The Bucks need a strong finish to get the Greek Freak back in the conversation.
Most Valuable Player debates haven’t been quite as toxic this season as they’ve been in years past, and mercifully seemed to start deeper into the year. Giannis Antetokounmpo hasn’t finished above third since winning his second MVP in 2020, even slipping to fourth last year. Last year, when he became the first player ever to average at least 30 points per game while also shooting over 60% from the field. The first ever! Not even Wilt Chamberlain did that while feasting on expansion teams in the 60s!
He’s going to accomplish that very same feat this year too. For a good chunk of the season, Giannis led the lead in scoring at around 32 PPG. In the past couple months, he’s slipped ever so slightly to a still-outstanding 31.2 PPG to go with 11.9 RPG and 5.8 APG. He’s doing this all on 61% shooting, 61.4% effective field goal percentage, and 62.1% true shooting (Damian Lillard is just 0.1% behind him!)—just super efficient stuff.
On top of that, he’s blown away previous career highs in the midrange at 50.6% between 10–15 feet and 45.3% between 16 feet and the three-point arc. That’s good for 33rd and 43rd among the 186 players who’ve logged over 1,000 minutes, ahead of stars like LeBron James, Jaren Jackson Jr., Tyrese Haliburton, De’Aaron Fox, Tyrese Maxey, Donovan Mitchell, and Karl-Anthony Towns. He even shoots better from that 10–15 range than Steph Curry on similar volume!
Of course, many of these stats are better than his back-to-back MVP seasons of 2019 and 2020, when he played fewer minutes per night thanks to a more dominant Bucks squad. His per-36 averages for rebounds and assists are a teensy bit shy compared to those rates in his first MVP campaign, but his scoring volume is higher (it will be hard to top his 34.8 points and 16.1 rebounds per 36 from his second MVP campaign, but he’s only two points away).
But Shai Gilgeous-Alexander assumed the driver’s seat in the scoring title race since the New Year amid a historic season of his own. Though Giannis is just one point per game behind SGA currently, it’s easy to imagine that last year’s runner-up will get the nod in 2025 thanks to the Thunder’s utter dominance. I certainly can’t argue with it: his case is stronger, given how much OKC has rampaged through the league (at least when the games have counted in the standings!), plus his 32/6/5 averages on .522/.357/.899 shooting are sterling. That line grants Gilgeous-Alexander better efficiency numbers than Giannis, for the most part. SGA has also only missed one game all season.
Reflective of this, he’s at +10,000 in FanDuel odds, waaaaayyyyy behind SGA (-500) and Nikola Jokic (+340). Fans are even more bearish, which might make you think he’ll finish lower than third. A national poll conducted by SB Nation has SGA as the runaway frontrunner for MVP honors at this point, with Giannis getting a mere 1% of the vote.
Jokic is enjoying another amazing season, possibly his best, that will surely place him in the top three vote-getters again, but I highly doubt he’ll get his fourth award. Maybe if he’d won another title last season. But to have Tatum, whose scoring and efficiency are down a fair bit as compared to his last two seasons, over Giannis is a joke. Yes, Boston is good, but they’ve been surpassed to some degree in the East, at least in the regular season. Methinks their fans may have stuffed this virtual ballot box. Towns probably gets a Knicks fan boost too, and Wemby isn’t going to qualify since he’s done for the season (this poll was conducted prior to that announcement).
Team success is probably the biggest reason Giannis isn’t higher: at 31-24, the Bucks’ roller coaster year has them at least 5.5 games behind the other contenders’ squads in the standings. And to be honest, Giannis’ free throw shooting is a big demerit against him. At a career-worst 57.7%, he’s obviously detrimental once he steps to the line, though he’s not getting there at quite the same pace as he was from 2021–24 when he topped a 60% free throw rate twice. But it’s the third-highest in the league behind Rudy Gobert and Mason Plumlee (who has played nearly 1,000 minutes). While he’ll make an All-NBA First team for a seventh time if he can play in 22 of the Bucks’ last 26, a third MVP is probably out of the question after he positioned himself as possibly a favorite in mid-December once Milwaukee broke out of their early season slump.
And playing in 22 of 26 is by no means guaranteed. Though he just returned from a left calf strain after the All-Star break and played in back-to-back games, the Bucks have five more B2Bs remaining, including two in April, thanks to their January Pelicans matchup being postponed. After missing so much time in the Bucks’ last two playoff runs due to injury—one from perhaps fatigue but another from Kevin Love taking a charge, to be fair—you have to think they’ll look to get Giannis some rest going into the postseason when they’re able. Still, I think fans will take a healthy Giannis in the first round over one who played 65 games in an Embiidian charge at an MVP.