2025 NBA MVP Race: 5 Hot Takes On Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, More
With just over a month left in the NBA season, the MVP race has narrowed down to just Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (the betting favorite) and Nikola Jokić (the numbers favorite).
And on Monday, the two superstars wrapped up back-to-back games against each other in Oklahoma City.
The Thunder won Sunday's matchup in overwhelming fashion. SGA had 40 points, five assists and three blocks. Just over 24 hours later, the Denver Nuggets struck back with a double-digit victory of their own. On Monday, Jokić went for 35 points (on 15-of-20 shooting), 18 rebounds, eight assists, a steal and a block.
The season series between these two Western Conference contenders is now over. The final count was 2-2, with each team snagging a victory on the road. And that result feels fitting, given how close the race for the league's top individual honor is.
Enough happened over the last two days (and the rest of the season) to dispense some hot takes, though. And that's exactly what you'll get below.
Denver Will Finish 2nd in the West...
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Ever since they won the title in 2023, the Nuggets have struggled to rediscover the edge they played with throughout that postseason.
They won 57 games in 2023-24 and are on pace for more than 50 again, but they've shrunk in several high-profile matchups. This season, they're 19th in net rating against teams with top-10 net ratings.
Occasionally, though, they'll remind you of their championship-caliber ceiling with nights like Monday, when Jokić and Jamal Murray combined for 69 points and 14 assists.
And even if they can only find that caliber once every few games, that should be enough for them to end up winning a tight race for second in the West.
No one is going to catch the Thunder—11 games up on second-place Denver, even after the loss—so the hottest competition in the conference is for that next spot.
The Los Angeles Lakers, Memphis Grizzlies and Houston Rockets are all very much in the mix, but the former two are missing arguably their best players (LeBron James and Jaren Jackson Jr., respectively), while the latter are just a bit behind in the experience department.
Denver's the leader in this particular clubhouse right now, and Monday's win should help it hang onto that spot through the end of the regular season.
...But OKC Will Represent the West in the Finals
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Even after Monday's loss, the Thunder are on pace for 67 wins. They have the league's leading scorer and a supporting cast that fits him like a glove. They're having the best regular season of all time, according to Simple Rating System, which simply combines point differential and strength of schedule.
From just about any angle you analyze it, this is a juggernaut.
For much of the season, though, Denver has been viewed as one of the few teams out West that might actually be able to challenge them in a seven-game series, and Monday's contest showed why.
First, and most importantly, the Nuggets have the basketball world's best player of the last half decade. Jokić, despite the prevailing narrative on MVP, still controls the game as both a scorer and facilitator in a way SGA doesn't (particularly on the latter front). And his ability to dominate the glass is something Gilgeous-Alexander, as talented as he is, will never be able to do.
With him leading jumbo lineups that include Aaron Gordon (who missed most of Sunday's loss and all of Monday's win with an injury) and Michael Porter Jr., Denver can bully OKC inside. Monday, the Nuggets had the edge in free-throw attempts, rebounds and points in the paint.
But every matchup between these two squads, regardless of their outcomes, has revealed some pretty alarming (if you're the Nuggets) advantages for the Thunder.
With SGA, Jalen Williams, Luguentz Dort and Alex Caruso, there's no question OKC is more athletic, more physical and more aggressive at the guard and wing spots.
They also get up significantly more threes (the Thunder are ninth in three-point attempts per game, while Denver is 30th).
Overcoming one weakness or another isn't a crazy ask, but overcoming both in four out of seven games probably is.
It's always tough to predict a newcomer will make a deep playoff run in the NBA, but every great has to have his breakthrough (as Jokić did in 2023). And all the numbers are screaming this is OKC and SGA's year to break through.
Nikola Jokic Will Average a Triple-Double
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This might not feel like a "hot" take, considering the fact that Nikola Jokić is currently averaging 28.9 points, 13.0 rebounds and 10.5 assists, but let's just take a moment to consider how absolutely ridiculous that is.
Oscar Robertson and Russell Westbrook are the only players in league history who averaged triple-doubles for an entire season (the latter, of course, did it four times). Both were high-volume point guards when they accomplished the feat.
Jokić, on the other hand, is a seven-foot center. The non-Jokić high for assists per game in a season for a center was Wilt Chamberlain's 8.6 back in 1967-68. The high for the position between the end of his career and the start of Jokić's was Sam Lacey's 5.7 in 1979-80.
Jokić keeping his assist average over 10 through the end of this campaign, despite what we've seen from him to this point in his career, would be absurd.
He has to put up 8.3 per game the rest of the way (assuming he appears in each of Denver's last 17 contests). And though that mark would have been unattainable for just about every other center in NBA history, Jokić is going to do it.
SGA Will Win MVP...
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Even with Jokić's unprecedented individual production, and despite losing to the Nuggets on Monday, Gilgeous-Alexander has MVP wrapped up.
Voter fatigue is in play. Jokić winning three of the last four comes up in plenty of conversations about the award on television, the internet and elsewhere. Prominent voters are on prominent shows, literally declaring "I don't care what Jokić does" when discussing why he plans to vote for SGA.
The narrative is behind the Thunder superstar. It has tons of momentum. And the betting odds reflect that. He's the overwhelming favorite.
It felt like Jokić might be able to shift things by winning both games in OKC, but he didn't. In the ESPN game, his Nuggets were blown out, while Gilgeous-Alexander dropped 40.
That was probably it.
But even if much of the public argument in favor of SGA doesn't extend too far beyond "does Jokić really deserve to join the other four-time MVPs?", there is a very strong case to be made for the OKC guard.
It starts, of course, on the defensive end, where Gilgeous-Alexander is a key cog in a ferocious perimeter defense. His length and timely jumps into passing lineups are part of why the Thunder are first (by a lot) in points allowed per 100 possessions.
It's also why SGA leads the league in Dunks and Threes' estimated plus-minus (one of the most trusted catch-all metrics in NBA front offices).
And, of course, his metronome-like scoring has to be mentioned, too. After going for 25 on Monday, SGA has reached that threshold in 56 of his 63 appearances this season.
No wonder he leads the NBA in points per game and plus-minus.
That last number may be the most telling. OKC has outscored its opponents by 762 points with Gilgeous-Alexander on the floor this season. The next highest raw plus-minus is Evan Mobley's plus-525.
The MVP is SGA's.
...And Jokic's Historic Campaign Will Be Remembered Like Wilt's 1961-62
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So, what does that say about this outrageous Jokić campaign?
If Gilgeous-Alexander wins MVP (as it appears he will), even with a case as strong as his, at least some basketball historians decades from now are going to look back and wonder how it happened.
Jokić isn't just averaging a triple-double. He's doing it with a true shooting percentage nearly nine points clear of the league average. He's threatening his own all-time record for box plus/minus ("...a basketball box score-based metric that estimates a basketball player’s contribution to the team when that player is on the court"). His net rating swing (the difference between a team's net points per 100 possessions when a given player is on or off the floor) is plus-23.6, the highest mark in the league.
Statistically, what he's doing is pretty much without parallel (unless you look at other Jokić seasons).
And that's why it's going to go down like Wilt Chamberlain's 1961-62, when the legendary big man averaged 50.4 points and 27.2 rebounds.
That seemingly impossible season didn't end with an MVP. Bill Russell, the winner that year, was a worthy candidate, and his Boston Celtics had 11 more wins than Chamberlain's Philadelphia Warriors.
Sounds familiar, right?
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