Who Should Be The 2023 NBA MVP?

Sunday’s epic conclusion of the 2022-23 NBA season involved a lot of fighting and arguments, for one reason or another. Now the attention turns to the arguing and bickering over the MVP award, which we’ve all probably heard enough about throughout the season.

One of my annual traditions is breaking down the final rankings at the end of the year, going through all of the strong candidates, examining their cases, and figuring out where they should land on the five-man ballot.

We know who the top three will be. It’s just a matter of how they stack up.

This is worth repeating a thousand times: Nobody should be ridiculed, shamed, or treated as if they have zero basketball knowledge based on their MVP order. There are three players on this list with incredible cases and they each have multiple factors (or criteria) working in their favor.

Here is my final 1-5 ladder for MVP, with Joel Embiid eclipsing Nikola Jokić and Giannis Antetokounmpo to take home the award:

Notes:

• BPM = Box Plus-Minutes, via Basketball-Reference. BPM approximates a player’s value on a per-100 possession rate, compared to a league-average player.
• EPM = Estimated Plus-Minus, provided by DunksAndThrees.com
• RAPTOR = FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR model, which uses play-by-play and player-tracking data to calculate each player’s individual plus-minus measurements and wins above replacement.

Now that we have each player’s statistical cases outlined, let’s dive into the candidates.

First is Embiid, who completed one of the wildest scoring seasons on record.

The best way to measure a player’s scoring production is on a per-possession scale, which accounts for time spent on the floor (player’s missing fourth quarters because of a blowout win) and the pace of games. It’s also a helpful method for comparing players’ numbers across different eras, although it doesn’t fully do the job — superstars from previous eras didn’t have the luxury of modern spacing, outlawed hand-checking, or coaches encouraging more three-pointers.

While not perfect, it’s still better than per-game averages. Normalizing the scoring output comes in handy for this year’s race, as Embiid, Antetokounmpo, and Jokić have multiple instances of destroying teams in 30 minutes of action and resting for large stretches of the second half.

Embiid’s season, when you combine the unthinkable workload and marvelous efficiency, has stacked up nicely with some of the other legendary scoring runs.

Since possession totals weren’t fully tracked until 1973-74, we can only go back to the last 50 years of data:

He’s behind only James Harden, now his teammate, in terms of scoring per 75 possessions. During that 2018-19 campaign, Harden’s usage was a preposterous 40.5% – on record as the second highest usage rate for a single season. Embiid clocks in at 12th all-time in usage this season, almost identical to last year.

If you look two spots below him, Antetokounmpo is also having an otherworldly scoring season that eclipses his rates from the previous MVP years. The only major difference between him and Embiid this season is Giannis had a slower start, efficiency-wise. His two-point percentage dropped 3.5 percentage points from his average over the last four years. He also had stretches where he wasn’t converting well at the foul line, pulling down his advanced shooting metrics.

Without Khris Middleton in the lineup for a large portion of the season, Antetokounmpo had to anything necessary to keep Milwaukee at the top of the East. We’ll get more into Giannis in a bit, but I think he had every opportunity to win this award if he truly cared enough about it. There was a stretch in mid-March where he appeared to be the best candidate, but it was short-lived.

Having not yet captured an MVP trophy, Embiid had the incentive to keep pushing for it. For Giannis, if he was banged up or dealing with nagging injuries, it made little sense for him to play through something if he’s already won two MVPs and the Bucks had a clear path to the No. 1 seed anyway.

Embiid never let up. As a scorer, he also came awfully close to matching Curry’s record of most games in a season with 35-plus points on at least 65% true shooting. He fell one short with 23, which was still more than Kareem Abdul Jabbar in 1971, Michael Jordan in any of his MVP winning seasons, or Harden during any of his dominant scoring years. It may be an arbitrary thing, but it highlights the high-level scoring production we just witnessed.

When you measure up the scoring efficiency of Embiid and Jokić this season, it really allows you to appreciate how gifted both are:

In terms of post-up scoring, Jokić does have the advantage. He scored 1.22 points per possessions, ranking in the 95th percentile among all players this year. That was despite turning the ball over on 15.6% of his post-up possessions. Think about that — with Jokić committing most of his turnovers on the audacious passes he tries from the post, he still finished in the 95th percentile in post-up efficiency. This is because he shot 12 percentage points better than Embiid in the post.

