NBA MVP rankings: Early look at top five in race and why SGA currently has edge over Nikola Jokić

I’d like to offer a little bit of sympathy to Donovan Mitchell. He is currently leading a team on a 52-win pace that has largely been without its starting point guard and has seen almost every other role player miss games here or there. He is averaging 29.9 points per game, just barely above Larry Bird’s career-high, and he’s doing so with a 60% effective field goal percentage, which torches the career-best marks for James Harden, Damian Lillard and Kobe Bryant. The only player in NBA history to hit both of those marks over a full season is Stephen Curry. The first time he did so, he won MVP. If the 2025-26 season ended today, Mitchell wouldn’t even make most ballots.

That is how loaded the early MVP race has been thus far this season. We have three former winners not only playing the best basketball of their careers, but posting some of the greatest seasons in NBA history. No, really, as of Tuesday, this season has produced the three highest single-season PERs in NBA history. Not among them is the player currently posting the third-highest scoring season of the century… or the seventh… neither of whom are Donovan Mitchell.

The race is going to change between now and April. It’s easier to do historic things for 15 games than 80. Injuries will inevitably crop up. Weird stuff happens in this sport. But nearly a quarter of the way into the season, it’s worth at least checking in on the race and trying to figure out who’s in pole position here, so below, we’re going to try to pick an early-season five-man ballot. The race has barely even begun, but here’s where it sits a bit more than a month into the season. We’ll list current MVP odds from Caesars Sportsbook as well to give you a sense of where the market sees each candidate.

5. Tyrese Maxey (current odds: +5000)

Tyrese Maxey is having an MVP-caliber scoring season. Pretty definitively, in fact. A total of 20 MVP awards have gone to guards. Before Tuesday’s blowout loss to Orlando, Maxey was scoring more points per game than all of them except 1988 Michael Jordan. This obviously includes four other Jordan vintages and last year’s winner, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. 

Purely as scorers, Maxey’s 2025-26 season and Gilgeous-Alexander’s 2024-25 season are remarkably similar. Maxey, again before that Orlando game, was averaging 33 points per game with a 55.9% effective field goal percentage. Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 32.7 points per game with a 56.9 effective goal percentage. Maxey makes more 3s. Gilgeous-Alexander got the line more. But Gilgeous-Alexander won an MVP primarily because of his scoring, and Maxey is scoring at roughly that level. That gives us an MVP candidate.

What keeps him in the lower portion of the ballot is that he falls short of Gilgeous-Alexander’s MVP season in most other respects. Maxey is actually dishing out more assists, but that’s actually pretty easy to explain: he has the ball more. He has the ball a historic amount, in fact. Maxey is currently averaging a shade over 106 touches per game. That puts him on pace to break the tracking era record set by Nikola Jokić last season. Gilgeous-Alexander won MVP at 71.7 touches per game. 

As of Tuesday, Gilgeous-Alexander is actually averaging more potential assists at 13.3 per game compared to Maxey’s 13.2. That’s notable because Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging less than 40 passes per game while Maxey is averaging over 73. Essentially, this means that one out of every three Gilgeous-Alexander passes leads to a shot, whereas only one in around every 5.5 passes Maxey makes lead to shots. Gilgeous-Alexander has the ball less, plays far fewer minutes (Maxey is above 40 per game!) and passes less, yet he’s not exactly far behind in assists because the passes he does make are just more impactful. Maxey is a good playmaker, but he’s not quite an MVP-caliber creator of team offense in the way that someone like Gilgeous-Alexander is.

That’s what separates top of the ballot candidates from lower-ballot candidates. Maxey is an MVP-caliber player in one enormously important area. But he doesn’t check every box. He’s a weak defender. He plays for a good but not great 76ers team (not his fault, but inevitably part of these conversations). And as admirably as he’s carried this 76ers team that falls off dramatically whenever he sits, it’s fair to worry if this work load is sustainable. Aside from the touches record, he’s currently averaging more minutes per game than any since 2014-15 Jimmy Butler and attempting the 15th most field goals per game of any player this century. This volume is remarkable, but asking anyone to do this over 82 games seems unrealistic, let alone a small guard. 

So Maxey is a pretty clear No. 5 at this point, and I doubt anyone in Philadelphia is upset by that. He may not have cracked the league’s top tier, but he’s probably jumped into the Donovan Mitchell-Jalen Brunson tier below them as guards who could probably be the best player on a true contender if everything else is humming.

