ESPN’s Tim Bontemps has released his first of 3 straw polls for the 2024-25 campaign
Coming into the season, Luka Doncic found himself in a familiar place: on the top of the odds board as the favorite to win the MVP award. He had the narrative working for him, seemingly more deserving of the award than his third place finish last year would indicate after the Mavs run to the NBA Finals. However, in order to take advantage of that narrative shift, it’s important to play up to your standard. Which leads us to now, where Luka has found himself fifth in ESPN’s first MVP straw poll. It’s been an uneven start for Luka, as he’s been fighting through a slew of injuries to start the year and therefore played below the level that he was at last year. Our editor Kirk Henderson and friend of the site Jason Gallagher had an excellent conversation on this a couple weeks ago, with most of the talking points still being relevant today.
Straw poll results
Three players have seemingly separated themselves from the pack, with Nikola Jokic (827 voting points), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (678 points) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (643 points) each receiving first place votes. Fourth place was Jayson Tatum, who found himself nearly 400 voting points behind Antetokounmpo (267 points).
That leads us to Doncic, who was fifth at 123 points. Of the 100 voters who take part in the poll, only 67 had Luka Doncic on their ballot, and the vast majority of those were as fifth place votes. It’s pretty clear that Luka finds himself on the outside of the race at the moment. The Mavericks have flown somewhat under the radar to this point, however, so any traction that the Mavs make between now and the All-Star Break will obviously help him get back into the race. It is just unfortunate that he once again finds himself needing a big finish to really get into the MVP race.
Those five were the only players to be on over half of the ballots. Bontemps has written about the results and narrative around the award, which you can check out here. (ESPN+ required) For what it’s worth, our friends at the DraftKings Sportsbook have Luka fourth in MVP odds (+800), behind Jokic (+115), SGA (+260) and Giannis (+500). Tatum checks in at (+1300), which places him at fifth. There are many twists and turns remaining in this race, so we’ll see how things shake out over the coming weeks.