Embiid, on 60 fewer chances, scored 1.13 points per possession in the post, ranking in the 84th percentile. For the third year in a row, both players led the league in post-up opportunities. It’s so weird to see the MVP, in this modern style of basketball, come down to two post machines.

Where Embiid really takes home the award this year is the defensive impact he’s had for Philadelphia. In comparison to Jokić, the gap has never been wider on that end of the floor.

Have Jokic’s deficiencies as an individual defender been totally overblown in previous years? Yes. Has he actually been a positive team defender, albeit not by much, for his NBA career? Probably. He attempts to make up for his lack of speed and lateral quickness by staying extremely active and alert — deflecting passes, stripping the ball out of opponents’ hands in the post, and often defending at the level of the screen to mitigate some of Denver’s drop coverage issues.

This year, however, Jokić took a major step back defensively. There’s just no way around it. While the claims of him being the worst defender in basketball are still objectively not true (if that were the case, Denver wouldn’t have posted solid defensive numbers at all with him on the floor), he’s still not in the same stratosphere as the other MVP candidates.

As a rim protector, Jokić doesn’t deter opponents. They welcome the opportunity to drive into the paint, and bank on their speed and shiftiness to either get around him, or draw fouls. Both Embiid and Jokić have defended roughly the same number of rim attempts (8.0) on a per-game basis this year. While Embiid has held his opponents to a 61.2% efficiency mark, Jokić has allowed 68.5% as the closest defender at the rim.

Those numbers are not perfect, and the tracking data still has to be combined with the eye-test. But nobody, regardless of how many games they’ve watched, is going to win a debate arguing Jokić is a competent rim-protecting center.

When you throw in Antetokounmpo being the best overall defender out of this group, being able to guard at elite levels on the perimeter by switching onto anyone, in weakside rotation to shut off the paint, or in transition with his freakish athleticism, it’s painfully obvious Jokić lost this race on the defensive end.

Out of all the candidates, I think Embiid refined his game the most. He made the most strides as a player during this season. Part of that is having the best collection of teammates he’s had since 2019, and probably the most optimal supporting cast from a spacing perspective.

With more room to operate in the mid-range, Embiid has taken advantage and unlocked new parts of his game. Him catching the ball at the nail is one of the deadliest sequences in the league. It’s right next to ‘Giannis in transition’ or ‘Steph relocating after a pass’ as the most vulnerable a defense can be.

If Embiid has one-on-one coverage at the nail, you’re susceptible to his pull-up jumper, fouling him on a drive once he pump fakes, or giving up a corner three if you dare help off shooters. There are no good choices to make.

The way Embiid has handled double teams this year is also a huge reason why he’s my MVP pick. In the past, he would be prone to a few horrible turnovers each game and he wasn’t fully capable of making teams pay for sending help. There is still room to grow, but he’s now manipulating defenders in a way he never did before. Sometimes, he’ll bait the defense into doubling, already knowing what direction the extra defender will come from, just to get one of his shooters open. He’s also become a menace in the pick-and-roll, especially with Harden as the lead ball-handler. If the defense puts two on the ball and lets Embiid roam down the lane, the only way to stop him is by fouling.

Like we’ve said before, there are no bad decisions for this year’s race. You could order Embiid, Jokić, and Antetokounmpo any way you want in the top three and it would be justified.

Since the moment I started watching basketball, the MVP has always gone to the player who checks off multiple boxes in this criteria set:

• Did their raw production reach or eclipse historical levels?
• Did they guide their team to a top-three seed while being available for at least 80% of the season?
• Was there a powerful storyline that shifted in favor of said player?
• Were they steady throughout the season, avoiding individual slumps and not taking their foot off the accelerator?
• Were there moments, or marquee performances, that were so majestic they stuck with the audience and will be remembered after the season concludes?

Not every MVP winner has to hit all of those benchmarks. But if the answer to most is a resounding yes, they will take home the award.

Take Russell Westbrook in 2017, for instance. He fell short in the ‘team success’ part of the equation, largely due to the lack of offensive talent around him in Oklahoma City. When Kevin Durant bolted for the Bay, Westbrook automatically had the narrative on his side. Guiding such a flawed team to the playoffs — although they finished with the sixth seed instead of top three — was viewed as such an arduous task that it swayed voters. The funny thing about that season, in particular, is that James Harden and Kawhi Leonard also had rock solid MVP cases in their own right.

