A few hours after Shams Charania leaked that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had won the MVP award, the NBA released the full voting results for the top on social media. It showed that the leading scorer of the league this season, Luka Doncic, had finished fourth in the voting.
A panel of 100 voters across the league voted for the postseason awards. Here’s a breakdown of the voting results of the top eight players in the MVP race.
1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Thunder): 83 first-place votes, 13 second-place votes, three third-place votes, and one fourth-place vote.
2. Nikola Jokic (Nuggets): 10 first-place votes, 48 second-place votes, 37 third-place votes, four fourth-place votes, one fifth-place vote.
3. Victor Wembanyama (Spurs): five first-place votes, 38 second-place votes, 47 third-place votes, 10 fourth-place votes, two fifth-place votes.
4. Luka Doncic (Lakers): one second-place vote, eight third-place votes, 60 fourth-place votes, and 23 fifth-place votes.
5. Cade Cunningham (Pistons): two first-place votes, one second-place vote, three third-place votes, 11 fourth-place votes, 42 fifth-place votes.
6. Jaylen Brown (Celtics): one second-place vote, two third-place votes, 14 fourth-place votes, 30 fifth-place votes.
7. Kawhi Leonard (Clippers): one fifth-place vote.
8. Donovan Mitchell (Cavaliers): one fifth-place vote.
The weightage given to each vote and position is based on a points system where each first-place vote is worth 10 points, the second-place votes are worth seven, the third-place votes are worth five, the fourth-place votes are worth three, and the fifth-place vote gets just one point.
Hence, after tallying the aforementioned voting list, each player’s final points total was the following:
1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: 939 points
2. Nikola Jokic (Nuggets): 634 points
3. Victor Wembanyama (Spurs): 569 points
4. Luka Doncic (Lakers): 250 points
5. Cade Cunningham (Pistons): 117 points
6. Jaylen Brown (Celtics): 89 points
7. Kawhi Leonard (Clippers): one point
8. Donovan Mitchell (Cavaliers): one point
Despite being the leading scorer in the league, Luka Doncic did not receive a single vote for first place in the MVP standings, which may come as a shock to many. Luka Doncic was objectively better in multiple individual statistics than the winner, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Doncic led all scorers this season as he averaged 33.5 points, 7.7 rebounds, 8.3 assists, 1.6 steals, and 0.5 blocks per game in the regular season while shooting 47.6% from the field and 36.6% from beyond the three-point line.
Meanwhile, Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 31.1 points. 4.3 rebounds, 6.6 assists, 1.4 steals, and 0.8 blocks, going 55.3% from the field and 38.6% from beyond the arc.
Since the Thunder were the first seed and the Lakers were the fourth in the West, other than team wins, shooting percentages, and blocks per game, Doncic is ahead of Gilgeous-Alexander in every statistical category. This shows the relevance of team wins in the decision-making process.
But if team wins are so crucial, then one is bound to question why Nikola Jokic is second on the list when the Nuggets were worse than the Lakers. There is a lot of room for subjectivity in this objective decision that the voters had to make. Hence, it is not surprising that the Lakers’ fans are disgruntled with these voting results.
