NBA MVP straw poll 2.0 – 100 league insiders rank SGA, Jokic and more stars
Heading into the 2024-25 NBA season, three clear contenders have emerged for the league’s Most Valuable Player award.
Luka Doncic, who finished in third in 2024 before leading the Dallas Mavericks to an unexpected Finals run, seemed poised to be the next superstar to break through for his first MVP.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who edged out Doncic for second, entered the season at the helm of an Oklahoma City Thunder team expected to sit atop the Western Conference (and has since Nov. 25).
Nikola Jokic, the MVP winner in three of the past four seasons and arguably the most dominant force in basketball today, was a popular choice to join LeBron James and Bill Russell as the only players in league history to win the award in four out of five seasons.
But, while Doncic has faded in the race — even before his league-altering trade to the Los Angeles Lakers, he was ineligible because of a calf injury that will keep him well short of the 65-game threshold for postseason honors — Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokic have more than lived up to preseason expectations.
Now, with other candidates around the league failing to match those stars’ production and team success, the push for the MVP is looking like a two-player race. According to ESPN’s second MVP straw poll of the 2024-25 season, that race has a clear leader heading into the All-Star break.
» Jump to the full NBA MVP straw poll results
In a poll that mirrors the league’s official voting and was conducted over a 48-hour period from Saturday to Monday, Gilgeous-Alexander claimed 70 of the 100 first-place votes and finished second on the other 30 ballots, giving him 910 of a possible 1,000 total points.
As a result, he has established a significant — albeit far from decisive — lead over Jokic, who, after leading the first straw poll of the season, amassed the remaining 30 first-place votes, 69 second-place votes and one third-place vote for a total of 788 points.
The separation between the top two and the rest of the ballot is unprecedented across the previous 18 straw polls conducted since the 2016-17 season. The closest two players have come was during the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season, when Giannis Antetokounmpo and James combined for every first-place vote and all but two second-place selections.
That mirrored the final result, as well, when Antetokounmpo won his second consecutive award and James finished second, with no other player receiving a first-place vote. That also was the last time that, in the end-of-season awards voting, only two players received first-place votes.
Barring a dramatic change in the final two months, it seems likely this season’s race will deliver a similar outcome.
Not only is Gilgeous-Alexander the leader of a team that currently sports the NBA’s best record, he’s also putting up fantastic individual numbers. He is leading the league in scoring at 32.6 points per game, along with averages of 5.1 rebounds, 6.0 assists, 1.9 steals and 1.0 blocks. Only five players in NBA history have averaged 30-5-5-1-1 in a season: Michael Jordan (twice), James (twice), Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid and Dwyane Wade. Not bad company for the 26-year-old vying to become the seventh consecutive international MVP and the first guard to capture the award since James Harden in 2018.
As for Jokic, the expectation was that it would take something special for him to overcome the usual level of voter fatigue that comes with being a three-time winner. All he has done in response is put up averages of 29.8 points, 12.5 rebounds and 10.3 assists per game while shooting 57.8% overall, 45.6% from 3 and 82.1% from the free throw line. That would make him the only non-point guard to ever average a triple-double for a season — Russell Westbrook (four times) and Oscar Robertson are the only players to ever do it — and the only player to do so while shooting over 50% from the field.
It’s also hard to accuse the voters of any fatigue when it comes to Jokic’s status in the race when you consider he has now been in the top three in voting in seven consecutive polls and 11 out of 13 overall, and he has never been outside the top five in any of them since the start of the 2020-21 season.
Context matters with these results, too. For Gilgeous-Alexander, it has certainly helped his cause that, over the past three weeks, he has had the first three 50-point games of his NBA career while powering a Thunder team that has stormed out to a massive lead in the conference despite key contributors Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein and Alex Caruso each having missed at least 20 games this season. Meanwhile, Jokic has quietly led Denver back into the upper-echelon of the West standings after a slow start. The Nuggets are 17-6 since Jan. 1, second only to Oklahoma City’s 16-4 mark.
Antetokounmpo’s case could come down to health
Given the separation Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokic now enjoy over the rest of the field, it’s exceedingly unlikely anyone else will be claiming this season’s award, barring injury to either star. The only player with even a slight chance of changing that — Milwaukee Bucks big man and two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo — could see injuries derail any chance he has of winning an end-of-season honor.
That’s because, after sitting out Wednesday night’s 103-101 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, Antetokounmpo — who had 77 third-place votes and 430 total points to finish third for the second straight ballot — has now missed 12 games for the Bucks this season, including the final six in a row before the All-Star break because of a calf issue. The injury has also forced him to miss this weekend’s All-Star Game in San Francisco.
However, while Antetokounmpo has missed 12 games overall, for awards purposes, he has missed only 11. Why? Because the NBA Cup final, which doesn’t count for statistical or standings purposes in most other contexts, does count when it comes to end-of-season awards eligibility.
As a result, Antetokounmpo can miss up to six games over the final two months of the regular season and still be eligible for all end-of-season honors, including MVP.
