Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets has won the NBA’s regular season MVP award in three of the last four seasons, but it won’t be easy for him to make it four MVPs next season.
The league is very much awash in talent, and there are a handful of superstars who will be looking to take that award away from him next season.
Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young said recently that if the Boston Celtics won the NBA championship, Jayson Tatum should be the front-runner for the 2025 MVP award, and he still feels that way, per Bleacher Report.
.@TheTraeYoung thinks Jayson Tatum should be MVP front-runner next season 👀
(via From the Point by Trae Young) pic.twitter.com/QJIikab4Jg
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 25, 2024
Tatum finished sixth in this year’s MVP balloting, but he put up excellent stats — 26.9 points, 8.1 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game — and helped lead Boston to the league’s best record in the regular season.
The knock against him has been that he has been developing a habit of underperforming on the big stage.
He played poorly in the 2022 NBA Finals, and last year, in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, he mustered just 14 points on 5-of-13 shooting as the Celtics lost by 19 points at home to the Miami Heat.
Tatum was following the same trend in this year’s championship series, but in the Game 5 clincher, he had 31 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds to help the Celtics clinch the world title by 18 points over the Dallas Mavericks.
Winning the regular season MVP award would certainly help elevate his legacy and bring him a bit closer to those of the great Celtics superstars of the past.
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