NBA MVP odds, picks, predictions: Bet on Thunder's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

We’re into the final stretch of the NBA campaign, with the season set to resume on Thursday following the All-Star break.

This sprint to the finish line involves not only teams jockeying for playoff seeding but also players looking to put themselves in position to win individual regular-season awards.

Denver’s Nikola Jokic is the current frontrunner for league MVP, with odds as high as -150 at Caesars Sportsbook.

Voters are very familiar with Jokic’s exploits after giving him the award in 2021 and 2022, but if we strictly adhere to the criteria used to determine a winner, we can make a case for two other players who might be more deserving.

To improve the product on the court, the NBA mandated in its 2023 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that players must play at least 65 regular-season games to be eligible for awards like MVP.

In case of a season-ending injury, players can still qualify for the award if they played at least 62 games and at least 85% of their team’s games before suffering the injury.

Lastly, players must log at least 20 minutes in a game, though they’re allowed two games where they can play at least 15 minutes to qualify.

This new CBA rule likely eliminates Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid from contention, given that he’s only played in 34 games and is expected to miss significant time with a knee injury.

As long as a player meets these requirements, picking a winner can simply be summed up as identifying the best-performing player in the regular season. That’s because there isn’t exactly an NBA rulebook that gives instructions on voting for the MVP award.

However, the Action Network’s Brandon Anderson does highlight some commonalities that previous winners share:

Scoring: Fifteen of the past 16 MVPs scored at least 25 points per game. Stephen Curry (23.8 points) was the only player (2015) who didn’t hit this mark.

Winning: It helps if you’re on a winning team. Of the last 24 MVPs, 16 (67%) played on a team that finished the regular season as a No. 1 seed in their conference. If we expand our criteria to include a No. 2 seed, we’re looking at an 83% (20 of 24) hit rate on MVPs over the last 24 years.

Youth: Twenty of the last 24 winners were between 24 and 28 during their MVP campaigns.

If an MVP candidate looks on pace to meet the CBA’s minimum requirements for games played, we should target those that average at least 25 points, can potentially finish as a top-two seed and are between 24 and 28 years old.

While this is not an infallible system, it does help narrow the field tremendously. This system also doesn’t preclude voters from changing their criteria should they place a greater emphasis on other factors.

Gilgeous-Alexander is a player that ticks all the boxes for me. He’s 25 years old, third in scoring with 31.1 points per game, and plays on a Thunder team, currently second in the Western Conference at 37-17.

Moreover, Oklahoma City is 3-1 against the Nuggets this season. SGA can also affect the game on both ends of the court, given that he leads the league with 2.2 steals per game.

If there were ever a time when MVP voters should pay a little more attention to defense, this would be the year. With SGA’s efforts, the Thunder are currently a top-5 team in both offensive and defensive efficiency, while Jokic’s Nuggets aren’t even in the top 10 in either category.

Lastly, Oklahoma City has the fifth youngest roster, according to Spotrac, with an average age of 24.3 years. To be 20 games over .500 after finishing 40-42 last season is a feat that shouldn’t go unnoticed by voters.

Doncic should win the NBA scoring title, with Embiid unlikely to play enough games to qualify. The 24-year-old point forward is averaging career highs in scoring (34.2) and assists (9.5) while also chipping in 8.8 rebounds.

Dallas is one team that probably could’ve done without the All-Star break since it’s tied for the longest active winning streak at six games.

The one thing that does hurt Doncic’s chances is that his Mavericks are currently the seventh seed in the West. However, they only trail the fifth-seeded Suns by one game.

Per Tankathon.com, Dallas has the 10th-easiest remaining schedule, as its upcoming opponents have a combined .495 win percentage.

In comparison, the Suns have the most brutal remaining schedule of all 30 teams, with their opponents having a composite win percentage of .564.

There have certainly been examples of players who won the MVP despite their team not finishing as one of the top two seeds. Doncic’s 35.4% usage rate is also higher than SGA’s (31.7%) and Jokic’s (29.2%).

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