The Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award is one of the most prestigious individual awards an athlete can receive during their career. It signifies they were the best player throughout their respective league during the course of the regular season.

Usually, by the 75% mark of a regular season, MVP frontrunners and nominees are obvious. However, this year in both the NFL and the NBA, the MVPs of their respective regular seasons have not been a slam dunk (no pun intended).  

Throughout the 2023 NFL season, a wide variety of names were being mentioned as possible candidates for one of the league’s top honors. Typically, the league MVP is awarded to the quarterback because fans and media members tend to give the QB credit for everything. However, this season had an interesting twist as the two front runners for MVP at the quarterback position had holes in their resumes. Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens signal caller, only threw for 24 touchdowns, a stark comparison to the 36 touchdowns he threw in his first MVP season in 2019. For San Francisco’s Brock Purdy, even though he became the first Niner QB in history (including Hall of Famers Joe Montana and Steve Young) to throw for more than 4,000 yards in a season, as well as 30-plus touchdowns, he was viewed as carrying an All-Star team of skill position players. After all, the NFC Champions had nine members of their team sent to the Pro Bowl, including running back Christian McCaffery, who racked up nearly 1,500 yards on the ground and 14 touchdowns, plus another 564 yards and seven touchdowns receiving.

Because of that success, McCaffrey was in the MVP conversation, as was Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill, who was one yard short of 1,800 receiving yards during the 2023 campaign, as well as scoring 13 touchdowns.

In the last few weeks of the season, Jackson started to separate himself from the rest of the pack and go on to win MVP for the 2023 season, but it was not as cut and dry as it had been in the past few seasons.

This has to be one of the most confusing NBA seasons in recent memory. Aside from the Boston Celtics, nobody has really separated themselves from the rest of the pack. Several different names are being mentioned in the MVP conversation this season just like how it was in the NFL. Up to this point in the season, names like Jayson Tatum of the Celtics, Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (SGA) of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks, and Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets have all had their names mentioned in the MVP discussion.

All of them have a legitimate argument to be called MVP, but they all also have flaws. Tatum is leading the best team, but he is viewed among NBA fans and most media members as a Superstar who is just a notch below the upper echelon of the league. Edwards and Gilgeous-Alexander are young players (ages 22 and 25, respectively), and they don’t have the name recognition yet as somebody who can be the face of the league even though both the T-Wolves and Thunder have been two of the best surprises of the entire NBA season. For Antetokounmpo and Jokic, it’s voter fatigue. Both have already won two MVP awards (Antetokounmpo in 2019 and 2020 and Jokic in 2021 and 2022). 

If I had to choose a front-runner for the MVP this season, I would say it’s  Gilgeous-Alexander. The Thunder are currently Top 3 in the Western Conference standings, and SGA is averaging 31 points per game, six rebounds per game, seven assists per game, and two steals per game. Heading into Sunday, Feb. 25, the Thunder are 39-17 and a half-game behind the first-place T-Wolves, who are 40-17. While the T-Wolves have both Rudy Gobert and Karl Anthony-Towns to pair with Anthony Edwards, the Thunder are heavily reliant on SGA. If SGA wasn’t with OKC, they’d be a fringe Play-In Tournament team at best. Therefore, Gilgeous-Alexander gets the nod for me.  

The MVP conversations in both the NFL and the NBA are extremely similar, and that only adds to the excitement level when fans and media members alike tune in and watch who’s going to stand out on a given night. 

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