The race for NBA Most Valuable Player is pretty much a wrap.
With his 35-point, 15-assist, 9-rebound masterclass on March 9 against the Denver Nuggets, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander made it all but a certainty that he would be crowned with the award once more.
That it came on the night when he tied Wilt Chamberlain’s NBA record for consecutive games (126) with at least 20 points only bolsters his late-season argument. And that he won the game with a silky, step back 3 with just 2.7 seconds left added yet another MVP moment to his highlight reel — something voters tend to weigh with significance.
“Tremendous poise, confidence — he doesn’t change his mindset regardless of the circumstance,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said after the 129-126 Thunder victory. “He doesn’t break a sweat.”
If there’s a paradigm of consistency in the NBA, it’s Gilgeous-Alexander. He appears to glide across the floor, unbothered, to get to his spots. He seems to know exactly what defenses will try to do against him.
And as the Thunder have confronted injuries all season long — they rank second in the NBA in games missed and were without three starters (Jalen William, Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein) against the Nuggets — it’s Gilgeous-Alexander who is carrying this team to greatness.
Despite the time missed because of injury, the Thunder are 51-15, which is the best record in the NBA.
Just to show how quickly things change: a little more than two weeks ago, after carrying the Pistons to a massive win over the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, Cade Cunningham had seized momentum on the national stage.
In fact, I wrote then that Cunningham should be the MVP favorite and would be deserving of the award, if the season ended that day. The season, of course, didn’t, and Detroit has sputtered since that game, losing five of its subsequent nine games.
The Pistons are currently on a four-game losing streak and Cunningham’s play has been slightly uneven in recent weeks.
Realistically, if Cunningham had any edge over Gilgeous-Alexander at the time of that Knicks game (Feb. 20), it was that SGA was at the time sidelined with an abdominal strain.
But in the five games Gilgeous-Alexander has played since returning from the injury that forced him to miss nine games, he’s averaging 30.8 points, 8.4 assists, 4.8 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game.
By late Monday night, just minutes after Gilgeous-Alexander’s game-winning 3, Fan Duel and Draft Kings each lowered their futures odds for Gilgeous-Alexander winning MVP to -800. That’s a fairly pedestrian figure, especially since he was -275 and -260 in those books, respectively, just one week ago.
Realistically, the only thing that can get in SGA’s way is his health. He has played 54 of a possible 66 games for the Thunder, which means he can miss no more than five through Oklahoma City’s final 16 contests to remain eligible for postseason awards.
“I think with what he has already done, he’s an all-time great,” Thunder center Jaylin Williams told reporters after the game. “He’s just adding onto it. I think every game, every situation, he just continues to impress. When you’re the best in the world, it’s hard to continue to impress. He’s doing it night in and night out.”
