVP discussion as the season goes on. For now, most teams are still somewhat bunched together, but there will be separation now that we move beyond Christmas.
The Nuggets have mostly been able to tread water, just a few games away from a top-three seed. But they’re also only a few games up on the play-in teams. They’re just 16-12 and tied for the 5th seed in the West at the moment. If they have a rough stretch here without Aaron Gordon, they could slip pretty quickly in the standings.
If the Nuggets can’t get a top 6 seed and can’t win at least 45 or so games, it’s going to be very tough for voters to hand Jokic his fourth MVP award this season.
Ladder due for shakeup with news of Luka Doncic injury
One of Jokic’s chief competitors for the award, Luka Doncic will surely slip down the ladder soon and may wind up ineligible. He left the Mavericks’ Christmas Day game with a calf strain and has already been ruled out for several weeks.
Doncic has already missed 8 games this season and with this latest news, it seems to be a longshot that he will reach the NBA’s new 65-game threshold to be eligible for end-of-season awards and All-NBA teams.