The NBA MVP (Most Valuable Player) Award is an annual award recognizing standout performers of the regular season.
Foundational factors in winning an award consist of your team’s performance and individual stats; while other less established but still significant factors such as Voter Fatigue contribute. Whatslaps, a Basketball YouTube channel, also explains factors in the race such as narrative. Voter Fatigue occurs when a player who has won multiple MVPs before could lose the award because the sports media want to see a new face win the award. This 2024-2025 NBA season, there are two main candidates: Nikola Jokic, center of the Denver Nuggets, and Shooting Guard Shai Gilgeous Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Another basketball YouTube channel, Bounce It, lists the cases for the two. For context, a triple double is when a player accumulates double digits in 3 statistical categories of the game. The feat is rare when averaged across a season as it depicts your ability to greatly affect multiple areas of the game. Nikola Jokic is currently averaging a near 30 point triple double, which holds great historical significance as he will become the third player ever to average a 30 point triple double in a season.
Shai Gilgeous Alexander is top three in points and steals per game. His team also holds the number 1 seed in their conference.The award has been a huge contention among fans as there seems to be no common formula in deciding the winner. YouTube Basketball channel Johnny Arnett lists the awards history to highlight his point of a recent lack of consistency with the voting. From 1989-2016, MVP winners were selected on the premise that their team was the number 1 or 2 seed in their conference.
Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook broke this methodology of voting when his team held the 6th seed and ended up winning the award based on his averages of a 30+ point triple double. Since then, there have been recent winners who have broken the traditional rule of voting include Jokic who won the award despite his team holding the 3rd seed in 2021 and the 6th seed in 2022, and Center Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia Sixers whose team was the third seed.
In his video Arnett shares a common sentiment that the traditional way of voting was too limiting. He ultimately concludes people are going to vote based on their own preference if there is no consistent formula to determine who is a candidate.
Junior Maxime Djoko agrees there should be a formula in place to players who are dominating statistically but hold a lower seed, stating that those players are what their team is holding onto.
He personally does not have any issues with past MVP voting stating “I think it’s been clear who the winner is Shai because of the amount of wins he has been having.” He believes the award should go to SGA because: “He is on a winning streak with a winning team. Even though Nikola Jokic is putting up historic numbers, Shai is going to win because Jokic has won it the past three years.”
What formula can then be used to determine the winner? In my opinion, the players that clinch the 1 or 2 seed should still be the only ones eligible for the award. I also believe that those who are having a historically significant season should be eligible for the award only if their team clinches the 4th seed. Some players, due to no fault of their own, have a lackluster team. 8 teams in each conference ultimately make it to the playoffs, so if a player clinches the 4th seed, their team is in the top half of the teams that qualify. 5th seed and any other seed downward would be categorized as the bottom half. I believe this would help even the playing field as the top players on winning teams will not have to worry about the award going to a player with a significantly lower seed than them, while still providing players with a clear criteria on how they can win.
