NBA MVP Rankings: Nikola Jokic deserved the win but Luka Doncic should be given more consideration

The 2021-22 NBA MVP race has a chance to become the closest result since 2004-05 when Steve Nash won first place with 65 votes against Shaquille O’Neal’s 58. Not much to say about the top three candidates hasn’t been said yet. Nikola Jokic emerged as the betting favorite and if I had a vote it would actually go to Jokic.

But, man, is that tight. There is no wrong vote as long as it goes to Jokic, Joel Embiid or Giannis Antetokounmpo. I believe that. As long as one of those three wins and the other two finish second and third, it will be fair (but I’ll say it’s confusing that this isn’t a Big Four talk where Luka Doncic is among the main contenders , but we’ll get to that).

Ultimately, opinions will differ on the order, but the top 4 I’ve listed here should be pretty straight forward. It’s about fifth place. As I said, my vote for first place would go to Jokic. Here are my final MVP rankings for the 2021-22 season.

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1. Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets

Let’s forget the fact that Jokic is an advanced god with the highest PER in recorded history. It’s really ridiculous to dismiss such a blanket adoption of these metrics as some sort of nerd number voodoo, but even if you take that stance and want to focus on traditional box scores, keep in mind that Jokic is the only player in the NBA history to average at least 27 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists.

Four other players — three Hall of Famers and another two-time MVP on his way to Springfield — have satisfied the scoring and rebounding portion of this trifecta: Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elgin Baylor and Giannis Antetokounmpo, and none of those four come close to Jokic’s insane 66.0 true shooting percentage.

What’s more, Jokic will become the first player in the last half century to make the top 10 in points, rebounds and assists per game, and field goal percentage (at least 400 attempts). There’s also:

You want totally offensive production? Here’s how many points each top three contestant generates per 100 possessions through assists and scoring per PBP stats.

If you want to go the route to victory, Jokic has led the Nuggets to just two fewer wins than Embiid’s Sixers despite playing all season without Jamal Murray and all but nine games without Michael Porter Jr. Yes, Embiid weathered the Ben Simmons drama, but he’s also had James Harden since the February close. Jokic has yet to have a second All-Star close to him this season.

After all, it’s just the eye test for me. Putting the ball in Jokic’s hands is a guaranteed good to great shot, either for him or a teammate, in a way Embiid doesn’t match. Embiid has gotten better from doubles, but to me that’s the ability that separates Jokic in a hair-splitting debate about the game’s best center: He absolutely shreds doubles. His death gets a lot of love, but it’s still not enough. Neither can be defended one-on-one, but the gap between Jokic’s pass and Embiid’s pass is larger than the gap between Embiid’s defense and Jokic’s defense. For me that is the deciding factor.

2. Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers

Embiid will play in nearly 70 games and is close to winning the scoring title while leading the Sixers to at least a top four finish despite playing with Seth Curry as his best teammate for most of the season ( by the way). not meant as a nod to Seth, who is fantastic in the role he fills). As I said, if Embiid wins, it will be fair. We’re about to toss a coin at it.

At the end of the day, the Nuggets, with Jokic as the lone All-Star, were simply a better team than the Sixers, with Embiid as the lone All-Star.

Removing Harden from the equation, which puts Embiid and Jokic more or less on par in terms of assists, below are the offensive, defensive, and net ratings of the Sixers and Nuggets with their respective MVP contenders, the Solo – Lead Star Lineups by Cleaning the Glass.

Now pair Embiid with Harden, and the Sixers outperform opponents by 15 points per 100 possessions with an offensive rating north of 122, while Jokic’s Nuggets have barely marked a spot as the season progressed with a defense that looks increasingly worse.

That could turn the tide in Embiid’s favor. Let’s say the Sixers finish in 2nd place and the Nuggets go into the play-in. In this scenario, Embiid wins the MVP on a late-season flip in my opinion. But at the moment, Jokic was just the better player; not much, but enough, and Philly, who ends up as the No. 4 seed for Denver’s No. 6 with roughly the same number of wins for both, doesn’t give Embiid enough to bridge that slight gap in performance.

