Believe it or not, we’re coming up on the halfway mark of the 2024-25 NBA regular season, and a pretty clear cast of MVP candidates has emerged. The top three guys, in some order, are pretty universal right now, while Jayson Tatum at the No. 4 spot is also an opinion shared by many.
The fifth spot is where voting could go a few different ways if the season were to end today. Karl-Anthony Towns, averaging 25.4 points per game in his first season as a Knick, has a strong case, but he didn’t quite make my list. A certain 21-year-old is just too much to deny a top-five spot at the moment.
Full discretion: I am not an MVP voter, and this is not a representation of where I personally believe each MVP candidate should finish in the voting. This is how I believe voting would shake out if the season was over today. So let’s get to it. Your top-five MVP candidates as of Jan. 15, 2025.
All the MVP momentum is swinging SGA’s way and for good reason. He’s by far the best player on by far the West’s best team, and there’s a bit of a Joel Embiid “he’s been knocking on the door long enough” dynamic playing out here. Gilgeous-Alexander finished fifth two seasons ago and second last year. It’s his time.
That doesn’t mean that he’s been better than Nikola Jokic. He hasn’t. But it’s a razor-thin difference. SGA is averaging over 31 points per game. It’s the third straight season he’s averaged over 30 a night, which is supremely rare stuff. He’s second in the league in total steals as a major part of OKC’s turnover-machine defense.
Oklahoma City doesn’t play in a ton of tight games, but when they do, SGA is shooting 50% from the field (14 for 28) and 60% from 3 (6 for 10) in clutch situations.
Also, for all the talk about how stacked the Thunder are as a whole, it’s SGA that clearly stands out as the catalyst of their dominance. Consider that with SGA on the floor, the Thunder outscore opponents by 16.9 points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning the Glass, but when he goes off that number declines to plus-2.4 points per 100.
All told, OKC has outscored opponents by a total of 489 points with SGA on the floor this season. That is the best mark in the league by almost 150 points. The next closest Thunder player is Lu Dort at plus-307. This is SGA’s show every single night, and if the season ended now, I believe he would be rewarded for it with his first MVP.
If I were a voter, I would give the award to Jokic over SGA if the season ended today. He’s having a better season. He just is. It’s not a knock on SGA, who’s been extraordinary, but Jokic is the best player in the world by a fairly appreciable margin and he has the Nuggets, who utterly collapse when he’s not on the floor and who were a popular pick to fall way off this year, tied in the loss column for the No. 3 seed in a murderous Western Conference.
Hell, he’s even helping fuel a Russell Westbrook renaissance.
Jokic’s numbers, as usual, are astounding. Denver has dealt with core injuries and, until recently, a down Jamal Murray season. The bench is a zero. So what does Jokic do? He pumps his scoring average to 31 and change a night, by far a career high, while shooting FORTY SEVEN PERCENT from 3 on almost five attempts a game.
You like the little things? Jokic is fifth in screen-assist points created (10.3) and deflections (3.7) per game. You like the big things? No player in NBA history has ever averaged the numbers he’s putting up with a 47% clip from 3. Nobody is even close. You’re watching (well, hopefully you’re watching) one of the best individual seasons this league has ever seen, and the best Jokic season of his career, which is obviously saying something for a three-time MVP.
It bears repeating how dependent Denver is on Jokic, even relative to the degree to which every team is dependent on its best player. It was mentioned above that SGA swings Oklahoma City’s fortunes by over 14 points per 100 possessions, which largely defines MVP-level impact even on a really good team. Care to hazard a guess at Jokic’s impact on the Nuggets? Try plus-13.5 with the best offense in the league when he’s on, and minus-13.7 with the worst offense in the league when he sits.
For the Nuggets, that’s a 27.2-point scoreboard swing per 100 possessions based entirely on whether Jokic is on the floor or bench. Again, he’s the best player in the world and has been the best player this season. He should be the MVP if the season ended today.
But Jokic wouldn’t be the MVP is the season ended today. SGA would. The combination of SGA’s never having won the award while Jokic has won three, and the Thunder being so great, is too much juice for voters to snub Jokic.
Last season Giannis became the first player in history to average at least 30 points, 11 rebounds and six assists for a full season. He’s on pace to to it again. Unfortunately, so is Jokic, who has the advantage of being on a better team in a tougher conference with a landslide edge in on/off splits.
Remember how I noted that the Nuggets are 26 points per 100 possessions worse when Jokic goes to the bench? The Bucks only fall by 2.9 points per 100 without Giannis — from plus-1.8 when he’s on to minus-1.1 when he’s off.
Don’t start reading into that number that Giannis doesn’t make that much difference. Don’t be a fool. But we’re in a world where Jokic and SGA represent such a massive swing for their teams that it’s difficult to see anyone topping those two without an appreciable statistical advantage, which Giannis does not have, even as great as he’s been.
It’s crazy. Giannis is having one of the greatest seasons any NBA player has ever had, and he still probably has no chance of winning the award at this point. He’ll need an injury to SGA or Jokic or one of their teams to fall off considerably. You can pretty much forget that with the Thunder, and unless it’s Jokic who ends up on the shelf for an extended period, Denver likely isn’t going to fall too far, either.
Tatum is averaging career highs in rebounds, assists and steals, and at over 28 PPG on a Celtics team that feels like it’s sort of sleepwalking through the regular season, he’s definitely ripe to be taken for granted on account of Boston’s collective talent.
It’s sort of similar to Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant canceling each other out on MVP ballots during their time together in Golden State. They were always going to be “in the conversation” by virtue of being the best players on the best team, but they were also never going to cross that line of legit candidate; in the three years they played together, the highest either Steph or KD finished in MVP voting was fifth.
Tatum is probably stuck outside the top three for the same reasons, as everyone is going to point to all the elite help he has (and it’s definitely true that Boston is loaded). That said, Jaylen Brown and Jrue Holiday, and even to some degree Derrick White, have quietly had down seasons so far. Kristaps Porzingis has only played in 16 games. Tatum is the guy who has led and lifted Boston on both ends every night.
Wembanyama is already the best defensive player in the world, and it’s not particularly close. He’s knocking on the door to become the 10th player in history to block four shots per game, and the fact that he’s doing this not only in just 33 minutes a game, but in an era where teams regularly approach 50 3-point attempts, both of which obviously reduce his chances to block shots, is wild.
When Wemby is on the court, the Spurs, almost entirely because of him, operate at a top-five defensive level while outscoring opponents by 5.4 points per 100 possessions, per CTG. When he goes off, they get outscored by 10.8 per 100. That’s an MVP-level swing.
All told, Wembanyama is on pace to be the only player in history to average at least 25 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks in under 34 minutes per game. If the Spurs weren’t being so careful with his playing time, his numbers would be even more insane.
And most importantly, these numbers are adding up to wins. At this time last season, the Spurs were 7-31. This season, they’re 19-19 entering play on Wednesday. That’s the biggest current win jump for any team other than Detroit. Wembanyama should be an All-Star, All-NBA and Defensive Player of the Year lock barring any sort of significant injury, and right now he’s a good bet to finish top-five in MVP voting. At 21 years old. It’s truly remarkable stuff.