4. Giannis Antetokounmpo (current odds: +2200)

It’s hard not to notice when a two-time MVP averages career-highs in points, assists and just about every conceivable measure of efficiency. The Bucks had a vision for a Giannis-friendly team and they’ve thus far delivered. He’s the point guard now, and everyone around him can shoot. Turns out, pairing this more skilled version of Antetokounmpo with optimal spacing and no pretense of appeasing a star-level teammate makes for some pretty absurd offense. He’s shooting over 75% in the restricted area. The Bucks make a shade below 44% of their 3s when he’s in the game. Hard to do much better than that.

The advanced metrics almost universally peg Antetokounmpo as third in this race. He has pretty substantial leads over Luka Dončić in just about every all-in-one metric, and even competes with the top two in some of them.

There are several ways to read this. Dončić is missing too many 3s and turning the ball over more. The Lakers haven’t dropped off nearly as much when he’s sat as the Bucks have without Antetokounmpo (though that says much more about roster construction). Antetokounmpo is obviously the superior defender, though one of the few notable metrics to lean Dončić, ESPN’s relatively new net points number, actually has Antetokounmpo having cost the Bucks two points defensively so far this season. The notion that Antetokounmpo is a negative defender is pretty farfetched… but this does point to something real. It’s fair to question whether Antetokounmpo is still the same level he was when he won his first two MVPs and his Defensive Player of the Year trophy.

Milwaukee hoped that the Antetokounmpo-Myles Turner pairing would at least give them elite rim-protection when the rest of the defense was inevitably going to be weak. That hasn’t really happened. The Bucks allow the 11th-most restricted area shots per game and the 12th-worst restricted area field goal percentage. Those numbers are only slightly below average, but remember, this is a Doc Rivers team. They rank last in the NBA in offensive rebounding because they sell out to defend in transition. Those rim shots they’re giving up are coming in the half-court, and while the porous point of attack defense is the main culprit there, elite rim-protectors can cover for bad guards in the regular season. Rudy Gobert did it for years. He’s contesting just 5.4 shots per game. That figure has been trending down for years. When he won Defensive Player of the Year, he contested 9.3. Milwaukee’s offense dies whenever he rests. Its defense? It more or less stays the same… and that’s with opponents shooting far better from deep when he’s on the bench.

There’s counter-evidence here, of course. Your eyes will give you plenty. Giannis still does something defensively that jumps off the screen almost every time you watch him. He’s getting in passing lanes more than ever, and though tracking data like this in tiny samples should be taken with a grain of salt, opponents are shooting a comically low percentage against him within six feet of the basket. Taken on balance, though, we’re probably looking at a very good defender that can get to great when his team needs it, not an every-possession Defensive Player of the Year. That changes the MVP proposition quite a bit. It chips away at the biggest argument in his favor.

And it’s one he’s going to need, because he’s also probably working against history when it comes to team performance. The Bucks are 8-10. They’re 7-6 when he plays. If your team plays at a 44-win pace when you’re healthy and a lottery pace when you don’t, you’re not winning MVP, especially in the East. It’s not his fault he’s on a bad team, but he’s on a bad team nonetheless. The floor is probably 47 wins. That’s where 2016 Russell Westbrook landed, and only one win below 2022 Nikola Jokić, who was playing without Michael Porter Jr. and Jamal Murray. Let’s say Antetokounmpo misses another nine games, bringing him to his average of 14 missed games over the past five seasons, and the Bucks go 3-6 in those games (which might even be charitable). They’d have to go 36-19 in their other games to get to 47 wins, which would roughly be a 54-win pace. Very little the Bucks have done this season suggests they have that in them.

It’s a shame, too, because Antetokounmpo may be playing the best offense of his career. He’s not making mid-range jumpers like he did a year ago, but he’s hitting the few 3s that he takes, and his playmaking and rim offense has never been better. If this ends with him on a better team next year, this version of Antetokounmpo will probably fare reasonably well in the 2027 MVP race.

3. Luka Dončić (current odds: +400)

Maxey checks the scoring box. Dončić checks it harder. If he maintains the 34.5 points per game he averaged through his first dozen appearances, only Kobe Bryant and James Harden will have topped him this century. Dončić is doing this on crazy volume, yes, but it seems more sustainable than Maxey’s run for a few reasons. For starters, well, he’s done this before. This is neither Dončić’s career-high in minutes nor shot attempts, both of which came during the 2023-24 Finals season. Dončić also has room to grow here. This is the worst 3-point shooting season of his career as he’s hitting a career-low 31.1% of his career-high 11 3-point attempts per game. The hope here is that normalizes with both time and the return of LeBron James hopefully giving him slightly easier looks. As James seems happy enough taking a backseat to Dončić and Austin Reaves thus far, it doesn’t seem as though his shot diet will have to change all that much.