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks

Embiid could win the official scoring title, but per 36 minutes Giannis is the league’s top scorer with 32.7 (two tenths ahead of Embiid); that’s a microcosm of how close that is. Shift the criteria a bit from Jokic’s historical general numbers, and you’ll find that Giannis is the only player in history to average at least 29 points, 13 rebounds and five assists with a true shooting percentage north of 60 Has.

But let’s revisit what Giannis was able to accomplish as a lone All-Star on the floor. If we remove Khris Middleton, here are the Bucks’ offensive, defensive and net ratings compared to what Jokic did as a solo star in Denver.

Now consider that this includes Antetokounmpo’s minutes alongside Jrue Holiday, who wasn’t technically an All-Star this season but absolutely is an All-Star player. Remove Holiday, isolating Giannis as the only All-Star on the floor in a similar role to Jokic’s had to fill in all season at Denver, and the Bucks are up 5.2 per 100 with an offensive rating that’s on the 36th place is percentile, per CTG.

Now we’re talking a small sample of minutes Giannis played without Middleton and Holiday – less than 800 total possessions, or about seven to eight games worth per CTG. But you still get the point. Jokic has done more with less. If you think there are other data points that can be rigged in Giannis’ favor, you have it. I’m just sticking with direct performance without the help of a second All-Star, which is about as close to level playing field as you can get.

4. Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks

Every day I wonder more and more why Doncic is no longer at the center of this debate. He’s had a slow start from form and I suppose once the prevailing mood throws you off it never really considers picking you up again. But if you want to talk about solo stars elevating their teams, look no further than Doncic, who seeded the Dallas Mavericks just one game behind the No. 3 Warriors without anything remotely resembling a second All-Star alongside him.

Doncic is the only 20-points-per-night scorer in the league, averaging at least nine rebounds and eight assists per game, and Doncic doesn’t exactly scratch the 20-point mark; He’s fifth in the league at 28.3 per night and third at 39.8 per 100 possessions.

Go back and check out this table in Jokic’s section for points earned per 100 ball possessions through goals and assists. Jokic manages most among the top three candidates (66.32), four points per 100 less than Doncic, who manages 70.82 points per 100 for the Mavericks, according to PBP Stats. Doncic will not be MVP. But in my opinion he should be a bigger part of the realistic conversation than he is. Fourth place would be my bet.

Many people will be clamoring for Devin Booker as a top 5 MVP finisher. Heck, Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas and Draymond Green have both campaigned for Booker to win the award outright. I get it. Booker is arguably the best player on the NBA’s best team, and certainly one could argue that that should carry a lot of weight.

But I’ll focus on the word arguably in reference to Booker’s rank in his own team’s hierarchy; I personally think Chris Paul is more valuable. The fact that it’s even a question for me puts Booker off. If Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant watered down each other’s MVP case when they were teammates, you can bet Booker and Paul should do the same.

There is no such controversy with Tatum and the Celtics. He’s the best player. And alongside Phoenix, Boston has been the best team in the league for quite some time. Yes Morant is an option here too, but the Memphis Grizzlies star has played in just 56 games while Tatum came into play on Thursday 75. Stephen Curry’s 64 games played also hurt him, although that’s not a particularly low number.

Only DeMar DeRozan and Trae Young have more total points than Tatum this season, and the Celtics have outplayed their opponents for a total of 638 points with him on the ground, doubling Embiid and Antetokounmpo’s point spread and registering more than 200 points higher than Jokic’s Plus -407.

Yes, the Celtics have a lot of good players and their defense, which is a collective effort, is the main reason they have emerged as a contender. That’s why Tatum isn’t in the realistic race for the prize. That, and he wasn’t at all as great as the four guys before him on this list. But he was still great and deserves a top five finish.