It truly came down to two parts of the criteria in 2017: Westbrook averaged insane, historical numbers that we hadn’t seen in decades, while also stealing the hearts of many voters during the final week of the season with a 50-point triple double and game-winning buzzer beater in Denver. Those two factors seemed to be weighted, and it mattered more than Harden’s team record, or Kawhi’s two-way brilliance (at least to voters).

In 2019 and 2020, Giannis had the more ‘traditional’ case for the MVP award. His cases were ironclad those years. Milwaukee finished with the best record in the league, routinely beat everyone by double digits, and he elevated his individual game to a new level without experiencing a rough patch in the season. It’s actually a shame neither of those awards were unanimous selections because it was evident there was nobody with a case over him.

Last season, Jokic’s MVP run was similar to Westbrook’s. He was leading the charge for the No. 6 seed in the West, without Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. in the lineup. He became the first player to score 2,000 points, grab 1,000 rebounds, and dish 5,000 assists in a season. There was also no better candidate that matched Jokic’s availability or offensive impact. So, it made sense for the criteria to shift.

That’s what’s so annoying about the discourse. The criteria is not going to be the same every year — because there’s not always going to be the 2019 or 2020 Giannis, the 2013 LeBron, or the 2016 Steph. Sometimes, there isn’t going to be a player leading the No. 1 team in the league that outshines the rest of the candidates by a country mile.

For the MVP, at least to me, it comes down to who had the better overall story combined with production. From October to April. Who will you remember most from that season?

In the first half of the year, it was undeniably Jokić. But, Embiid deserves credit for not settling for second and becoming the guy we’ll point to as the most memorable from the regular season.

This year, Embiid checks most of the boxes. In his backpocket, he also has those destructive performances throughout the season that nobody forgets. His 59-point game, which also included 11 rebounds, eight assists, and seven (!) blocks was on the short list of best overall games of this generation. His 47 points and 18 rebounds at home against Jokić came in a masterclass that highlighted his full offensive repertoire.

Jokić had a bear grip on his third consecutive MVP at the All-Star break. That shouldn’t be impossible for some to admit. There was clear separation between him and the field and the Nuggets were dominating during his minutes to such a laughable degree. Typically, if a player has a sizable gap with roughly 20 games remaining, it’s a wrap. We rarely see instances of a two-man race coming down to the final week of the season, much less a three-man race with each player having strong résumés.

As the stretch run was about to begin in late February, if all three players had replicated their pre All-Star break output and we simulated the rest of the season, Jokić would’ve taken this in another blowout.

That’s not how it work, though. Just because Jokić didn’t have to sprint through the finish line in previous seasons, it doesn’t mean we can “stop the count!” every year without factoring in nearly 25% of the schedule. Certain situations call for certain actions. If the MVP mattered to Jokić, he wouldn’t have coasted through March and the first week of April.

In saying that, yes, it should still be acknowledged that he had outstanding performances sandwiched between the Nuggets’ struggles. Embiid outplayed him for the final quarter of the season, though.

Even factoring in the lifeless defensive effort in the last month, Jokić still has a impressive case to win. The MVP is a full-season award to honor the most outstanding player from October to April – not February to April.

Among all of the candidates, Jokić is perhaps the most important (valuable) player to his team. He’s more than just an offensive hub that keeps Denver organized, calm under pressure, and moving with a purpose. Nobody in the league matches his selfless approach to the game, or how quickly he reads the court and forces a defense to rotate, thus creating wide-open shots for his teammates. Nobody. Only LeBron and Luka Dončić come close.

His brain simply works at a different speed. He processes the defensive coverage and anticipates a player’s movement by sheer instinct. The way he manipulates an opposing coach’s gameplan is fascinating to watch, as there’s no sound strategy against him. Some teams view doubling him as the best method … until he slings a few passes to the weakside and the Nuggets take a 15-point lead by way of open threes. Other teams think it’s best to defend the Murray-Jokić pick-and-roll by switching, or daring him to be the scorer in those actions. That’s when he accumulates 30 points in the blink of an eye, shaking off defenders with his mesmerizing footwork and absurdly-efficient floaters.

