Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a top 2 NBA MVP candidate in ESPN straw poll

The closest that a former Kentucky Wildcat has come to winning the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award was Anthony Davis in the 2017-18 season. Davis finished third in voting during that campaign, trailing only LeBron James and James Harden, the latter ultimately winning the award.

Over halfway through the 2023-24 season, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is on pace to finish ahead of Davis’ third-place result in the MVP race.

On Tuesday morning, ESPN released its second straw poll of the season to get a pulse on the current MVP conversation. Gilgeous-Alexander received the second-most points (709) and trails only Nikola Jokic (889) of the Denver Nuggets, who won MVP in 2021 and 2022. SGA picked up 24 first-place votes, 54 second-place votes (the most of any player on the ballot), and 16 third-place votes.

ESPN polled 100 league insiders to gather the data for this poll. You can see how the votes were distributed below.

Admittedly, beating out Jokic for MVP come the end of the season is going to be a tough task for Gilgeous-Alexander. While it helps that reigning MVP Joel Embiid no longer qualifies for the award due to a new rule change that requires him to play a certain number of games, Jokic still holds a significant lead. The 28-year-old Serbian big man is averaging 26.3 points, 12.2 rebounds, and 9.0 assists per game on shooting splits of 58.2/36.6/81.4 — numbers that rival his two previous MVP seasons.

But this season’s award isn’t set in stone just yet. It’s certainly Jokic’s to lose at this point, but SGA is the clear-cut second option right now. With roughly 30 games still remaining in the regular season, it’s not impossible by any means for Gilgeous-Alexander to overtake Jokic down the stretch.

In 52 games played this season for the Oklahoma City Thunder — which has surprised the league with an unexpected record of 36-17, second-best in the Western Conference and ahead of the Nuggets (36-18) — Gilgeous-Alexander has solidified himself as an obvious MVP candidate. He’s currently averaging 31.1 points, 5.6 rebounds, 6.6 assists, and a league-high 2.2 steals in 34.6 minutes per outing. The former Wildcat is shooting 54.8 percent overall, 36.8 percent from three, and 88.3 percent from the free-throw line.

By the end of 2022-23, Gilgeous-Alexander finished fifth in MVP voting. A couple of strong months to close out 2023-24 could possibly push him ahead of Jokic and make him the first-ever Kentucky alum to win MVP. If not this season, he’ll likely remain in the discussion for years to come.