NBA MVP race 2025: Sensational statistics
On a purely statistical and individual basis, for some, it’s hard to deny that Jokic has an edge.
Apart from Gilgeous-Alexander outdoing Jokic on points and blocks per game, in six fewer showings Jokic tops the rest of the stat lines.
But it’s not just in the direct head-to-head that the Serbian stands out.
He is notably the first player in NBA history to rank in the season’s top 10 for points per game, rebounds, assists, and steals. But Jokic has gone even further than just making the top 10: he sits in the top three for all four of those key statistical areas, showing an all-around mastery never before seen.
Then there are the one-off performances Jokic has managed to pull off.
In March, he became the first player to record a rare triple-double of at least 30 points, 20 rebounds, and 20 assists. He notched 31 points, 21 rebounds, and 22 assists in the 149-141 overtime win over the Phoenix Suns.
Earlier this month, he recorded a career-high 61 points to score the most points in a single game by any player this season while also backing it up with 10 rebounds and 10 assists to own the title for the most points in a triple-double in NBA history.
By nearly all accounts, the two-time Olympic medallist had a better statistical season than his previous three MVP seasons. Only in 2021-22 was he more efficient.
Not to be outdone, however, Gilgeous-Alexander, in the domain of stats, has also blazed a trail, as many of his advocates point out.
This season, he scored a career-high 54 points against the Utah Jazz in January: the eighth-highest effort by any player in 2024/25.
In one of the biggest regular season game meetings against the Eastern Conference’s Cavaliers, after losing in the first match-up, the Canadian exploded in the return meeting, finishing with 40 points in 29 minutes in addition to notching eight assists and three rebounds.
Perhaps most consequentially, in the 24 games against the eight other 50-win teams in the league, he averaged 33.5 points in 35.1 minutes – proving that, even against the best of the rest, Gilgeous-Alexander has stayed a scoring threat, underlining just why he sits atop the points per game average by some margin.
