Cunningham has been unstoppable on isolations so far<\/a>, and a shaky catch-and-shoot three-ball is the biggest thing holding back his efficiency. Cade isn\u2019t an elite shooter or finisher and he still has turnover problems, but there\u2019s no doubt he makes a gigantic impact for a great team. He\u2019ll likely finish top-5 in MVP voting by season\u2019s end as other\u2019s drop out due to missed games.<\/p>\n5. Jalen Brunson, G, New York Knicks: Brunson remains the little engine who could for the Knicks. New York feels like it\u2019s in the driver\u2019s seat in the East right now, and Brunson\u2019s elite shot-making is the main reason why. The 29-year-old guard is averaging 40.3 points per 100 possessions on 60 percent true shooting on the year. The fact that he\u2019s a knockdown mid-range pull-up shooter makes so hard to guard when the game slows down, and he\u2019s also become one of the league\u2019s better playmakers with a nearly 30 percent assist rate. Brunson is an awful defender who ranks in the 1st percentile of defense EPM, but New York has other players to help him out on that end. The Knicks have a great shot at the NBA Finals this year, and it\u2019s Brunson who will be leading the way and taking every big shot down the stretch.<\/p>\n
4. Victor Wembanyama, C, San Antonio Spurs: It\u2019s a question of when not if Wembanbyama will eventually win this award, and the real intrigue is how many. On the brink of his 22nd birthday, the 7\u20195 French superstar is the best defensive player in the league while quickly becoming one of its best offensive players. The mere sight of Wemby\u2019s 8-foot wingspan deters offensive players from even thinking about trying to drive around him or shoot over him, and he makes more ridiculous blocks than any player in the league. There\u2019s still room to grow on the offensive end, but he can completely takeover a game when he\u2019s cooking. Wembanyama has cut his three-point attempts in half this year and still hits them at a respectable 35 percent. His two-point scoring feels like it should be better than 57 percent from the floor, but that\u2019s because he faces so much defensive attention. The real story is in the lineup data, where the Spurs are +9.6 points per 100 possessions better with Wemby on the floor. This isn\u2019t his award yet, but it will be soon.<\/p>\n
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3. Luka Doncic, G, Los Angeles Lakers<\/p>\n
Luka\u2019s revenge season has lived up to the hype. With no need to play himself into shape this year, Doncic hit the ground running and has been producing all-world numbers with the league\u2019s highest usage rate so far. His 45.1 points per 100 possessions are a career-high, and he\u2019s still over 60 percent true shooting despite only making 32 percent of his threes. Luka\u2019s playmaking remains every bit as great as his scoring, with a 38.7 percent assist rate so far that ranks in the 98th percentile of the league. Take Luka off the floor and the Lakers get outscored by five points per 100 possessions. With him on, LA outscores its opponents by +4.7 points per 100. He\u2019ll never be a defensive stopper, but it\u2019s hard to imagine any player could be when they\u2019re carrying a 39 percent usage rate that is twice as high as an average player. Doncic would play 75 games this season if he doesn\u2019t miss another one, so he has a little margin for error on eligibility, too. This probably isn\u2019t the year Luka finally wins his first MVP, but he\u2019s one nagging injury away from probably getting it.<\/p>\n
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo, F, Milwaukee Bucks<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo can only miss three more games this season to maintain his award eligibility, but it\u2019s important to note how great he\u2019s been this season while he\u2019s still eligible. Only player in NBA history has ever score at least a point per minute: Wilt Chamberlain in his historic 1962-63 season. Giannis is doing it right now, hitting one point-per-minute on the dot. His per-game averages don\u2019t tell the whole story because he\u2019s left two games early with injury and has been on a minutes restriction, but his scoring is as overwhelming as it\u2019s ever been in his age-31 season. Per 100 possessions, Giannis is averaging 48.6 points, 16.4 rebounds, and 10 assists on immaculate 67.3 percent true shooting. He\u2019s also putting up a ridiculous 35.1 PER which would be the best mark of his career, eclipsing even his two MVP seasons. His defense has slipped a little this year, but he has to do so much offensively that it\u2019s understandable. He remains the league\u2019s most ferocious rim scorer, and the rest of the NBA is no closer to learning how to stop him.<\/p>\n
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1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, G, Oklahoma City Thunder<\/p>\n
I would have had Jokic at No. 1 on my MVP list before his injury, and it feels especially devastating for him to lose out on the award when it would have put him in such historic company with Wilt and LeBron. There\u2019s no doubt that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would still be a deserving recipient for the second time in his career, though. SGA is the best guard alive, a dominant mid-range shooter with improved three-point touch and an unstoppable array of crossovers and crafty finishes at his disposal. Before anyone calls him a flopper, I\u2019d like to note that Doncic shoots significantly more free throws than SGA: Luka is at 15.7 free throw attempts per 100 possessions this year, while Shia is at 13.1 per 100. Don\u2019t let false narratives fool you into believing that SGA is anything less than one of the three best guards of the NBA\u2019s post-Jordan era. He\u2019s averaging an absurd 46.3 points per 100 possessions on insane 67.8 percent true shooting \u2014 numbers that shouldn\u2019t be possible for a 6\u20196 guard. It\u2019s cool that Shai does most of his work from mid-range rather than spamming threes, but he\u2019s still hitting 42 percent of his triples anyway this year. The Thunder have surrounded Gilgeous-Alexander with role players willing to do all the dirty work, but Shai can still defend when he needs to, using his quick hands and 7-foot wingspan to make disruptive plays when teams try to pick on him. He\u2019s peaking much higher than Kobe Bryant ever did on the impartial spreadsheets, and he\u2019s coming for Steph, too:<\/p>\n
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Back in Kobe\u2019s age-27 season in 2005-2006, he averaged 45.6 points and 13 free throw attempts per 100 possessions, and I don\u2019t remember anyone calling him a flopper then. Shai\u2019s ability to get to the free throw line is something most all-time greats have, and it\u2019s largely because no one can guard him. The Thunder have shown for vulnerability lately with three losses to the San Antonio Spurs, but SGA is the reason they\u2019re still the prohibitive title favorite going forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nikola Jokic was likely going to win his fourth NBA MVP award during the 2025-26 season, which would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[1307,375,7,909,193,188,864,123,164,194,288,762,78,938,1536,185,150,368,121,152,6,191,253,378,474,209,932,693,5437],"class_list":{"0":"post-509853","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-alperen-sengun","9":"tag-anthony-edwards","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-cade-cunningham","12":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","13":"tag-detroit-pistons","14":"tag-donovan-mitchell","15":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","16":"tag-golden-state-warriors","17":"tag-houston-rockets","18":"tag-jalen-brunson","19":"tag-jamal-murray","20":"tag-jaylen-brown","21":"tag-kevin-durant","22":"tag-kobe-bryant","23":"tag-lebron-james","24":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","25":"tag-luka-doncic","26":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","27":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","28":"tag-nba","29":"tag-new-york-knicks","30":"tag-nikola-jokic","31":"tag-okc","32":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","33":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","34":"tag-steph-curry","35":"tag-victor-wembanyama","36":"tag-wilt-chamberlain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}