Jayson Tatum is having arguably the best season of his career. After winning an NBA championship and Olympic gold earlier this year, his numbers are largely up across the board and he’s become more of a complete playmaker and defender in 2024. The Celtics are second in the Eastern Conference and on pace to win even more games than last year.
But even with that developing resume, Tatum is trailing a few spots behind in the MVP race.
In ESPN’s MVP straw poll at the quarter mark, the Celtics superstar is squarely in fourth place behind the Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic, Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Mavericks’ Luka Doncic completes the top-5. And for what it’s worth, JT and Doncic flipflopped spots in yesterday’s NBA.com’s MVP ladder.
Here’s Tim Bontemps on Tatum’s candidacy:
With the caveat that the 65-game requirement to be eligible for season-ending awards could always wreak havoc with these rankings later in the season if injuries occur, it appears it will be difficult for those further down the list to catch up. Take Tatum and Donovan Mitchell for example.
Mitchell’s MVP case centers around being the best player on the best team. But despite Cleveland’s NBA-best 23-4 start, the guard sits in sixth. Tatum, meanwhile, has now landed somewhere between fourth and sixth in each of the past six straw polls, dating to the midway point of the 2022-23 season.
Jokic finished with 57 first-place votes with Gilgeous-Alexander trailing behind at 24 and Antetokounmpo with 19. Tatum received zero 1sts, three 2nds, thirteen thirds, and 51 fourth place votes.
Barring injuries to what has been a perennial top-3 of late, Tatum will most likely finish as the league’s best team player. He doesn’t take advantage of more heliocentric systems that Antetokounmpo and SGA enjoy, but is a much better defender than Jokic and Doncic.
After beating the Wizards and filling the box score with 25 points, 11 rebounds, and six assists back in October, Tatum said, “As a kid, you set a lot of goals for yourself. I’ve been very fortunate to check off a lot of boxes of things that I wanted to accomplish, things that my favorite players accomplished.
Saying that winning MVP is important to me doesn’t take away success of our team. Everybody that’s ever won MVP has been on a championship-contending team. If you’re an MVP, you’re dominating, you’re efficient, you’re playing the right way, and you’re impacting winning.”
To Tatum’s point, he’s second only to SGA in total plus-minus at +228. His contributions to winning are undeniable.
“So, you can do both,” Tatum continued. “Championship is the most important. Being the best version of yourself is important as well.”
