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The NBA playoffs arrange the largest stage for the league’s stars to make their mark. Nowhere is that this extra clear this season than with the highest two MVP candidates, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic, squaring off within the Western Convention’s second spherical.
The pair have been battling it out within the MVP race all season, so it might solely make sense that their groups, the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder and Denver Nuggets, would run into one another whereas chasing the NBA’s final aim, the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
Regardless of the fanfare across the matchup, the MVP is a regular-season award, and each gamers recorded memorable seasons in their very own, distinctive methods.
Gilgeous-Alexander led the 68-win Thunder to the West’s prime seed whereas averaging a league-leading 32.7 factors per sport whereas including 5.0 rebounds and 6.4 assists per sport on 51.9% taking pictures. Oklahoma Metropolis completed 16 video games forward of the No. 2 seed Houston Rockets within the common season in one of the crucial spectacular runs in latest reminiscence.
In the meantime, Jokic was placing collectively arguably his greatest statistical season whereas guiding the Nuggets to the No. 4 seed within the West. He averaged a triple-double this season, ending the common season with averages of 29.6 factors, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists. If he had been to win the award, it might be his fourth MVP in 5 seasons and he would turn into certainly one of simply 5 gamers in NBA historical past to assert MVP honors 4 occasions.
Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo rounds out the MVP finalists after averaging 30.4 factors, 11.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists this season.
NBA reporter Tim Bontemps’ ultimate MVP straw ballot and awards poll reveal that whereas it is a tight race, Gilgeous-Alexander held a slight lead on the finish of the common season.
2025 NBA MVP finalists
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander | Level guard | Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder
76 video games | 32. 7 PPG | 5 RPG | 6.4 APG
Nikola Jokic | Heart | Denver Nuggets
70 video games | 29. 6 PPG | 12.7 RPG | 10.2 APG
Giannis Antetokounmpo | Ahead | Milwaukee Bucks
67 video games | 30.4 PPG | 11.9 RPG | 6.5 APG
Tim Bontemps’ MVP picks
1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder
2. Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
4. Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics
5. Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks
Nearly each season, there are a number of deserving MVP candidates. And this 12 months’s race really went right down to the ultimate day between Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokic, the league’s two greatest gamers, each of whom have put collectively unbelievable seasons.
The Thunder, behind Gilgeous-Alexander’s league-leading 32.7 factors per sport whereas taking pictures 51.9% from the sphere, turned the seventh crew in NBA historical past to win a minimum of 68 video games. Jokic, in fact, had a historic statistical season, ending within the prime three in factors (29.6), rebounds (12.7) and assists (10.2) whereas taking pictures 57.6% total and 41.7% from 3-point vary. Actually online game stuff.
Whereas going forwards and backwards between Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokic over the previous a number of weeks, this quote from since-fired Nuggets coach Michael Malone has been weighing on my thoughts. “In the event you did not know Nikola had gained three MVPs, and I put Participant A and Participant B on paper … he wins 10 occasions out of 10,” Malone stated final month.
“And when you do not suppose so, you guys are filled with s—.”
Learn extra on Tim Bontemps’ picks for the NBA’s prime particular person awards.
NBA MVP Straw Ballot 3.0
In mid-February, the second of ESPN’s three NBA most useful participant straw polls confirmed Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander with a snug — if not ironclad — lead over Denver Nuggets heart Nikola Jokic.
Six weeks later, the race is just about unchanged.
If the outcomes from our ultimate straw ballot are correct — for every of the previous 5 seasons, they’ve been — Gilgeous-Alexander will declare his first MVP award. And in a ballot that mirrors the league’s official voting and was performed over a 24-hour interval Sunday and Monday, Gilgeous-Alexander claimed 77 of 100 first-place votes.
He completed second on the remaining 23 ballots for 931 whole factors, whereas Jokic completed with 769. After the 2 stars obtained all however one of many first- and second-place votes within the second spherical of polling again in February, this version was a clear sweep — one thing that hadn’t occurred throughout the 19 earlier straw polls performed because the begin of the 2016-17 season.
That dominance atop the poll goes hand in hand with what each gamers have proven on the court docket.
Regardless of Gilgeous-Alexander’s lead, Jokic is presenting maybe his greatest MVP case.
Learn extra from Tim Bontemps on the NBA MVP Straw Ballot 3.0.
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