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Tim BontempsESPN
It is only seven weeks since this NBA season began, with the Dallas Mavericks phenomenon, Luka Doncic, installed as the favorite in the bets to win MVP prizes.
But, like almost everything in this shortened pandemic season, nothing went as planned.
The Doncic Mavericks are 14th in the Western Conference, opening the MVP race to a deep field of candidates and potentially paving the way for LeBron James to win a fifth historic MVP trophy.
After finishing in second place a season ago for Giannis Antetokounmpo, who became the 12th player in NBA history to win consecutive MVP trophies, James is back on top in ESPN’s first MVP vote of the season.
To assess the state of the race at this point in the season, ESPN asked 100 members of the media to participate in an informal vote that simulates voting for the postseason awards. To make voting as realistic as possible, there are at least two voters from each of the league’s 28 markets, as well as a cross-section of national and international reporters.
As in the official NBA poll at the end of the season, voters were asked to submit a five-player ballot, and the results were tabulated using the league’s scoring system: 10 points for each vote for first place, followed by seven points for the second, five points for the third, three points for the fourth and one point for the fifth.
While James currently has the right track in his effort for a fifth MVP trophy to go with what he hopes will be a fifth NBA championship this summer, winning 54 of the 100 possible votes, the race to this point in the season is just as competitive either. in recent memory, with a couple of centers – Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid and Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic – right behind.
Now in his 18th season, James, 36, continues to be remarkably consistent, playing in each of the Lakers’ 25 games so far and averaging over 25 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists for the fifth consecutive season. James is shooting 41%, the best of his career, in the 3-point range. This is the first time since 2013 – the year that he won his last MVP award – that James got more than 40% out of 3. This was also the only season of his career that he hit that mark; he hit less than 37% in the 3-point range in each of the past six seasons.
James was nominated on 99 of the 100 ballots and finished with a total of 760 points, leading the Embiid (23 votes for first place) by just 95 points. The last MVP race to have such a small final margin came in 2004-05, when Steve Nash overcame Shaquille O’Neal by 34 points. Jokic was third, obtaining 18 votes for first place and a total of 596 points.
This puts the difference between Tiago in first and Jokić in third, with 164 points. In comparison, Antetokounmpo led runner-up James by 152 points in the initial version of last year’s poll. No final MVP vote has seen such a small margin between first and third place since the 1998-99 season shortened by the blockade, when Alonzo Mourning and Tim Duncan both finished within 100 points of MVP winner Karl Malone.
Embiid is having, by far, the best season of his career, with an average of 29.3 points per game, the best of his career, at the same time that he shoots the best of his career in the field (55.3%), in the range of 3 points (39%) and the free throw line (85%) for Philadelphia, which has the best record in the Eastern Conference and has an incredible 15.2 points per 100 possessions when Embiid is on the court, compared to when he is seated.
Philadelphia is also 16-3 in the games that Embiid plays this season and 1-4 in the games that it does not play.
Jokic is currently the only NBA player in the top 10 in points (27.6), rebounds (11.5) and assists (8.6) per game, and he briefly led the league in assists – something that no pivot did. over the course of an entire season since Wilt Chamberlain did it in 1968. Jokic and Embiid aim to be the first pivot to win the NBA MVP award since O’Neal won in 2000.
The depth of the race is reflected in more than just the competition at the top of the poll. Seven players received at least one vote for first place, more than in any previous poll. In addition to James, Embiid and Jokic, Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant won three votes for first place, while teammates Kawhi Leonard and Paul George of LA Clippers received a single vote for first place, as well as star of the Golden State Warriors, Stephen Curry.
Durant, after losing all season last season with a torn Achilles tendon, finished fourth in the vote with 272 points and appeared on 75 ballots, while Leonard (153 points, 64 ballots) finished fifth.
Antetokounmpo, the two-time MVP defender, was a distant sixth, receiving a handful of votes, as it seems very unlikely that he will win for the third consecutive time. Doncic, the pre-season favorite, received just two votes for third place, as his brilliant statistical record was easily overwhelmed by the Mavericks’ unimpressive record.
A total of 15 different players received at least one vote, including three players from the same team, all receiving at least one vote for the first time in any iteration of this poll.
Center Rudy Gobert and Guards Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley led Utah Jazz to the NBA’s best record, but received only a handful of votes (four for Gobert, two for Mitchell and one for Conley), talking about the nature of the success set of the team this season. The last team to have three players receiving MVP votes in the same season was the Suns 2004-05 (Nash, Amar’e Stoudemire, Shawn Marion).