(Analysis)

When was the last time the NBA had this much talent at the top of the ballot for the MVP award?

The reigning MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder, is over 65% true shooting, without the benefit of playing next to elite scorers or playmakers. Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs is stopping players from attacking the paint entirely, never mind his floor spacing and rim-rolling excellence on offense. The Los Angeles Lakers’ Luka Doncic leads the league in scoring and is averaging 35.5 points, 7.9 rebounds and 7.6 assists per game since the All-Star break. As always, there is Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets, regularly flirting with triple-doubles that are closer to 20-15-15 than to 10-10-10.

The Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown is also having a great season, but the groundswell is building around those four candidates. We asked Athletic writers who have chronicled their seasons, Joel Lorenzi (Thunder), Jared Weiss (Spurs) and Dan Woike (Lakers), to weigh in on the MVP race.

Q: If you had to vote for MVP right now, how would you rank the top four candidates, assuming they hit the 65-game threshold?

LORENZI: Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama, Doncic, Jokic.

I knew the feeling that Shai was running away with it in early March wouldn’t last. It takes just a couple of nights for us to forget. But from October to now, I still think he has the most consistent body of work, especially considering that the unpredictability of this season has threatened to wreck the Thunder.

Jalen Williams has been a nonfactor, and the team’s injuries have piled up. SGA still keeps their floor incredibly high, seizes late-game moments as well as anyone on this list and gives you great consistency, even if he’s not the most explosive offensive player of this bunch. The efficiency remains baffling. So long as Oklahoma City wins the West, I think he should run the poll.

That said, Wembanyama makes things interesting. He has shown he is one of the most impactful defenders ever. I’m not kicking Doncic to the curb. He’s good for these late pushes, and he has made the Lakers a serious threat.

WEISS: Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama, Jokic, Doncic.

SGA’s impact over the entire season merits him the award at this moment. Wembanyama has been the MVP of the league for the past two months, but his rapid ascension almost works against him. The gap between them is so small with the way Wembanyama has been a terror on both ends lately that I could see this answer changing by the time the season ends. It’s just hard to quantify the gap Wembanyama has defensively over the competition, but it’s significant enough to leap to second in the MVP race even if Doncic and Jokic have been dominant offensively.

Jokic needs little explanation; even his slow moments this season don’t mitigate the remarkable level of control and effectiveness he is exerting on the game. Getting to fourth, this was between Luka and Brown for me. Luka has just edged him out because of the absurdity of his offensive output, though the narrative and two-way play behind Brown’s season should put him in this conversation. But with Doncic’s scoring tear lately, the gap between first and fourth in this ranking is as small as we’ve seen in years.

WOIKE: Gilgeous-Alexander, Doncic, Wembanyama, Jokic.

Doncic feels very much in the race; he has reached heights over the last three weeks that players in the NBA never see. The Lakers have really found something over the past month, and they are going to be a scary playoff opponent.

But Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder are so consistent, so solid, so efficient. Wembanyama is going to win MVPs in this league, but he just feels a tick behind. And while Jokic is Jokic, he has had better years. It’s a tight race, and you could cast your vote four different ways, and I wouldn’t be outraged.

Q: If you could have only one of the four players to start the playoffs, with the goal of winning the title, whom would you choose?

LORENZI: Give me SGA. He’s not the highest-volume scorer on this list or the best playmaker or the best defender, but he is good enough at all of them that I’d take him. He leaves so few holes, has improved as a playmaker and processor, and is about as good a defender as you can reasonably ask for from a high-functioning engine. He’s reliable, the least turnover-prone here by a mile, and such a smooth conductor of offense inside so many defensively slanted lineups.

I am close to blindly choosing Wembanyama without ever seeing him play in the postseason, though. He’s just going to be such an issue for half-court offenses to score on, not to mention what he brings on offense.

WEISS: Jokic is still the most effective player in the game at the biggest stage. Especially with the conceit of designing a team, he allows you to build an offensive system that has generally proven to be playoff-proof when healthy. With the way Wembanyama has been playing since the start of the new year, he is probably the most impactful player in the game during the regular season, but we have to see how he handles the playoffs before we move him ahead of a prime Jokic or Gilgeous-Alexander, who have proven to be among the greats in the postseason. This answer may look silly a few months from now, but we’ve seen young emerging stars struggle to handle the intensity and precision of their first postseason plenty of times.

WOIKE: Of the four candidates, Doncic’s one-man offense is equaled by only one thing: Wembanyama’s one-man defense. If I had four randoms out there, give me the 7-foot-4 guy who plays defense like he has got eight arms.

While Doncic’s ability to get the toughest buckets is unmatched in the NBA, the way offensive players freak out when they sense Wembanyama lurking would be the skill I’d most want to build around.

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Q: What was the game, moment or play that best describes the season the star you cover is having?

LORENZI: It was that four-game stretch from March 4 to 12 when SGA had go-ahead buckets late in every game, with three of those wins against legitimate threats. All stellar, picturesque performances from SGA at a time when MVP voters are heavily influenced.

The Denver game might be his best regular-season game to date: 35 points, 15 assists, nine rebounds, zero turnovers, 14-of-21 shooting and back-to-back go-ahead shots. It was a late-game master class and a case study on efficiency.

WEISS: There are so many for Wembanyama, but the one I’ll never forget was when he was covering his face to hold back tears after beating the Clippers a few weeks back. Seeing the level of passion from him over winning a difficult regular-season game while he was pushing his body to its evolving limits showed how he is bringing a different type of mentality that has challenged perceptions of the league’s culture.

WOIKE: Fans do not want to hear stuff about scheduling and fatigue because getting into a nine-star hotel just before sunrise is only so much of a burden. But Doncic’s 60-point game in Miami, coming less than 24 hours after he led the Lakers to a win against the Rockets in Houston, was next-level mastery.

Q: At 31, Jokic is the oldest of the four players. Do you think he has fallen off from his peak, and how much longer would you bet on him being an MVP candidate?

LORENZI: Fallen off his peak? Not even close. If he loses favor in future MVP races, it will be because of voter fatigue. He has produced at a high level for so long that it might just lessen his chances.

But the guy is a top-15 career player and still a top-four player in the NBA. His candidacy is perennial and probably would have held up this season without the urgency of the 65-game rule rushing him back. I don’t even expect him to really drop out of the top five in the next few years. Winning it, though, is different. The young bulls seem like they’re on the way.

WEISS: The last player to win MVP over age 30 was Steve Nash, who was 31 in the 2005-6 season. Jokic’s game lends well to his retaining his impact as he gets older, considering he relies on balance, touch and vision above all else.

WOIKE: Will Jokic ever be as good as he was two years ago? Probably not. But the ways that he makes everyone around him better while still being an impossible one-on-one cover means that he’s going to stay in that lead pack for MVP for at least the next few years.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.