The MVP: Why the "Media's Vibe-iest Player" Award Is Hurting Its Own Credibility

The UnOfficial

For those of us that pay attention to this sort of thing - of which we are a dying breed - Shai Gilgeous-Alexander sits atop the Kia MVP Ladder. He sits there on ESPN, too. In fact, he’s currently -125 in MVP odds. For those unfamiliar with that sort of odds description, it basically means he has better odds at winning an MVP right now than he does at winning a coin toss.

And if I had to, I could understand why. He scores 32 a night on 55% shooting, is a far better than average defender, and leads a Thunder team with the most wins in the NBA. If I had to, I could understand it. But if you try to argue why he's the MVP frontrunner using any single, coherent framework, the argument starts to dissolve like wet cotton candy.

Interested in giving it a try?

Option 1: Best player on the best team. At the time of writing, the Detroit Pistons own the league's best winning percentage, barely edging out OKC. Their best player, Cade Cunningham, is averaging 25.4 points, 9.8 assists, and 5.8 rebounds with another 2.5 stocks (Steals + Blocks) a night for the Pistons. He is the driving motor of a franchise that has gone from laughingstock to juggernaut in eighteen months. Not Shai.

Option 2: Best raw statistics. Nikola Jokić is averaging a triple-double. Again. Nearly 29 points, 12.5 rebounds, 10.4 assists. These are numbers that might convince Oscar Robertson and Russel Westbrook to buy a copy of “Jokic’s Guide to NBA Triple-Doubles”. Again, it’s not Shai.

Option 3: Most valuable to a team that’s exceeding expectations. The Boston Celtics were ranked 19th in the NBA's own preseason power rankings. They lost more than half of their production from last season in Jayson Tatum, Kristaps Porziņģis, Jrue Holiday, and Al Horford. Jaylen Brown, former sidekick turned superhero, has somehow led them to a 39-20 record, third in the East, fourth in the NBA. Still not Shai.

No matter how you slice the criteria, someone else wins. And yet SGA is number one on the ladder. I’d argue that’s because the MVP award doesn't actually operate on any coherent or discernible criteria. It operates on media vibes.

The Unspoken Fourth Framework

I’m not here to make waves. But if I were, I might say that the MVP is not awarded to the Most Valuable Player anymore. I might say that it’s given to someone that is good enough to not cause problems - typically someone at the intersection of "elite production" and "winning team" - but also just feels like the MVP. At least for those who get to cast a vote.

And before this gets misconstrued as an SGA hit piece, SGA is a great player. He is rightfully in the MVP conversations. He is 100% at the intersection of “elite production” and “winning team”. Heck, OKC was 2 wins shy of a 70-win season last year. And SGA won it last year. 

But again, it’s another “good enough” stat.

"Reigning MVP leads historically great team" is a story that writes its own headline. It requires no explanation at dinner parties.

But I think we deserve better.

The History of the Vibe Award

In the data-driven sports world we’ve become, people have been trying to retro-fit an “MVP Award Stat” for a long time. One of those stats is “Win Shares” - an estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player. 

This holds last year, where SGA had 16.7, and Jokic had 16.4

They’ve implemented the 65-game rule to make sure an MVP is playing at least 65 games in a season to be eligible for the award.

The league is even trying to make rules to stop this from happening. The 

Derrick Rose, at 25, 7.7, and 4.1, won MVP in 2011. Youngest winner ever, Chicago kid, best record. Heck of a story. But if it’s based on stats, Lebron went 27, 7, and 7. Almost nobody argues Rose deserved it anymore. But LeBron had just committed the sin of joining a superteam. The narrative demanded a hero.

LeBron got vibes-d again in 2020 — top seed, elite defense, orchestrating everything — and lost to Giannis because the ascending star always beats the incumbent when the records are close. Voter fatigue isn't a statistical category, but it might as well be.

Jokić occupies the strangest space. Three MVPs and probably deserves more. But there have been years when his numbers were historically absurd, and the conversation still drifted toward whoever had the better narrative. Denver isn't glamorous. Triple-doubles from a center who moves like he's navigating a European grocery store don't generate the same energy as an SGA crossover or a Rose baseline dunk.

Why This Matters

You might be thinking: who cares? The real prize is the Larry O'Brien. But the MVP is supposed to be the historical record of who mattered most in a given season. It shapes Hall of Fame cases, legacy arguments, the all-time conversation. When the criteria are this incoherent, the award stops measuring basketball excellence and starts measuring media sentiment.

Consider the parallel in football. The NFL Hall of Fame recently declined to make Bill Belichick a first-ballot inductee — six Super Bowls, the most successful coach in the sport's history. The voters decided that their process, their deliberation, their vibes about Belichick's personality, mattered more than the obvious conclusion. And in doing so, they didn't hurt Belichick. Everyone knows he belongs. They hurt themselves. They told millions of fans that the institution's judgment cannot be trusted.

The MVP award is walking the same path. Every time it goes to the guy who feels right instead of the guy with the most defensible case, it chips away at its own authority. Twenty years from now, when someone reads the MVP list to understand who dominated each era, they won't be reading a record of basketball value. They'll be reading a record of which player the media found most compelling. Those are very different documents.

The Irony

Here's what kills me: the defense of the vibes-based MVP is that it rewards the best story. But SGA doesn't even have the best story this year. He has the most familiar one. "Reigning MVP continues to be very good on very good team" isn't a story. It's a status update.

You want stories? They're everywhere.

Cade Cunningham is the engine of Motor City's 18-month mega-rebuild, dragging a franchise from the league's basement to the best winning percentage in basketball. Detroit — Detroit — is the number one seed. That's not a story. That's a screenplay.

Jaylen Brown, the eternal Robin, is proving he can be Batman. Boston lost Tatum, lost Porziņģis, lost Holiday, got ranked 19th in the league's own preseason power rankings, and Brown said, "Fine, I'll do it myself." If you're old enough to remember Isaiah Thomas and the King of the Fourth era of Celtics basketball, you know what it looks like when one guy refuses to let a team die. Brown is doing that right now.

Victor Wembanyama is blocking almost a full shot more per game than anyone else in the league while simultaneously being an offensive cheat code, leading San Antonio to the second-best record in the West. The Alien is invading both sides of the floor. He is, statistically and aesthetically, unlike anything basketball has ever seen.

Luka Dončić is putting up the best statistical season in the league not named Jokić — and doing it so convincingly that LeBron James, the defining player of a generation, is fading into the background of his own team. Luka Magic and the Disappearing King. You couldn't write it better.

Any one of these narratives is more compelling, more dramatic, and more meaningful than "SGA is still really good." The MVP isn't being ruined because the media values story over stats. It's being ruined because the media is choosing the wrong story — the safe, boring, path-of-least-resistance story — over the ones that actually capture what makes this season extraordinary.

The award doesn't need to abandon narrative. It needs better taste in it.

James writes The UnOfficial, a basketball newsletter that uses data analysis and literary storytelling to cut through the noise.

Written February 28th, 2026