If Lakers are competitive with OKC he’ll be in contention. RN OKC is just miles above everyone else that Shai is basically a lock

He’s the exact style of player that fans like way more than the media

Most fans don’t value efficiency/impact metrics and defense as much as points/rebounds/assists and the ability to make “wow” plays and those first areas are where SGA is ahead of Luka while the second areas are where Luka is ahead of SGA

If you look at a list of the most ball dominant guards they’re almost all very often criticized in NBA media but have a huge following among fans

Shai has the narrative this year it seems like.

I mean he has he always gets this preseason narrative that it’s his time to win MVP but once the season plays out it shifts. I think he’s just unlucky his prime seems to align with Jokic and Shai, but I’m sure one year everything will fall into place, and I don’t see Luka slowing down anytime soon. Oh but Wemby

We need to get that fat loss narrative back to get him in the mvp vote.

He just doesn’t have the team success of SGA or gets eclipsed by Jokic and Giannis. He’s almost always top 3 tho. He has alot of narrative behind him ever since his rookie year

Lukas never been on a great regular season team to get the narrative going for him. The award usually goes to someone on a top 2 seed with close to 60 wins or more

Games played too…. Gotta qualify

SGA is much more sellable than Luka. Less complaining for one thing.

I don’t see why. Shai is historically great, but no sane person would say he’s carrying the team. OKC’s so deep, if their bench was the top 10 players on an eastern conference team, they’d make the playoffs. How many of their games do you think they’d have lost if Shai didn’t play? He didn’t play the Jazz in yesterday’s 30 point blowout, and 9 players had more than 20 minutes of play time. They’re blowing teams out by so much you could almost take all of Shai’s points away and they’d win anyway. Yes he’s one reason they’re so good, but OKC is maybe the best team in NBA history, so they should be on track to win the most games ever.

I actually think Shai is great and even though I’m a Luka fan, I try just to enjoy watching all of them (Luka, Shai, Jokic…). But i do not understand the reasoning for Shai that he gets an MVP if the OKC gets 70+ wins because the OKC itself is just incredible and as a team have insane depth. Shai is important for the OKC but team wise is it fair to compare situation from Shai to Luka and Lakers or Jokic and the Nuggets. OKC can switch up entire staring lineuo and will still sofocate you defensively. Shai can sit up 4 quarters. He is not sofocated the entire matches by such defense which OKC has. As said, I love watching Shai but for me, wins from Lakers or Nuggets (or other teams) are much harder won than for the OKC.

Yep.

Austin going bonkers also has an impact.

But replace SGA with Luka, how much worse does OKC get really? Can’t just be wins when it’s clearly a team-gap too

especially after winning the chip the last season. It’s been a long time since we seen the defending champs and finals mvp have such a strong start to the next season.

Crazy for a guy not even playing 25% of the time

It really depends how they all play the rest of the season… it’s the first week of December……..

It’s very easy when you play on a stacked roster and foul bait 50 times a game.

What about if Denver wins 65?

Fr he got Jokic and Shai on there too that’s crazy competition.

On top of Jokic and SGA also having historic seasons … its gonna be tough.

His real competition is actually Shai. Would be hard to not give it to a guy from the team that wins 73-74+ games.

Luka has slight advantage on the narrative side of things. He never won it before.

They’re going to rewrite the narrative to not give him mvp

So Deni is getting MIVP

Yeah, late season wins vs the other MVP candidates have a huge impact.

In 2020 lebron shot to a clear 2nd place after beating the bucks and clippers in consecutive games with big plays on offe see and defense.

Why tho. It’s an individual award, not a team award

If he didn’t win it in 23-24 while only being behind by 7 games from the top seed, he’s surely not going to win it being behind a 70 win team.

Ppl will focus on the Thunder’s wins but it’s really overlooked how Shai only averages 1.7 turnovers per game

Luka is at 4.4. Westbrook’s MVP year he averaged 5.4 lol

We had a good thing, you stupid son of a bitch. We had Fring. We had a lab. We had everything we needed and it all ran like clockwork. You could’ve shut your mouth, cooked and made as much money as you ever needed. It was perfect. But no, you just had to blow it up. You and your pride and your ego. You just had to be the man. If you’d done your job, known your place, we’d all be fine right now!!!

Nico gonna have a statue outside American Airlines arena

He should be on your team. It still feels like a crime

Lakers have been able to put away all the bad teams and some decent ones. They’ve also lost to decent ones.

It absolutely isn’t coming down to H2H, even when the Thunder wrecked Lakers (no jDub / Lebron). 

SGA is averaging 32.8 on an absurd 68.6TS% (55/44/88). That shouldn’t be possible on his volume as a guard. It is literally more efficient than unanimous Steph.

If the Thunder do win 70 it will be closer to unanimous than not. They’ve only been two 70 win teams and both had MVPs, MJ and Steph.

I don’t want to ride Shai but last week I checked the opposite happened lol. Shai didn’t move after consecutive clutch wins averaging about 36 a night, even when Joker had some bad nights against Texas teams

Lol Jokic lost against the Mavs and lead his team to the worst defense in the NBA over the past few weeks and still stayed number 1 even though Shai had several clutch games. Keep deluding yourself though.

Shai has already played in what, 7 more games than Luka? Is also wildly more efficient and in a different stratosphere defensively who doesn’t take plays off to complain to refs. But sure, uncontested rebounds.

Shai sits a game vs a horrible tanking team and gets a passive aggressive jab here. Meanwhile, he has played more games than both Jokic and especially Luka.

They always start talking about what he’s doing wrong with Luka. If you listen to the media it’s always “he needs to play defense”, “he needs to get his teammates involved”, “he needs to get in better shape”, “he needs to get more wins”,…

He could have 40/10/10 game and all they’ll say he had a good game, but he needs to involve his teammates more, play better defense…. while with most other stars, they’ll just praise them.

As a huge fan I’m starting to get the same feeling but I don’t think Wemby will be much of an awards factor with the games missed rule.

You never know though. Shai might have some voter fatigue after winning two or three straight and if Joker falls off even slightly due to older age, Luka could sneak one in.

I want an MVP for Luka but our guys really don’t get awards like you’d think. Fouls? Absolutely, but not awards for some reason.

Last MVP winner out of LA was Kobe in 2008: that’s 17 years ago. It was also more of a lifetime achievement award, because it wasn’t even his best season. LBJ couldn’t get his in his 19-20: Giannis definitely deserved that one, but so did James and Lakers exposure didn’t really help him.

We got Deni Avdija (no shade) avg 26/7/6 (roughly prime Bron line) meanwhile a casual fan probably doesn’t even know who he is. Wild times

6

Players lying in interviews is objectively lame