The NBA qualifiers have set up the largest scene for the league stars to make their mark. Nowhere is it clear this season than with the two best MVP candidates, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic, looking for the second round of the West Conference.
The couple fought in the MVP race all season, so it would be logical that their teams, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Denver Nuggets, would run up to one of the others while pursuing the ultimate goal of the NBA, the Larry O’Brien trophy.
Despite the fanfare around the match, the MVP is a regular season prize, and the two players recorded memorable seasons in their unique way.
Gilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder 68-Win to the head of the West while making an average of 32.7 points at the head of the League per match while adding 5.0 rebounds and 6.4 assists per game on 51.9% of shooting. Oklahoma City finished 16 games in front of the Houston n ° 2 rockets in the regular season in one of the most impressive races of recent memory.
Meanwhile, Jokic probably assembled his best statistical season while guiding the nuggets towards the seeded n ° 4 in the West. He has an average of a triple-double this season, ending the regular season with averages of 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists. If he were to win the award, it would be his fourth MVP in five seasons and he would become one of the five players in the history of the NBA to claim the Hononers MVP four times.
Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo completes the MVP finalists after an average of 30.4 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists this season.
The latest MVP straw ballot of the NBA, the NBA journalist, reveals that it is a tight race, Gilgeous-Alexander held a slight lead at the end of the regular season.
2025 MVP NBA finalists
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander | Playmaker | Oklahoma City Thunder
76 Games | 32. 7 ppg | 5 RPG | 6.4 APG
Nikola Jokic | Center | Denver Nuggets
70 games | 29. 6 PPG | 12.7 RPG | 10.2 APG
Giannis antetokounmpo | Forward | Milwaukee Bucks
67 Games | 30.4 ppg | 11.9 RPG | 6.5 APG
Tim Bonemps MVP choices
1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder
2. Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets
3. Giannis antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
4. Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics
5. Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks
About every season, there are several deserved MVP candidates. And this year’s race really went to the last day between Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokic, the two best players in the League, who both gathered incredible seasons.
The Thunder, behind 32.7 points per game from Gilgeous-Alexander, shooting at 51.9% of the field, became the seventh team in the NBA history to win at least 68 games. Jokic, of course, had a historic statistical season, ending among the first three in points (29.6), rebounds (12.7) and helps (10.2) while firing 57.6% in total and 41.7% from the 3 -point range. Really video game stuff.
While going back and forth between Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokic in recent weeks, this quote from the Nugget coach from the late Michael Malone weighed me. “If you didn’t know that Nikola had won three MVPs, and I put player A and player B on paper … He wins 10 times out of 10,” said Malone last month.
“And if you don’t think so, you are full of s —.”
Find out more about Tim Bontemp’s choices for the best individual prices in the NBA.
MVP NBA MVP Pall 3.0
In mid -February, the second of the three most useful straw surveys of the ESPN showed that the Oklahoma City Shai Gilgeous -Alexander Thunder goalkeeper with a comfortable center – if not in iron – led to the center of Denver Nuggets Nikola Jokic.
Six weeks later, the race is practically unchanged.
If the results of our final straw survey are correct – for each of the last five seasons, they have been – Gilgeous -Alexander will claim its first MVP prize. And in a survey which reflects the official vote of the League and was led over a period of 24 hours Sunday and Monday, Gilgeous-Alexander won 77 of the 100 votes in first place.
He finished second on the 23 remaining voting ballots for 931 points in total, while Jokic finished with 769. After the two stars received all the votes of first and second place in the second and second round in February, this edition was a clean scan – something that had not happened in the 19 previous surveys of straw since the start of the 2016 season.
This domination at the top of the ballot goes hand in hand with what the two players have shown on the field.
Despite the example of Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic may present his best MVP case.
Find out more of Tim Bonemps on the MVP Plaw Poll 3.0 NBA.
