Celtics forward Jayson Tatum narrowly edged Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo in the first edition of this season’s MVP straw poll conducted by ESPN’s Tim Bontemps.
Tatum appeared on 98 of 100 ballots cast by media members, receiving 47 first-place votes in the process en route to 759 points, according to Bontemps. Antetokounmpo was on 93 of 100 ballots and received 36 first-place votes for a total of 687 points, the second-closest margin between first and second place since Bontemps began conducting the MVP polls in 2016/17.
Rounding out the top five were Mavericks guard Luka Doncic (392 points), Warriors guard Stephen Curry (250 points) and Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (195 points). Antetokounmpo and Jokic each won back-to-back MVPs over the past four years, while Curry, who is out for multiple weeks with a shoulder injury, did the same from 2014-16. Tatum and Doncic would be first-time winners.
Here’s more from around the basketball world:
- Jeremy Woo of Sports Illustrated lists his early big board risers and fallers for the 2023 draft. Among Woo’s risers are Arkansas guard Anthony Black and Michigan guard Jett Howard, while Duke center Dereck Lively and Eastern Michigan forward Emoni Bates are among the players who have seen their stocks fall.
- Commissioner Adam Silver says the NBA’s first female head coach is long overdue, per Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports. “I would be hugely disappointed if certainly in five years we haven’t seen our first female head coach in the NBA,” Silver said on a podcast with journalist Bonnie Bernstein. The NBA commissioner has long been a proponent of adding more female coaches to the league.
- In a lengthy interview with Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated, Jazz part owner and future Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade discussed Utah’s strong start, his departure from TNT, and several other topics. Wade says he’s thrilled with new head coach Will Hardy and thinks “the future looks bright,” adding that he loves watching the current group and the energy surrounding the team.
I had a woman coach in aau, never thought anything of it. Hammon probably should’ve got a shot. The thing I don’t look forward to when it happens is the networks telling us about it every 5 minutes whenever the team is on tv lol.
MVP race as of now…
1/ Jokic
2/ AD
3/ Embiid
4/ Luka
5/ KD
What’re u on
I don’t know what’s more pathetic – not having Tatum at any short MVP list now or liking your own post.
The latter
The latter, though not having Tatum on your MVP list is pretty pathetic too.
How does Giannis only appear in 93 out of 100 peoples all star team voting. Like if you follow the nba even by the slightest margin you know he’s top 5 without a shadow of a doubt. Let alone nba media and analysts who’s job it is to follow the nba everyday
The media hates the fans for silly votes like Wiggins starting and ZaZa getting close once but like your a paid professional and your job is the nba and you don’t think Giannis is top 5?
Even curry tbh he should be in 100/100 teams.
Especially since each person got to rank multiple players. That means two people ranked Jayson Tatum below three other players. Seven people (!) ranked two time MVP Giannis below three other players. Even for NBA analysts who basically s***-post for a living, this is absurd.