Jokić has set an NBA record for the most efficient individual season with a 25% or higher usage rate – his 70.1% true shooting mark is a full 12 percentage points better than league average. It eclipses Steph Curry’s 67.5% true shooting figure in the 2017-18 season (only 51 games), where Curry was 11.9 percentage points over league average. During Curry’s unanimous MVP season (2015-16), he was even more absurd with a +12.8 relative mark since the league was still adjusting to taking more threes and valuing efficiency.

Despite leading the NBA with 98.6 touches per game, Jokić is only 128th in average seconds per touch (2.69). For comparison, Dončić averaged 89.6 touches and 6.12 seconds per touch this year, leading the league. While it fundamentally makes sense because Dončić is often the pick-and-roll ball handler and initiator for his team, that combination for a center like Jokić is outrageous. He’s the de facto floor general for his team, but never lets the ball stick and doesn’t allow the Nuggets’ offense to become predictable.

With Jokić on the floor, Denver has done more than outscore teams by a solid amount. They have effectively held opponents over a campfire and watched them roast. The Nuggets scored 124.2 points per 100 possessions with their MVP on the floor, the highest figure in the league.

In terms of point differential, Denver is +12.8 per 100 possessions during his minutes, and it has led to the highest net rating swing of the last two decades. The Cleaning The Glass database only goes back to the 2003-04 season, but Denver’s on-off swing with Jokić is now +25.7 per 100 possessions. It barely eclipses Draymond Green’s +25.6 during the 2015-16 season (the 73-win journey). Which means, yes, he was technically more valuable to his team than some other legends who have recorded insane on-off ratings in the last 20 years — including Kevin Garnett’s +19.0 with Minnesota in 2004, Jason Kidd’s +20.6 for New Jersey in 2005, Chris Paul’s +20.1 for New Orleans in 2009, as well as Paul’s +21.8 for the Clippers in 2017.

Denver’s offense goes from historically great with him on the court … to bottom-of-the-barrel when he’s resting or injured. Additionally, the team’s assist rate (the percentage of made baskets that are assisted) plummets from 70.1% with Jokić to 57.7% without him.

The Jokić versus Embiid argument has come down to two questions: The first is, how wide do you view the gap in defensive impact (and does that make up for the glaring difference in offensive responsibility Jokić has in the playmaking department)? Secondly, how much does it matter that Embiid’s scoring usage is significantly higher?

While Jokić is the king of efficiency this year, there are many games where it would benefit Denver’s offense if he would simply revert to last year’s aggression level and punish teams with his scoring attack. There was this notion before the season that Jokić was in a different class than Embiid offensively and it neutralized the defensive gap. With Embiid having such an historically impressive year, that no longer seems to be the case.

For strictly this season, I have Embiid’s defensive presence and two-way ability lifting him over the top. It also matters that Embiid has taken 306 more shots than Jokić and still maintained a 65.5% true shooting mark. If Embiid was a bit more selective like Jokić, the gap in efficiency could be closer.

The argument against that would be Jokić leading his team to a better offensive rating during his minutes, focusing more on generating ‘great’ shots instead of ‘good’ ones. You could go back and forth on this topic all day. Again, both are top-tier players and deserve the award.

Where I settle: Embiid having enough energy in the tank to carry such a ridiculous usage, be this efficient, and still be in the running for the All-Defensive teams is very similar to Giannis in 2019. And that’s the most valuable player, in my eyes.

What also hurt Jokić in this race is that Denver failed to run away with the No. 1 seed. It wasn’t locked up until the final week, even in a muddy Western Conference with no real contender by usual standards. Had the Nuggets reached 58-60 wins instead of 53? We might not be having this discussion.

All of the advanced metrics adore Jokić, and those should be taken into account. They should be a piece of the pie when determining the MVP winner. But Embiid is also right there, narrowly behind in most of them. When most of the advanced numbers paint Jokić as an All-Defensive player — mostly due to his impressive rebounding — you have to dial it back and consider how much weight they should hold in the conversation.

It certainly feels as if Antetokounmpo is getting lost in this debate. I don’t think it’s as much “voter fatigue” as it is the fact Embiid and Jokić stole the show with their individual brilliance and took control of the storyline at the right time.

