Latest ESPN MVP straw poll indicates that Jayson Tatum has little chance of winning the award
Tatum was in the top five of the latest straw poll, but is massively behind for first place.
Jayson Tatum arguably had his best stretch of play this season in the Celtics’ last few games ahead of the All-Star break. But that wasn’t enough for him to break his way into the two-man race for MVP.
The Celtics star came in fourth place in ESPN’s latest MVP straw poll, which surveys the 100 likely voters for MVP. While Tatum was in the top five in voting with 299 points, he’s nearly 500 points away from second place and over 600 points away from first.
Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, meanwhile, held a clear edge in the voting. They were the only two players to earn a first-place vote, with Gilgeous-Alexander receiving 70 and Jokic getting 30. In fact, they nearly took all the first- and second-place votes, with Gilgeous-Alexander getting the second-place votes on the 30 Jokic first-place ballots. Jokic earned all but one of the 70 second-place votes on the Gilgeous-Alexander first-place ballots.
As Tatum is closer to receiving zero points than he is to second place in the MVP straw poll, there’s still a bit of distance between him and Giannis Antetokounmpo for third. The Bucks star received the other second-place vote and 77 third-place votes to Tatum’s 18, giving Antetokounmpo a 430-299 edge for third.
However, Tatum could squeeze into the top three soon. Antetokounmpo is currently out due to a calf injury and has already missed 12 games this season. If he misses six more games, Antetokounmpo will be ineligible to receive votes for awards.
Still, it’s pretty clear that Tatum has a tough hill to climb if he wants to receive serious consideration to win his first MVP. He has +20000 odds to win the award on DraftKings Sportsbook, holding an implied probability of 0.5 percent. Gilgeous-Alexander is the favorite at -500 (83.3 percent implied probability) and Jokic is second at +350 (22.2 percent implied probability), further indicating that it’s a two-man race at best.
Additionally, Tatum doesn’t lead in any of the major stats between the three. Gilgeous-Alexander leads in scoring, steals, and blocks per game while Jokic has the best assists and rebounds averages plus shooting percentages among the trio. Gilgeous-Alexander has also led the Thunder to a tie for the NBA’s best record ahead of the All-Star break, giving them a 5.5-game cushion over Tatum’s Celtics.
Recent history has also indicated that the second MVP straw poll conducted by ESPN has been a strong prognosticator of who’ll win the award. At this time last year, Jokic had a similar lead over Gilgeous-Alexander before winning MVP for the third time in his career.
Tatum came in sixth in that poll and finished in that spot at the end of the season. ESPN’s Tim Bontemps noted that Tatum has been voted somewhere between fourth through sixth in each of the MVP straw polls since he was in first place in the first MVP straw poll of the 2022-23 season.
Tatum is arguably having the strongest season of his eight-year career this season. He’s averaging 27 points per game to go with career highs in rebounds (8.7 per game) and assists (5.6 per game) while typically being lauded for his defensive efforts, helping the Celtics hold a 39-16 record at the break.
That might help Tatum earn his best finish yet in MVP voting as he’s never finished higher than fourth. But he’s made it clear in the past that he’d like to take home the award someday.
“As a kid, you set a lot of goals for yourself,” Tatum told reporters in October. “I’ve been very fortunate enough to check off a lot of boxes of things that I wanted to accomplish, things that my favorite players accomplished.
“Saying that MVP is important to me is not in a way taking away from the success of our team. Every guy 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.”
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