The NBA has kept the Most Valuable Player award announcement a secret for weeks. The speculation is over — this season’s MVP will be revealed tonight at 7 p.m. ET during the TNT broadcast, the league’s PR department tweets. The announcement will come prior to Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 26, is considered the strong favorite to win the award for the first time. He averaged a career-best 32.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, 6.4 assists, 1.7 steals and 1.0 blocks in 34.2 minutes per game while appearing in 76 games. This is SGA’s seventh NBA season.
Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo are the other finalists.
Jokic averaged a triple-double — 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists per night — in his 10th season while appearing in 70 games. The Nuggets center has won the award in three of the last four seasons.
Antetokounmpo was named MVP in 2019 and 2020. In his 12th season, the Bucks forward posted averages of 30.4 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists in 67 games.
No guard has won the award since 2018, when James Harden claimed the honor while playing for Houston.
After seeing that flop fest last night who even cares?
Agreed, it was pretty pathetic. Between SGA and Brunson this postseason, the legitimacy and quality of the NBA has taken a hit in the eyes of viewers with brains.
The NBA has aflopping problem and need to redo the rules in the off season. I seen Jokic flop a lot too. Every team does it and many of the big stars do it all the time. LeBron will alwyas be the king of the flop.
They keep leaning into it because officials keep making it beneficial to do so. It’s an officiating and rule problem.
The other big problem that makes the game so frustrating to watch is how they have built in extra protection for 3 point shooters as if this is the sacred cow of the league! The league went way overboard on the whole landing space thing. It’s just become a mockery of sorts. Way more contact and injuries occur on drives to the basket. Why the officiating for 3 pt shots should be any different than other shots is a mystery and frankly detracts from the product.
And flopping can be eliminated from the game easily just by calling a T foul on the flopper. You will see flopping go away immediately.
I agree with all you said. The other thing is the inconsistent foul calls. So is the high five foul after the ball left a shooter’s hand is a foul or not? It differs with Refs. Same with marginal contact call. Can we get a definition of what is marginal contact that is not a foul?
Yup. I don’t know when “the hand is part of the ball” went away… but that’s another thing that drives me nuts… along with the inconsistency of officiating in general, as you said.
No free throw merchant should win MVP. SGA isn’t even in the same league as the other two. OKC is still a good playoff team without him. Mil and Denver don’t even make the playoffs.
All 3 MVP candidates are in the top 7 in FTA so all 3 has an advantage there.
Why was it was it considered cerebral or crafty when Jordan, Wade and Kobe sought out contact and drew fouls, yet it’s flopping when SGA does so?
Because people are prejudiced against others with hyphenated last names, but nobody in the mainstream media will talk about it.
Most Valuable has to be Jokic or Giannis.
“Best” is probably Shai.
Congrats to Jokic on his 5th straight MVP.
I say it’s flipped – SGA the “most valuable”, and Jokic the undoubted “best” with Giannis not far behind.
SGA