NBA MVP rankings: Top 3 cemented as final stretch begins

After a later-than-usual All-Star Weekend, only about a quarter of the 2021-22 campaign remains - little time for stars vying for the MVP award to put the finishing touches on their cases.

Once more before the end of the regular season, let's check in on the top 10 candidates.

10. Rudy Gobert, Jazz

The Jazz own the league's third-best net rating (6.8) and Gobert has been their best player. The Stifle Tower currently leads the NBA in rebounds (14.8) and blocks (2.3) per game and field-goal percentage (70.4%), and his 15.6 points per game are closing in on his career high of 15.9 (2018-19).

If not for the presence of guard Donovan Mitchell - who is to the Jazz's offense what Gobert is to their defense - the towering Frenchman would rank higher. It also doesn't help that Gobert has missed about a quarter of Utah's games this season.

9. Luka Doncic, Mavericks

It's been a tale of two seasons for Doncic and the Mavericks, whose 2021-22 campaign was bifurcated by his 10-game absence due to COVID-19.

Some of Doncic's early-season struggles were self-inflicted. Despite a shorter than normal offseason due to Slovenia's appearance at the Tokyo Olympics, Doncic entered his fourth season noticeably carrying extra weight.

What Jason Kidd has done with the Mavs' defense - presently ranked fifth in the league - deserves at least as much credit for Dallas' turnaround as Doncic using the regular season to play himself back into form.

8. LeBron James, Lakers

The Lakers are decidedly not a good basketball team. The league's 20th-ranked net rating and a 27-34 record put the team ninth in the West, meaning it would need to win two single-elimination games (the second on the road) to earn the right to get mugged by the Suns in the first round.

With James authoring perhaps the greatest individual "old guy" season in NBA history, the team's lack of on-court success is a scathing indictment of how this Lakers roster was constructed.

James is averaging 28.9 points, eight rebounds, and 6.3 assists per night. He's also on pace to be the only player in NBA history not named Hakeem Olajuwon to average more than one steal and one block per game at age 37 or beyond. His 26.2 Player Efficiency Rating, good for fourth in the league, would rank as the highest ever for a player James' age.

7. Ja Morant, Grizzlies

Morant's breakout has been one of the storylines of the 2021-22 season, but he's still trending more toward an All-NBA selection (and a lock for the Most Improved Player award) than the big prize.

Despite his audacious, Twitter-shattering highlights, the underlying numbers suggest that Morant is currently just a pretty good offensive player, albeit a very high-usage one. He ranks in the 76th percentile in points per shot attempt and assist percentage among point guards, according to Cleaning the Glass - sturdy, but not world-beating.

There's also the matter of the Grizzlies' record without their franchise star. The team has gone 12-2 without Morant this season, including 10-2 while he was sidelined in late 2021 with a knee sprain. Ja is the heart of this ascendent Grizzlies squad, but in terms of value, the team hasn't exactly wilted without him.

6. Stephen Curry, Warriors

Curry's MVP case is a contradiction. On one hand, he's posting his least efficient shooting season since his rookie year, hitting just 37.5% of his 12.2 long-range attempts per game and 42.8% of his shots from the floor overall.

And yet the Warriors' net rating swings massively depending on his presence. With the two-time MVP on the court, Golden State has drubbed opponents by 11.3 points per 100 possessions; the team's net rating crumbles to minus-2.5 when he sits.

Curry has kept the Warriors treading water as the West's second seed (for now) with defensive anchor Draymond Green making just 34 appearances and Klay Thompson only returning in January from two years of injury madness. Here are Curry's five most common on-court partners this season:

With all due respect to Wiggins' trip to All-Star Weekend, this Warriors roster has allowed defenses to pile up on Curry like never before. That the Chef has turned fish guts into bouillabaisse while waiting for his two star running mates to round back into form is commendable.

5. Chris Paul, Suns

With Paul slated to miss another five-to-seven weeks with a thumb fracture, his frisky MVP case is basically toast. Let's consider his merits at this point of the season regardless, with the legendary floor general playing 58 of the Suns' 61 games.

Despite his short stature and relatively advanced age - he turns 37 in May, making him the seventh-oldest active NBA player - Paul has still lent his maestro's touch at both ends of the floor for a team trending toward finishing with the best record in the league and blowing away the franchise's previous win record.

Playing 33 minutes a night, Paul averaged 14.9 points, a league-high 10.7 assists, 4.5 rebounds, and 1.9 steals (third in the league). If those figures hold, he'll join Steve Nash as the only player to average double-digits in assists at age 36 or beyond.