Voting shows a changing of the guard
While we highlighted Jokic’s consistency, there’s a similar level to Tatum’s place in the polls. Since leading the first straw poll of the 2022-23 season, the Celtics superstar has landed between fourth and sixth in each of the past seven polls — including being a clear fourth in both this season, getting 65 fourth-place votes and 299 total points in this poll. No other player eclipsed the 100-point mark.
Tatum, who has never finished higher than fourth in actual MVP voting, would be poised to move into the top three for the first time if Antetokounmpo were to become ineligible later this season.
Beyond Tatum, the big takeaway from this poll was the clear shift away from aging superstars. Of the 14 players who received at least one vote in this poll, only Antetokounmpo and James are currently 30 or older (Jokic turns 30 on Wednesday).
From Tatum through Houston Rockets center Alperen Sengun in 14th, six players — San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama (eighth), Memphis Grizzlies forward Jaren Jackson Jr. (ninth), Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (10th), Cleveland Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley (12th), Detroit Pistons guard Cade Cunningham (13th) and Sengun — received a vote at age 25 or younger.
It also continued a streak in which at least one of the three elder statesmen of the NBA’s star class — James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant — has been left out of a poll, dating back to the final tally of the 2021-22 season, when Curry was eighth, Durant ninth and James 11th. The last time any of them were in the top three? The first poll of that season, when Curry and Durant were first and second.
Despite how outstanding they remain as individual talents, the trio’s days as true contenders for this honor appear over.
The Knicks are powered by their two stars. Will it work in the playoffs?
Knicks stars Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns almost perfectly split the credit for New York’s season in this poll, with Brunson winding up on 22 ballots and with 32 points (sixth), and Towns on 23 ballots and with 31 points (seventh). Only one pair of teammates has combined for more total votes and points than Brunson and Towns this season: Curry and Durant did it twice with the Golden State Warriors during the 2017-18 season.
In his first season in New York, Towns is averaging 24.3 points and a career-best 13.5 rebounds while shooting 53.3% overall and a career-high 42.6% from 3 to make his first All-Star start in his fifth All-Star appearance. Brunson, meanwhile, has earned his second straight All-Star spot with 25.9 points and a career-best 7.5 assists per game. But for all their offensive prowess, questions remain about whether the two of them can be cogs of a good-enough defense on a championship-level team.
“No,” one assistant coach said when asked that question. “With Mikal [Bridges], Josh [Hart] and OG [Anunoby], you have strong defenders, but you are just going to keep putting [Brunson and Towns] in actions, and you’re going to go at them. Jalen has been better, but he’s still someone to attack. And it’s easier to hide him than Karl.”
play2:28Stephen A. heated despite Knicks’ win: ‘Where’s the identity?!’
Stephen A. Smith expresses his concern over the Knicks’ defense and coaching decisions despite New York’s 149-148 overtime win over the Hawks.
The good and bad in both of their games was on display Wednesday against the Atlanta Hawks, when Towns eclipsed 40 points for a second straight game and Brunson had 36 points and eight assists, making several critical buckets — including the game winner with 11.1 seconds left in overtime.
At the other end, fellow All-Star Trae Young finished with 38 points and 19 assists in what was the highest-scoring game of this regular season. And while New York eventually escaped with a 149-148 victory, it was a game reminiscent of recent losses at home to the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics in which the Knicks’ defense struggled mightily.
“They can’t guard the Celtics,” the assistant coach said. “That’s who they have to go through. They’re a problem for everyone, but specifically them.”
Votes for Jaren Jackson Jr. bode well for the Grizzlies’ future
It’s not often that finishing ninth while getting three total votes generates much interest in a poll like this. But when it comes to Jackson and the Grizzlies, those three votes could wind up being quite significant because of what they portend down the line.
Jackson, who is in the middle of the best season of his seven-year NBA career, received two fourth-place votes and a fifth-place vote — marking just the second time in his career he has received even a single straw poll vote. But even though Jackson won’t be making a meaningful mark on this year’s MVP race, that shows he has a real chance of making one of the 15 All-NBA spots this season.
The three five-man All-NBA teams are voted on by the media, like the vast majority of end-of-season awards (only Executive of the Year, voted on by the executives themselves, is not). And, especially now that positions have been removed from the ballot, finishing inside the top 10 in MVP voting would make it exceedingly likely that Jackson, who has yet to make an All-NBA team, will break through.
If Jackson does, he will become supermax eligible this summer, giving the Grizzlies another avenue to secure a long-term contract extension with the 2022-23 Defensive Player of the Year one season ahead of his potential unrestricted free agency.
The Grizzlies’ trade of Marcus Smart to Washington helped create salary flexibility to renegotiate and extend Jackson’s contract this summer. If he’s supermax eligible, Memphis can extend him at up to 35% of the salary cap starting with the 2026-27 season.
Were that to happen, the negotiations could mirror those between Rudy Gobert and the Utah Jazz back in 2020, when Gobert — then the premier defensive player in the league — agreed to a supermax deal that came in slightly below the maximum amount he could get in an extension. That is the only time a player eligible to sign the supermax has done so for less than the full 35% of the salary cap.
Source: espn.com