The MVP debate between Shai-Gilgeous Alexander and Nikola Jokić rages on even after the Oklahoma City Thunder ousted the Denver Nuggets in seven games in the Western Conference semifinals. This was one of the best battles for the league’s top individual honor that we’ve ever seen.
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Shai won the scoring title while guiding the Thunder to a baffling 68 wins, while the Joker averaged a triple-double and finished top-three in points, rebounds, and assists.
Four-time NBA champion John Salley had some thoughts as to why SGA was able to prevent Jokić from winning his fourth MVP award. That would have given Jokić entry into an elite club that includes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and LeBron James as its members.
As the first man to win an NBA title with three different teams, Salley knows a thing or two about good basketball. He played on the Bad Boy Pistons teams of the late 1980s, won a ring with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in 1996, and shared the court with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant as the Lakers won it all in 2000.
“I think [SGA] is worth the MVP, 100%,” Salley said during an interview with DJ Vlad of the popular VladTV YouTube channel.
“But if you’re going with stats, Joker had better stats. But the MVP is for the league, and I think the image of the league was better with Shai,” he added.
Salley called SGA “younger, more flamboyant, more interactive” than Jokić before saying that the Serbian big man doesn’t have “the personality that the NBA wanted to explore.”
Additionally, team wins have always been a consideration for the MVP award. And OKC’s 68 wins are tied for the sixth-highest winning-est regular season ever. The Jokić-led Denver, meanwhile, managed 50 wins.
Let’s examine Salley’s statement, though. Is SGA younger? He’s 26, while Jokic is 30. Is he more interactive?
Shai’s postgame interviews with all of his Thunder teammates are always a fun time. And although he’s not exactly Mr. Personality off the court, the googly-eyed rock from Everything Everywhere All at Once was about as expressive as Jokić has ever been.
However, Salley’s claim that SGA’s game is more aesthetic has its issues. Jokić’s game is poetry in motion, an unprecedented blend of power, touch, astonishing court vision, and an ability to both get his own and make his teammates that much better.
Watch one of Jokić’s impossible passes whip across the court to the perfect spot and tell me that his game isn’t flamboyant. Shai, on the other hand, is all about deadly, repeatable precision. His game is ruthless and inevitable.
Shai is going to get to his spot, and he’s going to make it, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Or he’s going to draw a foul and sink the free throws.
And, the charges of Shai being a free-throw merchant are unjust. But even so, their very existence sort of proves that his game isn’t about being flamboyant.
Salley also implied that SGA won in part because his personality is more interesting than Jokić’s. If that were the case, neither one of these guys would have won. Adam Silver would probably have handed the trophy to Anthony Edwards.
What I think Salley meant to say is that there was some voter fatigue with Jokić. He’s won three of the past four MVPs, and the writers who vote on this have a long history of making a change if the top player has already “won too much”. Michael Jordan lost the 1997 MVP to Karl Malone, even though nobody in their right mind thought that Malone was the better or more valuable player.
There are other examples that all point in one direction: if Jokic had never won an MVP before, this year’s voting would have looked a lot different.
