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[OC] Tracking NBA MVP & Awards Votes (SGA 2 - Jokić 1) & Predicting the Awards Voters
Main Post:
SGA is the betting favorite to win his first MVP over Nikola Jokić. Media members are starting to declare who got their vote and this is the unofficial effort to track those votes.
Media ballots will be due on April 18th (per Rob Mahoney). Voters have been privately notified by the NBA and will receive their ballots at the end of the regular season.
For the last 8 years I've accurately identified the MVP award winner by tracking the media voters and votes for NBA Awards (with your help). Example: Zach Lowe does a podcast saying "I have a ballot this year and I'm voting for SGA." I track it in a spreadsheet.
It's still early. Right now I've found 3 media member first place votes:
- 2 First Place MVP votes for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
- 1 First Place MVP vote for Nikola Jokić
**View the 2025 NBA Award Tracker Here**
Sounds easy. What's the purpose?
The NBA does not make the list of voters public. I try to remove the mystery by tracking down the voters and sourcing their comments. Each entry in the spreadsheet is sourced through a link to the podcast, interview, or article. I have written way too much about this over the years and you can read more about my methodology in last year's post here.
My spreadsheet tracks the following awards.
- NBA MVP
- All-NBA Teams
- Defensive Player of the Year
- Sixth Man of the Year
- Rookie of the Year
- Most Improved Player of the Year
- Coach of the Year
I rarely find enough votes for the other awards and teams to make tracking a worthwhile effort.
Lastly, this is meant to be fun and help us arrive at an answer before the league announces the winners. I started this because of the NBA's Awards Show, when they waited until after the season (!) to announce the 2017 MVP between Harden and Westbrook.
I am a Houston Rockets partisan. I recall Hakeem Olajuwon torching David Robinson in the playoffs the same night The Admiral was given an MVP over The Dream. To this day it's a narrative included in YouTube videos and look backs.
If you have a sick parlay relying on one of these awards, I wish you the best, but this effort won't change anything for you.
Prediction of who the 2025 awards voters are
As of today, the voters have been privately notified they will be in the voting pool. But, they do not have their ballots.
Last year's switch to a games played limit for award eligibility means voters won't receive their ballots until either the last day of the season or after the last game of the regular season has been played. Media members have confirmed this in podcasts over the last week.
The ballot should be a series of dropdown selections with ineligible players removed to standardize eligibility for all voters. The submission deadline is before the first playoff game to prevent those games from influencing any voter sentiment.
The pool is traditionally 100 media members, last year it was slightly less. In many past seasons there was a little known public fan vote (shout out Knicks fans who gamed it for Derrick Rose several years ago). I've seen no evidence of a fan vote this season.
That all said. Let's try and identify who this year's voters are.
Publicly Declared Voters: 9 Media Members
So far, I've found 9 media members who have publicly affirmed they have an awards ballot this season.
- Rob Mahoney, The Ringer
- Brian Windhorst, ESPN
- Claire de Lune, The Guardian
- Howard Beck, The Ringer
- Fred Katz, The Athletic
- Tim Bontemps, ESPN
- Michael Pina, The Ringer
- Joe Vardon, The Athletic
- Kevin O'Connor, Yahoo!
Straightforward. These are in the spreadsheet. I'll add folks who affirm they are voters even if we don't have their vote.
Probable Voters: 68 Media Members
This list of 68 media members almost certainly have ballots. If they declare a vote I will include them in the "Confirmed Ballots" section citing "Voting History" as the reason for inclusion.