Dončić has more than made up for his play beyond the arc with his play inside of it. He’s getting that famed Laker whistle with an absurd 55.1% free-throw rate, and he’s shooting 61.4% on 2s this year. That number feels almost impossible for a ball-handler at his volume. It barely even feels possible for a dunker. Shaquille O’Neal topped out at 61%. Giannis Antetokounmpo tops it regularly, but does so playing in offenses specifically designed to generate dunks. The only other player to do so with any regularity in the modern league is Nikola Jokić, and, well, we’re cover how unprecedented he is shortly. Aside from those two, this basically never happens. Kevin Durant did it once. James did twice. Mitchell is also doing it, but on fewer attempts and with fewer playmaking responsibilities. Dončić is averaging 22 points created off of assists per game. Mitchell is below 15.

If you were going to construct an offense designed to make life as easy as possible for Dončić, this would be it. Austin Reaves is a legitimate, All-Star-caliber secondary creator, and the tertiary dribbler is LeBron freaking James. Having James opens the door for more pace, which Dončić doesn’t like generating on his own, but teammates need for easier offense. They’re not shooting especially well from 3 (or enough for that matter), but most of the players here shoot reasonably well and can punish lazy closeouts as ball-handlers. There’s plenty of lob potential between Jaxson Hayes and Deandre Ayton, but Ayton’s range is forcing defenses into tougher positions than even Dončić could have hoped. He’s shooting 64% outside of the restricted area. If he pops, whether for a short floater or a true mid-range jumper, he’s making almost everything, and that makes it much harder to sell out at the rim. The conditions for MVP-caliber offense are here.

There was a time when offense alone could win this award. It won’t this year. Dončić’s limitations on the defensive end of the floor remain stark. And even if he keeps this up, there’s a lot of room for team-wide regression here. The Lakers as a whole are shooting 62% on 2s. That’s set to shatter the NBA record. If they even tie the all-time record, they’re going to need substantial 3-point improvement just to hold serve offensively. The Lakers are also the only undefeated clutch team with a 6-0 record in such games. If they’re going to be 15th in net rating all year, they aren’t going to keep playing at a 60-win pace. Getting James back helps, but there’s no conversation here if the Lakers wind up a distant fourth in the West. They have to at least keep up with the Nuggets and Rockets to keep Dončić in this thing.

2. Nikola Jokić (current odds: +140)

This is the best offensive season any NBA player has ever had. I have no other way to explain what Nikola Jokić is currently doing. He’s making 70% of his 2s! He’s setting a new career-high in both 3-point volume and percentage. Only seven centers in NBA history have ever averaged half as many assists per game in a single season as Jokić is now. He’s averaging 29.6 points per game and is the first player in NBA history to do so on fewer than 18 field goal attempts per game. His true shooting percentage (72.9%) is neck and neck with LeBron James’ career free-throw percentage (73.7%). What more do you want? This isn’t just the best Jokić has ever been. We might be reaching the upper limit on how good a single offensive player can possibly be.

The metrics don’t even feel real at this point. He’s setting records in basically all of them. He has a BPM of 18.2. The prior record—which he set!—was 13.72. The gap between him now and his old record is bigger than the gap between his old record and No. 55 (1991 Charles Barkley). As we mentioned, the three highest single-season PERs of all time are taking place this season. Jokić has a sizable lead on Antetokounmpo and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at a mark of 36.71 right now. He’s the first player ever to cross the 0.4 win shares per 48 minutes threshold.

You’re not going to be swayed when it comes to defense at this point. He’s nowhere near as good as the metrics suggest (no, he should not be leading the NBA in DBPM). He’s nowhere near as bad as his detractors suggest (yes, you can be slow and still provide meaningful defensive value through positioning, hands, rebounding and intelligence). He’s somewhere in between. Denver’s team defense has slipped outside of the top 10 as opponents have finally started making some open 3s. They’ll likely never climb much higher than 11th, where they are now. Jokić’s limitations give you a defensive ceiling. You can only be so good defensively without a rim-protector. This is still a team on a 63-win pace despite injuries to two starters. It’s the best team of the Jokić era and the best individual performance of the Jokić era. There just isn’t much more to say than that. In almost any other year, he wins MVP running away. This isn’t any other year. 

