On March 9, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander dropped 35 points, 15 assists, and zero turnovers against the Nuggets, then hit a game-winner with 2.7 seconds left. The only other player in NBA history to do the 35-15-0 thing in a single game is LeBron James in 2018. That is a very short list. I am willing to write his name on every first-place ballot I don't have.
So yes, SGA is the MVP. The argument ends there. The argument about unanimity is a completely different conversation, and the media keeps pretending the two are the same.
What the Data Actually Proves
SGA is averaging 31.6 points per game at 54 percent from the field and 38 percent from three. The efficiency number is the wild part: he is the only guard in NBA history to score 30-plus per game at better than 55 percent from the floor while keeping turnovers under 2.1 per night. True shooting percentage, which accounts for free throws and threes to give you a single efficiency number, puts that season in historical company that doesn't include many guards. The Thunder are winning 78.8 percent of their games with him on the floor, a 64-win pace. He's gone 6-0 since returning from an abdominal injury and just tied Wilt Chamberlain's record of 126 consecutive 20-point games.
That is a historic guard season. The data is not ambiguous.
Nikola Jokic's counter-argument is real, I'll give you that: 32-14-13 on March 9 is the kind of line that makes you question everything. But the Nuggets have gone 6-8 since his return, his field goal percentage has dipped under 50, and his turnover rate sits around four per game. Cade Cunningham's Pistons are winning at a 60-win pace, but his true shooting of 56.1 percent is the lowest among 25-point scorers in this race. Low efficiency at high volume is the analytics equivalent of a car that burns through gas to go 60 mph.
The Part Where I Get Skeptical
Unanimous MVP requires roughly 100 voters to reach the same conclusion. Jokic won unanimously in 2021. Stephen Curry in 2016. Those are the recent precedents. Two instances in a decade. The bar is not "clearly best." The bar is "no reasonable voter can make a credible case for anyone else," which is a much harder standard, especially when Jokic is posting 32-14-13 nights.
The narrative machine has started treating SGA's unanimity as a foregone conclusion after one spectacular moment. That is what I'd call a variance win masquerading as a process argument. The March 9 game is real. It does not override Jokic's ceiling or the inevitability that some voter somewhere will look at three triple-doubles in a row and shade their ballot accordingly.
There is a version of analytics thinking that is just as sloppy as pure vibes: take a remarkable single-game performance, declare the debate settled, and ride the hot take until the votes come in. That version keeps Rook employed. I'm trying to avoid it myself.
SGA should win MVP. The efficiency, the wins, the guard-specific historical context all point there clearly. The voters who put him first will be right. But the media certainty that every single one of them will agree is not a statistical conclusion. It is a narrative built on a game-winning three-pointer and a Wilt comparison, which are great television and mediocre epistemology.
Vote SGA first. Just don't confuse "should win" with "will go unanimous," because those are different models and only one of them has the sample size to back it up.