There’s also the dynamic of Antetokounmpo not feeling the motivation to chase a third MVP. Once a player wins a championship and takes home the Finals MVP trophy, being recognized with a regular season honor doesn’t exactly do much for them. Like Giannis has stated, though, he does want a third MVP. And he believes he’s been the most valuable star in the league since this run started in 2019.

But with only 63 games played, there just isn’t a precedent for a player winning the award over candidates that also have strong cases. If this were a scenario where nobody else was matching or exceeding his production, I don’t think people would hesitating voting for him despite the 19 missed games.

For starters, simply going by raw production, Giannis just became the fifth player in history to average 30 points, 11 boards, and six assists for a season. He joined Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, and Oscar Robertson — oh, and he was the most efficient of that group.

Giannis has now reached the LeBron 2013-2018 territory, where he’s pretty convincingly the best all-around player in basketball but is unable to win every MVP. It’s universally understood the best player in the league isn’t always the MVP winner. In fact, it rarely is — Westbrook wasn’t even close to the best player in 2017, Harden wasn’t the best in 2018, and Jokić wasn’t the best over the last two years. They just had the most impressive seasons, again, from start to finish.

It does seem like Middleton’s absence has been overlooked, though. Giannis and the Bucks were without an important member of their starting lineup for 49 games this year, and they still secured the No. 1 overall seed. That has to count for something and be a feather in Giannis’s cap for MVP. But with Jrue Holiday having perhaps the best season of his career and helping keep them afloat, I think he deserves a bulk of the credit for stepping up in critical moments.

There’s nobody in the game more physical and unguardable for 30-plus minutes a night. This year, Giannis broke the record for most free throw attempts generated at 13.7 per 75 possessions. More than Embiid last year, more than Shaq in 2001, and more than any Dwight Howard season when he was being hacked on every roll to the rim.

Here’s an even crazier Giannis stat, though: Despite missing 19 games, he made 129 more shots within the restricted area than the next-highest player, Domantas Sabonis. And it was on a 74.7% clip.

The only answer against Giannis is to shrink the floor, load up, and match his physicality while hoping the officials don’t call everything. He’s a force unlike any other in the league, and he’s okay with “settling” for playoff accolades at this stage of his career. I don’t believe he would trade being the championship favorite for another regular season honor.

If anyone has a good reason to be upset about how the MVP race has unfolded, it’s Jayson Tatum. He was easily the most available among the serious candidates, led his team to a 70.3% win rate in the games he played, and just became the 12th player in league history to average 30-8-4 for a season. Because of his durability, he led the NBA in total points scored.

Tatum’s defensive ability often flies under the radar, too, and it should be recognized how important he’s been for the Celtics. For the first 30% of the season, Tatum was a very strong candidate to win. Boston was lighting up everyone and cruising in the East.

If you had to point to a reason he fell to fourth, it would be the 60-of-208 shooting on pull-up threes (28.8%) from January 1st to the end of the season. Since the calendar turned, Boston wasn’t as efficient and finished with a lower winning percentage than Milwaukee and Philadelphia.

There’s also the factor of Embiid, Jokić, and Antetokounmpo all being more dominant players. But if this vote took place in, say, 2008 instead of 2023, I’d be curious how many votes swung to Tatum because of availability. We seem to not care as much about it now. At the same time, playing 708 more minutes than Giannis, 448 more than Embiid, and 409 more than Jokić should matter a lot. It’s just hard to put him over any of those guys because of their greatness.

For the fifth spot, it came down to Domantas Sabonis, Luka Doncic, or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

After how quickly and pitifully the Mavericks’ season spiraled out of control, it’s difficult to see a strong case for Doncic finishing fifth. In comparison to Sabonis, who logged 13 more games and was the driving force in Sacramento ending a 16-year playoff drought, should Doncic still get the nod based on individual talent and production?

I’d argue no.

Sabonis was unreal for Sacramento all year, serving as their version of Jokić and being one of their motors en route to historic offensive production — they scored 120.7 points per 100 possessions with Sabonis on the floor with a league-leading 61.6% true shooting percentage.

Because it’s important to value winning and both Gilgeous-Alexander and Doncic are already going to finish higher than Sabonis on the All-NBA teams, Sabonis (and Sacramento) deserves this honor. Literally not a soul outside of that city expected the Kings to win 48 games, and he was the primary reason for it.