Nikola Jokic has led the NBA in fantasy factors per sport every of the previous three seasons. In two of the previous three, he received the NBA MVP award (2020-21, 2021-22) and was the runner-up for MVP final season, with many citizens citing historic priority.
It was believed that if a participant received MVP in three straight seasons, they must be thought of one of many best of all time. How may that be Jokic, when he had not received a championship?
Cue logic fail.
Jokic went on to have one of the vital dominant playoffs runs in current reminiscence, main the Denver Nuggets to a convincing 16-4 postseason document, simply profitable the 2023 Finals MVP.
Now, within the early levels of the 2023-24 season, Jokic is main the NBA in fantasy factors per sport and the Nuggets have one of the best document within the NBA as they appear to defend their championship.
Ought to Jokic be the runaway favourite to win this season’s MVP? If he stays wholesome, does he have already got that third MVP locked up? Let’s focus on.
What the final 5 MVPs have in widespread
Jokic presently has the shortest MVP odds (+300) at ESPN BET, adopted by Luka Doncic (+375), Joel Embiid (+750), Jayson Tatum (+800) and Stephen Curry (+1100). Giannis Antetokounmpo can be a relative longshot at +2000.
If we take a look at the previous 5 MVP winners, there are some commonalities that stand out:
Along with the development of repeat winners, every of the winners produced nice field rating numbers. Utilizing fantasy factors per sport within the ESPN system as a measure of manufacturing, the previous 5 MVPs have averaged 57.7 FP/G.
This season, there are six gamers presently averaging in that vary or greater: Jokic (62.6 FP/G), Embiid (61.2 FP/G), Donovan Mitchell (59.2 FP/G), Anthony Davis (58.1 FP/G), Devin Booker (58.0 FP/G) and Doncic (57.6 FP/G).
One other space that MVPs have traditionally had in widespread is that they have a tendency to come back from the highest groups within the league as measured by win proportion and convention seeding. However lately, the development has gone away from utilizing crew accomplishments to estimate participant influence. Notice that the previous three winners have come from the third, sixth and third seeds of their respective conferences, not the highest seed.
As a substitute, ESPN’s Actual Plus Minus (RPM) has been a greater proxy for the participant’s influence on their crew’s potential to win. Three of the previous 4 MVP winners ranked first within the NBA in RPM. And within the different season (2020-21), Jokic nonetheless had a barely greater RPM rating (sixth finest within the NBA) than Embiid (seventh finest), who was the runner up that 12 months.
A sure variety of video games should be performed earlier than the RPM scores converge to helpful values, so RPM is not presently accessible for this season. But when we take a look at uncooked +/- per 100 possessions as a really tough approximation, we see that three of the 9 gamers into consideration have +/- scores over 15 factors per 100 possessions: Jokic (16.4 PP100), Embiid (15.5 PP100) and Tatum (20.8 PP100). The opposite six all have uncooked on-court +/- scores beneath 6.0 PP100.
Will it come all the way down to Jokic and Embiid… once more?
There are solely two gamers within the NBA with each manufacturing and influence scores within the MVP vary proper now: Jokic and Embiid. The identical two gamers which have completed 1-2 within the MVP vote, in some order, in every of the previous three seasons. This might recommend that these two ought to as soon as once more be the MVP frontrunners.
Jokic has some narrative benefits in an early MVP case. For one factor, some really feel he had an incredible case to three-peat as MVP final season, and since he capped that season with a championship there might be sentiment that he is owed one. However even more-so, if Jokic may common a triple-double for the season (he got here 0.2 APG wanting that mark final season) it will make him simply the third NBA participant to take action, and the primary two (Oscar Robertson and Russell Westbrook) each received MVP of their first triple-double seasons.
Then again, Embiid additionally has some narratives working in his favor. He has led the NBA in scoring two straight seasons and is presently the highest scorer once more this season. However greater than that, there was some sentiment that buying and selling away James Harden would weaken the 76ers. However, proper now, Philadelphia remains to be tied for one of the best document within the Jap Convention. If they will keep anyplace close to that stage of success for the season, it will be an enormous boon in Embiid’s MVP case.
Learn how to guess the MVP race
From a betting perspective, Jokic has some futures worth to win MVP even with the shortest odds within the league at +300. However this train would recommend that one of the best worth within the MVP Futures race proper now could be Embiid at +750.
The metrics which have confirmed predictive of the previous few MVP winners recommend that, at this early stage, the 2 all-universe facilities are nearly equally prone to take residence this season’s MVP. However Embiid has longer odds, and subsequently extra juice if he wins, making him the higher betting choice by the primary week of November.
