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2024 PBT NBA Awards: Nikola Jokic for MVP

Injuries held Joel Embiid back from repeating as NBA MVP — he put up better numbers than a year ago when he played but only appeared in 39 games, which was too few before the NBA’s 65-game mandate — but that doesn’t mean we’re getting a first-time winner.

I will be sharing my awards ballot over the course of this week, and we’ll start at the top with the 2024 NBA MVP.

2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder
3. Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks
4. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
5. Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics

For the past 10 days or so, feeling like picking him was just too obvious and too much the conventional wisdom, I have been trying to poke a hole in Jokic’s MVP case. In the end, I came back around to him being the choice. It wasn’t simply statistics, although Jokic’s numbers are MVP-worthy: 26.4 points, 12.4 rebounds, and 9 assists a game, shooting 35.9% from 3 — and the advanced stats love him more than the conventional ones.

It was watching him play this season — in person and on television — that sealed his case. Jokic isn’t just the best player in the game right now, he controls the game like a puppeteer — and he does not by dominating the ball but by moving it. Jokic’s passing, IQ, and court mapping awareness lift good players such as Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to new levels. Jokic is the clear MVP to me.

Gilgeous-Alexander and Doncic were almost a coin toss for me in second and third, but a few things pushed me to put SGA second. First, he is a much better defender (Doncic isn’t as bad at that as his reputation is when he’s focused and not yelling at the referees, but Gilgeous-Alexander is tied for the league lead in steals with De’Aaron Fox). The other separator was clutch play — Doncic has his clutch moments, but Gilgeous-Alexander was better during the regular season and the Thunder have the top seed in the West because of his clutch play.

(As a side note, I put less value on team seedings in these votes than many others, unless the gap is massive, which we will get to in a second. I didn’t factor the Mavericks’ No. 5 seed into this choice in the same way I…


Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/2024-pbt-nba-awards-nikola-214333163.html

Author : NBC Sports

Publish date : 2024-04-15 21:43:33

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