4. DeMar DeRozan, Bulls

DeRozan's 10-game heater - 36.9 points per game on 56.6% shooting (42.1% on threes) with 5.8 rebounds, 5.2 assists, and a steal per night - from Feb. 4-26 should have cemented his place on the end of numerous MVP ballots. But that stretch is only the most electrifying snapshot of a season-long rejuvenation for the five-time All-Star.

Deebo is now up to a career-high 28.2 points per game. He's done so by hitting 53.1% of his twos and a career-best 35.8% of his threes - no small feat for a player who came into his first year with the Bulls as a career 28.1% shooter from deep.

The result? The Bulls jumped from a .431 winning percentage during the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 to .629 with a quarter of this season to play, representing the franchise's best clip in a decade. And all that winning happened with Opening Night starter Patrick Williams missing all but five games and key role players Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso each missing close to half the season so far.

The top 3 ...

Here's where things get tough. The Bucks' Giannis Antetokounmpo, the 76ers' Joel Embiid, and the Nuggets' Nikola Jokic are in a tier of their own at this stage of the MVP race. Barring perhaps DeRozan or Morant averaging 45 points per game over the last six weeks of the season, one of these international centers is going to win the MVP award.

First, let's get an idea of their traditional stats.

What immediately stands out: While Antetokounmpo and Embiid boast higher points-per-game averages (with the latter currently leading the league), Jokic is right up there but with superior shooting efficiency. Plus, the Nuggets center outdoes his rivals in the rebounding and passing numbers. Advantage: Joker.

Of course, traditional stats don't tell the whole picture. Let's do the same head-to-head-to-head breakdown with the big four catch-all advanced metrics - Player Efficiency Rating, Win Shares, Box Plus/Minus, and Value Over Replacement Player.

Incredibly, each of the three candidates' PER would break the previous benchmark for the highest single-season figure in NBA history (31.86, which Antetokounmpo set in 2019-20). The Greek Freak holds a slim lead over Jokic in PER, but the Serb takes the other three categories quite handily. Advantage: Joker.

Next, let's acknowledge the players' relationship to team success. Here's a breakdown of the big three's on/off-court net rating differential, overall team net rating, team winning percentage when active, and team winning percentage while sidelined:

While all three teams racked up a lot of wins with their stars in the lineup, the Nuggets nearly cease to exist without Jokic on the floor. Denver outscores opponents by 10 points per 100 possessions with the reigning MVP on the floor but is outscored by 8.6 points per 100 possessions when he sits. The gap between the Suns' league-leading net rating and that of the last-place Detroit Pistons is less abysmal.

So far, all signs point to a repeat MVP win for Jokic. What else are we missing here?

Antetokounmpo is playing significantly more minutes at center this year due to Brook Lopez's absence - about 38% of his playing time, up from 12% last year, per Cleaning the Glass. Despite the strategic shuffle, the 27-year-old has been steadier than ever. Opponents have shot just 50.2% within 6 feet of the hoop with Giannis as the primary defender - a few ticks stinger than three-time Defensive Player of the Year Gobert (52.4%).

Still, apart from the Lopez injury, Antetokounmpo's supporting cast has remained pretty healthy; Jrue Holiday, Khris Middleton, Bobby Portis, Grayson Allen, and Pat Connaughton have all played at least 79% of the team's games so far.

Embiid, obviously, had one major absence to overcome: the season-long holdout by now-former teammate Ben Simmons, a perennial All-Star and last year's DPOY runner-up. That the Cameroonian big man kept the 76ers in the middle of the playoff hunt without their team's second-best player - and with a heavy dose of drama injected into the proceedings - deserves credit.

Losing one star teammate is tough; losing your second- and third-best teammates, however, should be a death blow. With Jamal Murray out for the entire season (so far) while recovering from last year's torn ACL, and Michael Porter Jr. struggling through nine appearances before going under the knife due to back issues, Jokic has been forced to make the most of an assorted cast of journeymen and role players.

The Nuggets' most-used non-Jokic lineup - the fivesome above with JaMychal Green in place of Rivers - has a minus-22 net rating in 71 minutes. Even accounting for Simmons' early-season absence in Philly (which the trade deadline turned into James Harden's rest-of-season presence), Jokic would dream of having either Antetokounmpo's or Embiid's supporting casts.

For these reasons, Jokic is still in the pole position of the MVP race. But with little differentiating the cases for the top three, any permutation of this tier remains possible with about 20 games to go.

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bucks
2. Joel Embiid, 76ers
1. Nikola Jokic, Nuggets