Which player took the lead in the NBA MVP race?

Just seven weeks ago, this NBA season was announced, with Dallas Mavericks phenomenon Luka Doncic set up as the betting favorite to take home MVP honors.

But, like just about everything else in this pandemic shortened season, nothing went as planned.

The Doncic Mavericks sit 14th in the Western Conference, opening the MVP race to a wide range of contenders and potentially paving the way for LeBron James to win a historic fifth MVP trophy.

After finishing second a season ago after Giannis Antetokounmpo, who became the 12th player in NBA history to win back-to-back MVP trophies, James is back at the top of ESPN’s first MVP poll of the season.

To assess where the race is at this point in the season, ESPN asked 100 members of the media to participate in an informal poll that mimics the post-season awards vote. To make the ballot as realistic as possible, there are at least two voters from each of the league’s 28 markets, as well as a representative sample of national and international journalists.

Similar to the official NBA voting at the end of the season, voters were asked to submit a five-player ballot and the results were tabulated using the league’s scoring system: 10 points for each vote. for the first place, followed by seven points for the second, five points. for the third, three points for the fourth and one point for the fifth.

While James currently has the inside track in his push for a fifth MVP Trophy to go along with what he hopes will be a fifth NBA Championship this summer, garnering 54 votes out of a possible 100, the race at this point in the season is as competitive as none in recent memory, with a pair of centers – Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid and Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic – right on his heels.

Now in his 18th season, the 36-year-old James continues to be remarkably consistent, playing in each of the Lakers’ 25 games so far and averaging over 25 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists for the fifth straight season. . James is shooting a career record 41% at 3 points. This is the first time since 2013 – the year he won his last MVP award – that James shot better than 40% of 3. It was also the only season of his career where he reached that mark; he’s shot less than 37% of the 3-point lineup in each of the past six seasons.

James was named on 99 of 100 ballots and finished with a total of 760 points, becoming Embiid (23 first place votes) by just 95 points. The last MVP race to have such a small final margin came in 2004-05 when Steve Nash edged Shaquille O’Neal by 34 points. Jokic finished third, collecting 18 first-place votes and a total of 596 points.

That puts the gap between James first and Jokic third at 164 points. By comparison, Antetokounmpo led the second James by 152 points in the initial version of last year’s straw poll. No final MVP vote has seen such a small margin between first and third place since the lock-out shortened 1998-99 season, when Alonzo Mourning and Tim Duncan both finished within 100 points of the MVP winner. Karl Malone.

Embiid has by far the best season of his career, averaging 29.3 points per game, while shooting career records on the field (55.3%), 3 points (39%) and the free throw line (85%) for Philadelphia, which has the best record in the Eastern Conference and accounts for 15.2 points per 100 possessions when Embiid is on the court, compared to when he is seated.

Philadelphia is also 16-3 in games Embiid plays this season and 1-4 in games he does not.

Jokic is currently the only NBA player in the top 10 in points (27.6), rebounds (11.5) and assists (8.6) per game, and he briefly led the league in assists. – what no center did during the course. a full season since Wilt Chamberlain made it in 1968. Jokic and Embiid both aim to be the first center to win the NBA MVP award since O’Neal won it in 2000.

The depth of the race is not only reflected in the competition at the top of the ballot. Seven players received at least one vote for first place, more than in any previous edition of the Straw Poll. Beyond James, Embiid and Jokic, Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant got three votes for first place, while LA Clippers teammates Kawhi Leonard and Paul George each received a single vote for first place. , as did Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry.

Durant, after missing all of last season with a ripped Achilles, finished fourth in the poll with 272 points and appeared on 75 ballots, while Leonard (153 points, 64 ballots) finished fifth.

Antetokounmpo, the reigning two-time MVP, was a distant sixth, getting a handful of votes as it seems highly unlikely he will win a third time in a row. Doncic, the preseason favorite, received just two votes for third place, with his brilliant statistical CV easily overtaken by the Mavericks’ disappointing record.

A total of 15 different players received at least one vote, with three players from the same team all getting at least one vote for the first time in an iteration of this poll.

Center Rudy Gobert and guards Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley led Utah Jazz to the best ever NBA record but received only a handful of votes (four for Gobert, two for Mitchell and one for Conley), speaking the overall nature of the team’s success this season. The last team to have three players to receive MVP votes in the same season was the 2004-05 Suns (Nash, Amar’e Stoudemire, Shawn Marion).