Each of these media members meets the following criteria:
- The media member voted for the 2025 NBA All-Star Starters
- The media member voted for the 2024 NBA MVP & Awards
- The media member voted for the 2024 NBA All-Star Starters
- The media member is at the same publication/has the same employer as when they cast the three ballots listed above
Media Members & Publications:
- Matt Winer|Warner Bros. Discovery
- Chao Meng|Tencent ESPN
- Chris Broussard|Fox
- Duane Rankin|Arizona Republic
- Tim Reynolds|Associated Press
- Taylor Rooks|Bleacher Report
- Adam Himmelsbach|Boston Globe
- Bill Reiter| CBSSports.com
- Chris Fedor| Cleveland.com
- Bennett Durando|Denver Post
- Cassidy Hubbarth|ESPN
- Marc Kestecher|ESPN
- Dave McMenamin|ESPN
- Chiney Ogwumike|ESPN
- Dave Pasch|ESPN
- Kevin Pelton|ESPN
- Ramona Shelburne|ESPN
- Melissa Rohlin|Fox Sports
- Ric Bucher|FS1
- Maxime Aubin|L'Equipe
- Simone Sandri|La Gazzetta Dello Sport
- Damichael Cole|Memphis Commerical Appeal
- Anthony Chiang|Miami Herald
- Antoni Daimiel|Movistar+
- Steve Aschburner| NBA.com
- Shaun Powell| NBA.com
- John Schuhmann| NBA.com
- Kurt Helin| NBCSports.com
- Jason Beede|Orlando Sentinel
- Keith Pompey|Phildelphia Inquirer
- Jason Anderson|Sacramento Bee
- Jeff McDonald|San Antonio Express-News
- Brian Geltzeiler|SiriusXM Radio
- Justin Termine|SiriusXM Radio
- Frank Isola|Sirus Radio
- Yoav Modai|Sport 5| |
- Yoko Miyaji|Sports Graphic Number
- David Aldridge|The Athletic
- Sam Amick|The Athletic
- Zach Harper|The Athletic
- Josh Robbins|The Athletic DC
- Anthony Slater|The Athletic GSW
- Eric Nehm|The Athletic Milwaukee
- Will Guillory|The Athletic NO
- Ryen Russillo|The Ringer
- Bill Simmons|The Ringer
- Jared Greenberg|Warner Bros. Discovery
- Ernie Johnson|Warner Bros. Discovery
- Stephanie Ready|Warner Bros. Discovery
- Dennis Scott|Warner Bros. Discovery
- Steve Smith|Warner Bros. Discovery
- Stan Van Gundy|Warner Bros. Discovery
- Vince Goodwill|Yahoo!
- Dan Devine|Yahoo! Sports
- Gary Washburn|Boston Globe
- Michael Wilbon|ESPN
- Michael Wright| NBA.com
- Roderick Boone|Charlotte Observer
- Stephen A. Smith|ESPN
- Richard Jefferson|ESPN
- Kendrick Perkins|ESPN
- Michael Grange|Rogers Sportsnet
- Chris Mannix|Sports Illustrated
- Kelly Iko|The Athletic HOU
- Doug Smith|The Toronto Star
- Adam Lefkoe|Warner Bros. Discovery
- Greg Anthony|Warner Bros. Discovery
- Jeff Zillgitt|USA Today
That brings us to 77 voters of a presumed 100 total (the total number of voters is not set).
Possible Voters: 18 ballots?
This is where we start throwing some darts. Here's buckets of media members who I will be trying to determine if they have votes this year. I welcome your help doing so.
- 7 former voters with 2025 All-Star ballots. In the voting for the 2025 All-Star starters, seven media members were 'returned' to the voting pool after time away. All of these folks were omitted from 2024 voting privileges. They cast previous ballots for MVP and remain at the publications they were at when they voted in the past. Many of them are local writers representing NBA markets: Aaron Fentress with The Oregonian, Brian Lewis with the New York Post, Omari Sankofa II with the Detroit Free Press, Andy Larsen with the Salt Lake Tribune, Steve Popper with Newsday, Jovan Buha with The Athletic, Eric Koreen with The Athletic. Fred Katz also meets these criteria and has publicly stated he has a ballot (included above).
- 5 new media members with 2025 All-Star ballots. There are five voters for the 2025 All-Star starters who never cast an NBA awards ballot before. Kyle Hightower with the Associated Press, Mike Curtis with the Dallas Morning News, Sebastian Martinez-Christensen with ESPN Latin America, Aurelia Rike with OpenCourt-Baksetball.com (she appears to represent German media as there's been at least 10 international media members in each voting pool since 2017), and Law Murray with The Athletic. Claire de Lune with The Guardian also meets these criteria and has publicly stated she has a ballot (included above).
- 5 media members who cast ballots for the last 2 MVPs. There's four folks voted for MVP in 2023 and 2024, but not for the 2025 All-Star starters. There have been voters who want the MVP ballot, but not the All-Star ballot. So I'll be looking for these folks. Shams Charania, Ohm Youngmisuk with ESPN, Mike Greenberg with ESPN, Khobi Price with Southern California News Group, and Seerat Sohi with the Ringer.
- Rachel Nichols. I bet she's a voter this year, but she switched media outlets in the last year from Showtime to being on several different outlets with different shows and properties. Last year she did a podcast about awards that was painfully edited to keep her own votes out of it.
No guarantee all those folks are voters. But that would make 95 folks if so. The NBA does a small level of rotation each year. But generally >90% of the All-Star Starter voters are also MVP voters.
How You Can Help:
If you find any media member saying they have an official NBA Awards ballot, even if they don't say who they vote for, send it my way. There are several contact methods in the spreadsheet.