1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (current odds: +150)

We have two fundamental questions to answer here. The first: if Jokić is having the greatest statistical season ever, how far away is Gilgeous-Alexander? The answer is, not very. Those three metrics we covered that Jokić is setting records in? Gilgeous-Alexander’s season currently ranks third in BPM and PER, and it ranks second in Win Shares per 48 minutes. He actually holds a slight lead on Jokić in EPM, the second straight year in which that has been the case, as well as ESPN’s net points. Gilgeous-Alexander is having a historic season by the advanced metrics even if it isn’t the most historic season someone is having this year.

The counting stats aren’t gaudy because, well, they don’t need to be. The Thunder are almost always blowing someone out. The Thunder have played 18 fourth quarters. Gilgeous-Alexander has played in seven of them. He’s made the most of those very limited late-game reps, averaging a preposterous 9.3 points per game in the clutch, but he’s generally done pretty early in the second half. His per-possession numbers, though, say more than enough. He’s averaging over 47 points per 100 possessions. Michael Jordan topped out at 46.4. Only peak Joel Embiid and James Harden topped that figure. Both did so while possessing the ball far more than Gilgeous-Alexander does. He’s averaging 32.2 points on 68 touches per game. He’s essentially generating half of a point every time he touches the ball.

He’s not a Jokić level playmaker. He’s a very good defender, but not capable of impacting the game at his size the way peak Antetokounmpo can at his. But what most MVPs have in common is the degree to which their team revolves around them. We do the “how many points does each team lose off of their net rating when Star X sits?” dance every spring, and even if there’s a sizable decline when he sits, it’s never going to apply to Gilgeous-Alexander in such a stark way. The Thunder without Gilgeous-Alexander have a better net rating than the Bucks with Antetokounmpo. We’ve by and large treated that as a function of Oklahoma City’s remarkable depth, which certainly matters, but Jalen Williams hasn’t even played yet this season. There has to be more to it. Royce Young posed an interesting theory: the Thunder are still functional without their best player because their best player doesn’t dominate the ball to the extent other MVP candidates. He posts MVP-caliber counting stats without monopolizing an offense in the ways that other MVPs do, and that empowers everyone else.

The prevailing sentiment last season was that Jokić was the superior player, but lost because Gilgeous-Alexander won more games. A gap probably existed last season. It might still exist this season, though it’s certainly gotten smaller if it does. If Gilgeous-Alexander hasn’t cleared the Jokić bar, he’s certainly reached the level of a standard, non-Michael Jordan or LeBron James best player in the world. He’s playing as well right now as, say, Kobe Bryant did at his peak, or Tim Duncan or Hakeem Olajuwon. The comp here might be his predecessor as the best player in Thunder history, Kevin Durant. There was never a single moment in which Durant was widely regarded as the NBA’s best player. That may be the case for Gilgeous-Alexander. Jokić might outrank him until Victor Wembanyama outranks both of them. But nobody would hold Durant’s inferiority to James against him, just as nobody should hold a slight Jokić edge against Gilgeous-Alexander. He has reached an undeniable peak as an MVP-caliber player. This is an all-time great in the making.

And remember, we’re not talking about best in the world. We’re talking about MVP. They’re different even if they overlap. And even if winning is largely circumstantial, it certainly counts. Right now, the Thunder are on pace to go 77-5. That is probably a stretch (note that I felt the need to say probably). The schedule has been Charmin soft. But come on, who’s going to be favored over them at any point in the regular season in which most of the team is healthy if they’re this good without Williams? They set the net rating record last season and are blowing it out of the water this season. They’re headed, at a bare minimum, to the high 60s barring an injury to Gilgeous-Alexander.

And if that’s where this goes, he wins. That’s what history says anyway. Seven NBA teams have won 68 or more games. Six of them produced the MVP, and the one who didn’t, the 1997 Bulls, only failed to do so because they won fewer games (69) than they had in the prior season (72). The same thing happened to the 2017 Warriors. They won 67 games, but dropped from 73, so no MVP. Otherwise, all of the 67-win teams produced the MVP except for the 2016 Spurs, who won 67 in the same season in which the Warriors won 73. Three of our four 66-game winners produced the MVP. All four 65-game winners produced the MVP. You can argue about how much winning should matter in the MVP race, but it ultimately has mattered a ton. If the Thunder play at a 62-win pace the rest of the way, they’ll reach 65 wins on the season. It’s frankly likelier that they make a real run at 70 provided they don’t make the active choice to avoid history.

If Gilgeous-Alexander were a standard, MVP-caliber player, maybe Jokić could overcome that wins gap. But with Gilgeous-Alexander having the historic season that he’s having, the reality here is that the two of them are close enough for the wins to be the tiebreaker for a lot of voters. He should be the frontrunner at this point.