The only mvp in the league is Jokic. Nobody is close to him.
I think SGA is in the conversation.
Agreed.
Tier 1 - Jokic, SGA
Tier 2 - Giannis, Luka
Tier 3 - Kawhi, Tatum, Haliburton (likely to miss the games played mark though)
Tier 4 - KD, Brunson, Mitchell
It amazes how many people are overlooking Edwards. He's been leading that team to the best record in the West which is hella impressive after last season. Tier 2 IMO.
I love Ant. Think he is awesome. He is still too inefficient though. 58.9 TS% is just not good enough. It is by far the lowest of any dudes I mentioned
Jokic 65.0%
SGA 65.3%
Doncic 62.9%
Giannis 65.7%
Kawhi 63.9%
Tatum 61.0%
I'll take a little inefficiency for
best record in the West. He's asked to do a lot more than for his team than Tatum or Kawhi.
On that note, I got curious after this little winning streak of Denver's...
Of playoff teams/contenders in the West here is the remaining SOS:
- PHX .583
- LAL .529
- LAC .526
- MIN .509
- NOP .509
- OKC .504
- SAC .502
- DEN .491
- GS .480
- DAL .479
- Denver is 0.5 games back of Minnesota, tied with OKC (although OKC has the higher win%), and 2.5 games ahead of LAC.
- Denver only has one more back-to-back left on their schedule - @ the Jazz, vs the TWolves, the TWolves are also on B2B, coming from Washington. The TWolves and OKC have 4 B2Bs, LAC has 6.
- The only team with fewer games remaining (21) are the Lakers (20), and the only other team with 21 games remaining is New Orleans.
- The only team with more games at home remaining (13) are the Kings (15).
- Of the Nuggets remaining 8 road games, 4 are against the Grizz/Spurs/Jazz/Blazers. AND the Nuggets play 3 more games against the TWolves, 2 of which are at home.
- They end the season with 5/7 teams that will be tanking their asses off (Grizz/Spurs x 2/Jazz/Hawks).
I would set the O/U on expected wins for the Nuggets to close out the final 21 games at probably 16 (58-24 final record). I don't know if it is possible to bet on the #1 regular season seed, but I think the Nuggets should be heavy favorites and it doesn't look like any of the projection systems agree.