Include a link or timestamp to anything you find. I include primary sourcing in all tracking efforts. If Stan Van Gundy says his vote in the third quarter of an NBA playoff broadcast send me a note saying what game and what minute he shared his ballot.
Lastly, I'm a dude with no editor who does this for fun. I'll correct stuff I get wrong. Ask questions, I'm happy to answer. You can find all the archived tracking efforts to view their accuracy linked in the spreadsheet.
Top Comment: Stephen A. Smith is for sure voting SGA. Source: anytime he's ever spoken about MVP
[Marc Stein] The latest NBA All-Star voting returns are in ... with fan voting closing Monday:
Main Post: [Marc Stein] The latest NBA All-Star voting returns are in ... with fan voting closing Monday:
Top Comment: Herro at the bottom is rude but Poole in front of him shows democracy is actually a mistake.
[NBA] Full voting breakdown of 2022-23 Most Valuable Player of the Year award
Main Post: [NBA] Full voting breakdown of 2022-23 Most Valuable Player of the Year award
Top Comment: Someone had Jokic outside top 3
[OC] The 2023 NBA MVP & Awards Vote Tracker
Main Post:
It's NBA voting season and the Reddit NBA vote tracker is back.
Each year I track the media voters and votes for the NBA MVP award in real time. I compile evidence of media members saying they are voters and how they are casting those votes for the NBA MVP and awards.
**View the 2023 NBA MVP & Awards Tracker Here**
It is still early for vote tracking. Most public vote disclosures happen after the ballots are due. Right now I have identified three first places votes for MVP and they are spread:
- 1 vote for Nikola Jokic
- 1 vote for Joel Embiid
- 1 vote for Giannis Antetokounmpo
I'll note that I am surprised to see Stephen A. Smith state his preference so clearly as early as he did. Normally he milks it a bit more. But if he declares he has changed to undecided or another player I will update that.
History:
This is a crowdsourced project and last year we correctly identified 56 of the 100 NBA MVP voters with a 98.5% accuracy rate of their ballots.
The league does not publicly disclose the voters for the NBA awards so I try to remove the mystery. This project strives for accuracy and simply takes voters at their word and the statements they make on podcasts, TV, articles, and generally anywhere.
This started in 2017 because I'm a Rockets fan. I'm proud to have spoiled the now defunct NBA Awards show that year by determining Westbrook's win through publicly available votes. Even though my guy didn't win. I currently have no favored outcome on anything in the NBA but the draft lottery. You can find links to each year's vote tracker in the spreadsheet linked above.
The tracker follows these awards:
- NBA MVP
- All-NBA Teams
- Defensive Player of the Year
- Sixth Man of the Year
- Rookie of the Year
- Most Improved Player of the Year
- Coach of the Year
While there are other awards there are generally not enough public vote disclosures for defensive or rookie teams to track them with any meaning. So I take a pass on tracking those awards.
Summary:
Here's the items I'll briefly cover in this post...
- Presumed changes to the awards
- Predicting the NBA Awards Voters
- How is this different from the straw poll
- How you can help
Presumed changes to the awards:
- No Fan Vote. It appears the NBA eliminated the MVP Fan Vote for good. From 2017 - 2021 the voting pool was 100 media members and 1 Fan Vote. The 101st fan vote disappeared in 2022. That's fair. In 2021 'we the fans' questionably gave the vote to Derrick Rose. That seems to be the NBA's fault as it was nearly impossible to find out how to cast a fan vote for NBA MVP that season. Knicks fans figured it out and gamed the system. Sam Amick wrote that the voting pool this year is 100 media members only. There's a chance he didn't realize the fan vote previously existed, but either way I can't find a single reference to a fan vote or process for casting one in 2023.
- No Awards Show. Feels like the NBA has given up on the awards show. Presumably the biggest issue is the need for teams to have certainty over their cap figures and the contract eligibility of trade targets before the draft. Waiting for an awards show to tell you who is eligible for a supermax is wild in a league that now trades All-Stars every year.
- All-NBA Stays The Same. You may have read that All-NBA will not have positions in the future under the new CBA. That change is for 2024.
- Clutch Player. Voters get to vote for this award. But I will not be tracking the award unless I see a significant enough number of public disclosures.
