SGA is (still) the Most Valuable Player
Arguing about the MVP has become an annual tradition. And since there are a lot of great players, no universally accepted rubric for the award, and too much time (and social media) on our hands, we increasingly debate the criteria for the award as much as we debate the rightful winner.
How do you determine the MVP? Is it simply the best player? The best player on the best team? The best individual advanced stats portfolio?
There has never been a single method, and there never will be. Nikola Jokic’s sustained greatness has made the debate even trickier, because his consistency turns every year into a test of whether someone else has done enough to dislodge him from his perch.
Until now.
This season isn’t about Jokic’s stature. It’s about Shai’s undeniable greatness.
Shai is the best player in the world.
Shai is the best player on the best team. OKC has a historic +16.4 NRTG. The 7.1 efficiency gap between the #1 Thunder and the #3 Nuggets is as wide as the gap between the #3 Nuggets and the #11 Heat.
He’s also simply been the best player, full stop.
OKC is, once again, one of the best defensive teams in history. Giannis Antetokounmpo is a better defensive player than Shai, but the Bucks’ 115.5 DRTG while he plays can’t approach the Thunder’s DRTG with Shai on the court (104.0). That's just a hair above their truly historic overall rating (103.4). There’s no point contrasting Shai’s defensive profile against the other MVP candidates this season. It's more relevant to compare him to Michael Jordan and the '98 Bulls. Like Mike, Shai is a scoring machine playing a meaningful role for a defensive behemoth, generating turnovers and guarding tough assignments every night.
You can squint to make the case that Jokic is having a better offensive season than Shai, but even that is dubious. Shai isn’t pacing Jokic across the board on offense, but he’s eclipsed the three-time MVP in most conventional measures of MVP performance for an offensive star: more points, more wins, better margin of victory, more and better clutch performances, and a similar bottom line for his team's offense while he’s on the court.
Jokic has more assists and rebounds than Gilgeous-Alexander. And he has a better shooting percentage, by virtue of taking fewer two-pointers as a center. Color me unimpressed. SGA is ahead on volume and efficiency from both the three-point arc and the free-throw line. SGA takes more play-finishing responsibilities than Jokic, trumping the center’s usage (32.1% for Shai, 28.6% for Jokic). Jokic shoots less, deferring to teammates who make more of their opportunities than Shai’s teammates do.
The advanced offensive statistical case for Jokic over Shai is undergirded by the shots Jokic doesn’t take and those his teammates make.
The Thunder’s 124.5 ORTG with SGA playing and Denver’s 127.8 ORTG when the Joker does would both lead the league. The Nuggets lead the league on the whole, while Oklahoma City has only the fifth-best ORTG this season. But the Thunder would be higher if Shai didn’t rest for about a third of OKC’s fourth-quarter minutes after sufficiently blowing teams out early: the Thunder’s clutch ORTG, when Shai closes out games, is a ludicrous 133.0. Their non-clutch ORTG in the fourth quarter, when Shai sits, is around 111.2 at the time of this writing. That's just below New Orleans’ 26th-ranked number for the season, and a sufficient drag to put some meaningless distance between the two on paper.
Finally, you can spare me the appeals to Jokic’s legendary shooting season moving the MVP needle in his direction. Shai’s season is shaping up to be just as legendary.
Shai has the most value in the sport.
“What’s the name of the award?”
A while back, Tim Bontemps asked that question while declaring Giannis the MVP of the young season. Because the Bucks plummet on both ends of the court when Giannis sits, Bontemps asserted, he must be the most valuable.
Bontemps thought Giannis the obvious MVP because his team is much better when he plays and much worse when he doesn’t.
Taken to its logical end, Bontemps’ argument breaks down. Were we to follow it, the MVP candidate should go to the best player on the worst team. By default, any player on a below-average team has more opportunity to produce sharp on/off splits. Where there’s synergy between stars the dominance of their teams, there is less room between their baseline and offensive ceiling.
But if we must get pedantic about what “most valuable” means when a player is off the court, then let’s follow that path even further. If we’re going to insist on the weight of the word “value” as opposed to “best,” let’s talk real value. As in dollars, baby.
Jokic and Giannis have the third-most and fifth-most expensive contracts in the sport. Shai, by contrast, has the 35th-largest salary in the NBA.
Shai has better teammates not by accident, but because his age limits his earning power under the CBA. The Thunder are able to build such a deep championship roster precisely because their best player occupies one of the most advantageous salary slots in the sport. Being the best player on a championship roster before the cap hit arrives is peak off-court value.
That Shai embraced the Thunder’s rebuild with patience—trusting the front office and coaching staff to add long-term, complementary talent around him while he was developing into a megastar—is icing on the cake.
Shai is (still) the MVP.
Shai is the rightful, reigning MVP. Joel Embiid and others have tried to interrupt Jokic’s reign; Shai may have ended it. Shai and the Thunder were better than Jokic and the Nuggets in the regular season, then outperformed them head-to-head in the playoffs. SGA validated his first MVP by leading OKC to the title, then came back even better.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been, and still is, the best player in the world.
By almost every lens, Shai is producing the most valuable season in the league. To build SGA's MVP case, you can take your pick from any of the criteria you want: individual and team counting stats, individual and team efficiency metrics, historical magnitude as a scorer, historical magnitude as a defender, on-court value, off-court value, you name it.
This isn’t a new debate. It’s the continuation of one he already won. And he’s surpassing his championship MVP season already in the history books.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the Most Valuable Player until further notice.
