2023-24 NBA MVP Race: Giannis, Embiid, Curry & More

The 2024 NBA MVP race has been wildly disputed over the past couple of weeks, and in the eyes

of most people, there are five players in contention for this award

But in my opinion, it's pretty easily only four. Sorry, Jason Tatum

I have set out to make a case for these top four options, and this is the final video

of that series. Over the past week, we have explored the cases of SGA for MVP Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic

And today we dive into a player that in my opinion is not getting enough love

This is the overlooked case of Giannis for MVP. Giannis is currently averaging 30.7 points per game, 11.2 rebounds, and 6.3 assists

But he's also doing so on a career high 61.8% from the field and a 63.2% effective field goal percentage

6.3 assists is his career high also. and it got me thinking so I used stat head to see how many players in NBA history have averaged 30

10 and 6 it's only happened three times in NBA history besides Giannis this season Oscar Robertson

in 1961 and 1962 and then Russell Westbrook in 2017 when he won his MVP but if you take a look

Giannis is shooting so much better from the field than either of them did in those seasons like I

stated earlier Giannis shooting 61.8% from the field which is a 65.7% true shooting percentage

Oscar shot 47.8 from the field 55.4 true shooting and 47.3 and 55.5 true shooting in his two seasons

he did this and Russell Westbrook shot 42.5% from the field with a 55.4 true shooting percentage and

then I was just curious to see how many 30 points per game scores in NBA history there have been

on over 60% from the field. What I wasn't expecting to find

is that nobody has ever done that except for Giannis this season

But then I thought to myself, with the three-point boom of the 2010s, let's take true shooting instead

So then we took every 30-point-per-game score on 65% true shooting or above

And it happened only five other times in NBA history Stephen Curry in 2016 when he won his MVP scored 30 points per game on 66 true shooting which is honestly insane to think about because he shot 45 from three that year on 11

attempts a game joel mbid last season when he won his mvp steph curry again in 2021 and then adrian

dantley twice in 1983 and 1984 that's some pretty elite company to be in for a player that is fourth

in MVP odds by quite a large measure. I then decided to take a look at Giannis's two MVP

seasons in 2019 and 2020 just to see how this season stacks up compared to those. In 2019 he

averaged 27, 12.5, almost six assists on 57.8 from the field and 64.4 true shooting. And in 2020 he

averaged 29.5 on 13.6, five and a half assists on 55.3% from the field, 61.3 true shooting. So when

we compare those numbers to this season he is shooting remarkably more efficient from the field

in this season than his two mvp seasons but janice is not competing versus his 2019 self or his 2020

self for mvp he's competing against nicole jokic shea gilgis alexander and luka donchich plus what

the box score doesn't tell us is that janice won defensive player of the year in 2020 and he was

first team all defense in 2021 so we also have to prove that his defense is just as good as the

So what is it that gives Giannis a better case than his competitors? Well, for one, there is an argument that his offensive numbers are more impressive. He easily has the best true shooting percentage and effective field goal percentage out of this list, and he has the third best rim field goal percentage in the entire NBA at 78% on 690 attempts. Only Derek Lively and Kevin Durant are ahead of him in percentage, but they have only about a fifth of the attempts that Giannis does

He also has been a very efficient scorer this season, being 8th in the NBA in points per shot

attempt, which beats out his fellow competitors as well. He's 2nd behind only Jokic in team

effective field goal percentage with him on versus off the court at plus 4.1%, which is good for 13th

in the NBA And he also 2nd behind only Jokic in on plus minus on this list which is good for sixth in the entire NBA as well According to cleaningtheglass the Bucs play like a 58 win team with him on the court

and a 27 win team with him off. If we then take a look at the three gold standard all-in-one metrics

Giannis is better than anyone according to EPM on this list besides SGA. In LeBron he clears

everyone besides Jokic and in Darko he's second behind only Jokic as well. So at this point in the

video it's pretty clear that Giannis has been having an insanely incredible offensive season

but so have the other three in Luka, SGA, and Jokic. I'm willing to rule Luka out at this point

just because I think we've proven all four of them are incredible on offense but Luka just has zero

case when it comes to defense and team winning which leaves us with a three-horse race between

Giannis, SGA, and Jokic. So how do we make a case that Giannis can be the MVP over SGA and over

Jokic? We have to prove that Giannis is a tier above on defense this season. If we can do that

he has a chance. NBA.com tracks something that I think is super cool, and it's called defended

field goal percentage. Giannis' defended field goal percentage is 46.5, and if we take his field

goal percentage defended at the rim it's 55.8 percent when we compare these numbers to Jokic

Jokic's defended field goal percentage is 50.8 and his defended at the rim is 63.6 that's a notch

in Giannis's belt for defense and then when it comes to estimated plus minus on dunksandthrees.com

Giannis is ranked in the 91st percentile in defense while Jokic is ranked in the 40th and

And although Dunks in Threes loves Shea's defense, ranking him in the 97th percentile

Darko absolutely hates it. Darko has SGA in like the 25th percentile at zero defensive daily plus minus

But the hard thing about defense is at the end of the day, it really comes down to the eye test

And I don't think Jokic is a bad defender. I think he's actually heavily underrated

I think Shea isn't necessarily going to be someone to lock down the best player on the other team

but he an incredible free safety and he always getting steals and he always putting himself in a position to make a play While I still think Giannis is probably the best defender out of this roster I just don think he required to do as much with such a good defensive

anchor and rim protector in Brook Lopez right behind him. But either way, there's one last thing

Giannis and the Bucks will have to do if they want to make a case for Giannis for MVP. They have to

finish second in the Eastern Conference. Right now, the Cavs are just half a game back and the Bucks

have only 16 games left in their regular season. They're probably going to have to go 13-3 or 12-4

over this final 16, giving them 54-55 total wins. But they're going to need help from the Timberwolves

who are going to have to hold on to the number one seed in the Western Conference. Ideally

the Bucks somehow finish ahead of both the Thunder and the Nuggets because as of now

it is an outside chance that he wins MVP. If I'm being 100% honest with this being the last

of my MVP series videos, this is just a bad year to have an incredible season. I feel for Luka

I feel for Giannis, but I just don't see this being anything more than a two-horse race at this

point between Jokic and SGA. Don't get me wrong, I just don't know how he gets it done. His field

goal percentage has been absolutely unbelievable this season, and I am continually amazed at

Giannis' relentless ability to get to the rim without much of a reliable outside shot. He's one

of the greatest freaks of nature that the NBA has ever seen, who's having one of the best seasons of

his career. And although he probably will not win MVP, he deserves way more recognition for what he's

doing this season than he is currently getting. It really just feels like everybody is overlooking

him and focusing on other things in the NBA, which is a shame because like we said in the beginning

This is a historic season that has never been done before at the field goal percentage he is shooting

If you enjoyed this video, check out my other three videos on the case for SGA, Jokic, and Luka for MVP

What do you think? What are the voters thinking right now? Are they going to shock us like in other recent years and go with somebody who wasn't the betting favorite or second favorite

Or does Jokic already have this MVP race in the bag like the betting odds say

Thanks for watching, and as always, we'll see you on the hardwood