Stiles Points: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's MVP Case Means More League-Wide

A two-person race where everyone picks their side and digs in, slinging spirited pleas, peppering propaganda and shouting down from an ivory tower at anyone who disagrees is not a foreign concept stateside. It happens every year around this time. The mid-season point in the NBA calendar, as MVP award races heat up...What did you think I was talking about?

This season is no different. The MVP race boils down to Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Denver Nuggets larger-than-life legend Nikola Jokic. Everyone else is playing for a podium finish as these two duke it out for the right to take home the hardware.

The first thing to acknowledge in this cycle's debate is that both are truly worthy of your vote. What Jokic is doing is Paul Bunyan-like lore. Things that your grandparents tell you about Wilt Chamberlin and other NBA stars of yesteryear that you blow off as dramatized. Only, it is happening in living color nightly.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander fits the MVP billing to a tee. A player at the peak of his powers, posting gaudy numbers and winning games in the process with the league's best record. However, is that enough to net him his first Most Valuable Player honor?

The more interesting angle is, what if it's not?

If a guard averaging a league-best 32.1 points, 5.3 rebounds, 6.0 assists, 2.1 steals and 1.1 blocks per game on 52 percent shooting from the floor, 35 percent from beyond the arc and 90 percent at the line - all while dragging his team to 37 wins through 45 games and refusing to buckle under the brutal injury luck his team has suffered this season - is not worthy of knocking off Jokic, when will anyone ever be?

Jokic is the best player in the world, he has already bagged three MVP awards. If he nabs this one, he will already tie LeBron James for career MVPs and is one away from Michael Jordan. The Nuggets star is already in the same conversations as those two, but unlike them, rarely faces the same voter fatigue.

Sure, the Serbian seven-footer makes a strong case to garner your first-place vote, but it spits in the face of NBA history. Never have the league voters just gifted the award to the best player in the world. Perhaps they should've, but they didn't.

If this Gilgeous-Alexander season does not stop this run of dominance from Jokic hoarding the Most Valuable Player Award, why even bother debating it next season? This is a testiment to Jokic's greatness rather than sour grapes or demishing the historic things he is doing.

To vote for Jokic is to vote for league-shifting change. Guess what Jokic will do in the 2025-26 season? Average a triple-double and carry his team to an improbable home-court advantage seed despite a supporting cast that leaves a bit to be desired.

That is the way the CBA is set up. These roster limitations will follow Jokic just as his super-human talents will. From here on out in the Mile High City, the Nuggets will go as far as the future Hall of Famer will take him.

So if he gets bonus points for lifting a lesser roster in this race, those same advantages are baked into the cake next year. So, how do you vote against him until the 29-year-old's - whose game will age gracefully - peak is over?

In addition, why aren't those same privileges granted to Gilgeous-Alexander? For as great as the Thunder have been this season it has been in spite of horrendous luck. Isaiah Hartenstein has missed 20 games. Alex Caruso has missed 18 contests. Chet Holmgren? He is up to 35 games missed and counting. This is not the same team pundits had penciled into the No. 1 overall seed in the preseason, yet, here they sit. Because of its superstar and his value.

This is not an Oklahoman scribe pleading for the hometown guard to make it to the big time hoisting the MVP trophy as two other Thundermen have done. It's just examining what this would change for the league moving forward - perhaps for the better.

The bottom line is, this is possibly Gilgeous-Alexander's best crack at the MVP award and it means as much to the league at large as it does to him.

Stiles Points:

Gilgeous-Alexander was nominated for another Western Conference Player of the Week Award.
Jalen Williams has put together a compelling case for All-Defensive honors this NBA season.
The Oklahoma City Thunder are handling the dog days of the NBA.
Dillon Jones posted 16 points, seven rebounds and four assists in the OKC Blue's win over the San Diego Clippers on Monday inside the Paycom Center.

Song of the Day: Ripple by The Grateful Dead

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