Jokic drops all the way to third in MVP odds after SGA winner

Nikola Jokic did nearly everything right Monday night. He posted another triple-double. He scored nine straight points down the stretch to give the Denver Nuggets a chance. He and Jamal Murray even combined for a rare four-point play to tie the game at 126 with the season teetering.

None of it mattered.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander took the inbound, worked past Spencer Jones on the wing, and calmly drained a step-back three with 2.6 seconds remaining to win it 129-126 for Oklahoma City. The Nuggets walked off the floor 0-3 against the defending champions this season. And Jokic’s MVP hopes took a nose dive.

As of Tuesday morning, the sportsbooks have it like this:

NBA MVP Odds

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: -1000
Victor Wembanyama: +2000
Nikola Jokic: +2500
Cade Cunningham: +3000
Jaylen Brown: +15000

So this race is over. And for Jokic, the three-time MVP, cratering to third place — behind Wemby — represents a changing of the guard and a possible new answer to the question of the best player in the world. It’s also a giant shift from the odds just a few weeks ago when SGA came in at -125 to Jokic’s +270 and Cunningham’s +550.

SGA finished Monday with 35 points, 15 assists and nine rebounds, falling one board shy of his third career triple-double. More importantly, he tied Wilt Chamberlain’s NBA record for consecutive 20-point games at 126. Though, he missed out on notching 20 points in some playoff games last year.

The reigning MVP is averaging 31.7 points per game this season and has topped 30 per game in each of his last four campaigns in Oklahoma City. That level of sustained excellence, combined with the Thunder’s stranglehold on the Western Conference’s top seed, has made him the overwhelming favorite.

“He hit a hell of a shot,” Nuggets coach David Adelman conceded after the loss. “I thought it was well-contested.”

The Nuggets threw Christian Braun, Aaron Gordon and eventually Jones at Gilgeous-Alexander throughout the fourth quarter. None of it worked. SGA hit two three-pointers in the final 15 seconds — first to put OKC up four, then to win it after Jokic’s heroics tied the score.

Jokic finished with 32 points, 14 rebounds, and 13 assists in the loss, his typical superstar line. He even broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s mark for career games of 20-10-5. But it’s not enough, not in the face of SGA or the Thunder, who now officially have the Nuggets number.

MVP voting has always been about story as much as statistics, and SGA’s story leading a team that hopes to go back-to-back is simply better right now. While Jokic is known for breaking Wilt’s record, the media was loudest about this one with SGA. Meanwhile, the Nuggets are fighting for playoff positioning and watching their superstar get hacked in head-to-head matchups against the guard’s team,

For Denver fans hoping their guy might get the fourth MVP he’s deserved in the past, Monday night’s final seconds told them what the voters are going to do.

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