Oklahoma City Thunder are enjoying a fantastic season despite seeing their 15-game winning run snapped by the equally impressive Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday.
A big reason for the Thunder’s success has been the evergreen Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, but before we tackle why he has been the star of the NBA season, for all your sports betting picks, news, and latest odds, head to https://www.vegasinsider.com for all the best in North American sports.
Now, back to the topic at hand, and to many, Gilgeous-Alexander has overtaken Denver Nuggets star, Nikola Jokic as the favorite to win this year’s NBA MVP.
The Canadian international is having an amazing season, flirting with career-highs across the board, good for third in the NBA in both scoring (31.3 PPG) and steals (2.0 SPG) and the lead in some boxscore statistics.
OKC have outscored their opponents by a staggering 17.1 points every 100 possessions. That’s with SGA on the court, and the Thunder are better with him at 16.3 points per 100 possessions. Both of those marks lead the Thunder by a long way and are amongst the leaders in the NBA in those stats.
To summarize, these +/- stats help measure just how valuable SGA has been as the clear MVP on what many people feel is the best team in the NBA.
On the other side of the coin, Jokic has admittedly been even more valuable with even more impressive stats than Gilgeous-Alexander and we will break that down.
Denver outscore their counterparts by 11.2 points per 100 possessions with the Serbian on the court. But crucially, they crumble when he is on the bench.
The Nuggets outscored by more than 14 points per 100 possessions without Jokic for an on/off +/- of 25.3 points per 100. Jokic is also in the top three in the league in scoring (31.5 PPG, second), rebounds (13.0 RPG, third), and assists (9.7 APG, second), and his box score metrics are significantly better than his Oklahoma City Thunder counterpart overall.
But where it all changes between the two megastars is the team’s success. OKC are the top seed in the Western Conference with the best scoring margin (+12.1 PPG) in the NBA, while the Nuggets alter drastically between the fourth and seventh seed in the same Conference. Huge margins.
Jokic’s level of individual play is probably still a bit better than SGA’s, but the keyword is “individual.”
For Jokic to overtake him in the MVP race, the Serbian big man will need Denver to start winning more consistently.
Otherwise, SGA will follow fellow Canadian Steve Nash as the NBA MVP at this point.
