{"id":76708,"date":"2024-05-09T08:20:44","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T12:20:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=76708"},"modified":"2024-05-09T08:20:44","modified_gmt":"2024-05-09T12:20:44","slug":"nba-misses-mark-2024-mvp-award-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/09\/nba-misses-mark-2024-mvp-award-winner\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Misses Mark with 2024 MVP Award Winner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the sports world, but particularly among NBA fans, it\u2019s not unusual to hear the word \u201csnub.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Per <a href=\"https:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/us\/dictionary\/english\/snub\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the Cambridge definition<\/a>, a <em>snub<\/em> is \u201cto insult someone by not giving them any attention or treating them as if they are not important.\u201d To that point, when people use that term, the purpose behind it is black-and-white. There\u2019s no question that they believe an incident has occurred in which someone was insulted because they weren\u2019t recognized or treated with reverence.<\/p>\n<p>Oklahoma City Thunder guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gilgesh01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> was snubbed when the league announced the winner of the 2024 NBA MVP Award.<\/p>\n<h2>NBA Misses Mark with 2024 MVP Award Winner<\/h2>\n<p>On Wednesday, Denver Nuggets center <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jokicni01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikola Jokic<\/a> was named the Most Valuable Player of 2023-24. It\u2019s the former second-round pick\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/09\/nuggets-nikola-jokic-third-mvp-places-top-10-all-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">third time winning<\/a> the award. Not bad for a player who people say doesn\u2019t get enough respect.<\/p>\n<p>The Nuggets (57-25) were second in the West with Jokic averaging a near triple-double and leading his team in scoring. In any MVP race, that would garner enough praise for candidacy. However, when comparing his impact to Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s this season, it\u2019s not clear that he should have actually won.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">SGA this season:<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 30\/6\/6\/2<br \/>\n\u2014 First in 30-point games<br \/>\n\u2014 Most 30-point games since 2019 Harden<br \/>\n\u2014 Leading NBA in steals<br \/>\n\u2014 Top 3 in iso and transition points<br \/>\n\u2014 Best player on 1 seed<\/p>\n<p>MVP snub? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/J04vWtcoON\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/J04vWtcoON<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 StatMuse (@statmuse) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/statmuse\/status\/1788352358923059274?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 8, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Gilgeous-Alexander also led his team to a 57-25 record.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, the Thunder entered the 2024 NBA Playoffs as the No. 1 seed in the West, winning a tiebreaker against the Nuggets. They didn\u2019t achieve this through a do-or-die matchup or by flipping a coin. Oklahoma City simply beat Denver, 3-1, in their regular season series. For reference, that\u2019s the same record they had against the Utah Jazz. The Jazz finished the season with a 31-51 record, 12th in the West.<\/p>\n<p>The Thunder also broke the tiebreaker by having the better division record. Oklahoma City went 12-4 against the Northwest while the Nuggets went 10-6. This is largely due to their record against Denver and Utah in head-to-head matchups. Nonetheless, it\u2019s worth noting that they were 2-2 against the Minnesota Timberwolves, who have won their first six games of the 2024 NBA Playoffs.<\/p>\n<h3>A Closer Look at SGA\u2019s Numbers<\/h3>\n<p>On an individual level, Gilgeous-Alexander was stupendous.<\/p>\n<p>His wire-to-wire performance led him to averages of 30.1 points, 6.2 assists, 5.5 rebounds, 2.0 steals, and 0.9 blocks per game. He didn\u2019t average under 26 points per game or shot below 46 percent from the field in any month. A crafty combo guard at 6-foot-6, Gilgeous-Alexander carried what recently became <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oklahoman.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/thunder\/2024\/04\/29\/okc-thunder-becomes-youngest-team-to-win-series-in-nba-playoffs\/73508883007\/#:~:text=OKC%2520became%2520the%2520youngest%2520team,X%E2%80%9D%2520from%2520here%2520on%2520out.\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the youngest team<\/a> to win a playoff series to the West\u2019s mountaintop.<\/p>\n<p>That language isn\u2019t accidental. OKC\u2019s leader at 25 years old, Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s scoring average was +11.0 points higher than the Thunder\u2019s next-highest average. For reference, Jokic averaged just +5.2 more points than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/murraja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jamal Murray<\/a> in 2023-24. Murray had the Nuggets\u2019 second-highest scoring average.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Gilgeous-Alexander was just the better scorer in general, averaging 1.11 points per possession in isolation to Jokic\u2019s 1.07. He even scored 1.19 points per possession on post-ups to Jokic\u2019s 1.14 points per possession. A multi-positional defender who created chaos and made it difficult to get by him, Gilgeous-Alexander was better at the other end as well.<\/p>\n<p>All things considered, the NBA really did give the wrong player the MVP. It\u2019s sad to say because Jokic is truly one of the all-time greats.<\/p>\n<h4>The Last Word on the MVP Race<\/h4>\n<p>On a team full of playmakers, Gilgeous-Alexander doesn\u2019t have as much responsibility as a facilitator as Jokic. Not possessing the Sombor center\u2019s size, he\u2019s not nearly as impactful on the boards. From that standpoint, Jokic has been more valuable. Nonetheless, he benefited from his ever-rising popularity in this race, and that\u2019s ultimately why he won.<\/p>\n<p>Not because he was a better rebounder or averaged +2.8 more assists per game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the sports world, but particularly among NBA fans, it\u2019s not unusual to hear the word \u201csnub.\u201d Per the Cambridge definition, a snub is \u201cto insult someone by not giving them any attention or treating them as if they are not important.\u201d To that point, when people use that term, the purpose behind it is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":76728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,1608,20,62],"tags":[1143,72,1489],"class_list":["post-76708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thunder","category-basketball","category-nuggets","category-nba","tag-nba-awards","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}