Predicting the NBA Awards Voters
In the past I've done a lengthy post predicting who the NBA Awards voters are. That doesn't feel necessary this year because over the last two years the NBA hasn't significantly changed the voting pool between NBA All-Star Starters and NBA Awards:
- In 2017: 95% of the All-Star media voters also voted for NBA MVP
- In 2018: 93% of the All-Star media voters also voted for NBA MVP
- In 2019: 91% of the All-Star media voters also voted for NBA MVP
- In 2020: 95% of the All-Star media voters also voted for NBA MVP
- In 2021: 97% of the All-Star media voters also voted for NBA MVP
- In 2022: 97% of the All-Star media voters also voted for NBA MVP
I can't imagine the league has decided to deviate from this trend. But if the league has changed the voting pool I require one of two things before adding a voter in the spreadsheet:
- Option One: A voter publicly discloses they have an official ballot this year. I include a link to where they say that. Example: John Hollinger did an Athletic article with his "ballot" but says in the article directly he's not an official voter. Michael Pina did a similar article while including that he is a voter.
- Option Two: A voter has consistent voting history. I personally refer to this as "good standing" and will include a voter who has not publicly disclosed that they have a ballot if they meet the following requirements...
- The media member voted for the 2023 NBA All-Star Starters
- The media member voted for the 2022 NBA MVP & Awards
- The media member voted for the 2022 NBA All-Star Starters
- The media member is at the same publication/has the same employer currently as when they cast the three ballots listed above
How Is This Different From The Straw Poll:
If you're in this sub you know about the Bontemps NBA MVP Straw Poll. My project is an attempt to locate the actual voters and what they cast on their final ballots.
The Straw Poll does not disclose participants. It would seem foolish if the league provided Bontemps a list of the voters for him to poll right before the actual award comes out. So there's probably a lot of voter overlap in the Bontemps straw poll and actual voters, but it is not one-to-one.
- The straw poll does a noble job of including two voters from every NBA media market. The NBA Awards do not come close to that. The league generally has one voter from all but a few of the media markets. Some markets have been left out in past years.
- Markets like Utah, San Antonio, Charlotte, and Milwaukee reliably have one vote in the NBA Awards. But unless you start including national media members with favored affiliations you don't get close to two from every market. Similarly the league has voters located in NBA cities but they don't cover the team in that city. Example: Lots of Turner folks live in Atlanta, they do not cover the Hawks and I would not consider them a voter for the Atlanta media market. They are national voters.
Lastly, I don't know if the league provides a list of the voters to anyone. We see that teams lobby voters for players they want to win. In the past that has included swag boxes. I'm unaware if teams do the same thing I do or if they are given a full list.
How You Can Help:
If you find any media members sharing their votes send it my way.
If you find any media member saying they have an official NBA Awards ballot, even if they don't say who they vote for, send it my way.
Include a link or timestamp to anything you find. I include primary sourcing in all tracking efforts. If Marv Albert says his vote in the third quarter of an NBA broadcast send me a note saying what game and what minute he shared his ballot.
Also if you see any presumed errors in the tracker hit me up. I'm a single person admittedly with no editor who does this for fun. I may have something wrong and will always correct it asap if I do.
Top Comment: Chris Broussard MVP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TTyMlpXT_g u/texasalaskamontana Embiid Giannis Jokic Tatum Mitchell
Here’s the breakdown of the NBA All-Star starter voting
Main Post:
Starters for the 2023 NBA All-Star Game were selected by fans, current NBA players and a media panel. Fans accounted for 50 percent of the vote to determine the starters, while players and media accounted for 25 percent each.
After all votes were tallied, players were ranked in each conference by position (guard and frontcourt) within each of the three voting groups. Each player’s score was calculated by averaging his weighted rank from the fan votes, the player votes and the media votes. The two guards and three frontcourt players with the best score in each conference were named NBA All-Star Game starters.
Click on the links below for the voting results from each position group. Each player’s score was weighted based on 50 percent for fan vote, 25 percent for players vote and 25 percent for media vote. The formula to determine a player’s score is (Fan Rank * 2 + Player Rank + Media Rank)/4.
https://pr.nba.com/voting-results-2023-nba-all-star-game-starters/
Final fan vote totals: https://twitter.com/nbapr/status/1618779037975072768?s=46&t=2lQvohYLqKuOVYxGfehY6g
Top Comment:
The players do not mess with Trae lmao
IST MVP Voting: 14 votes for LeBron, 5 votes for AD, and 1 vote for Haliburton (by Dustin Dopirak who is from Indianapolis Star)
Main Post:
I'm glad AD has gotten some love from the panelists. Though he was the MVP of the final game, LeBron has been amazing throughout the tournament.
I think Tyrese would have won the MVP if the Pacers won it, but it's kinda weird that his only vote came from a journalist who works for the Indianapolis Star.
Don't forget the fan voting: 3 LeBron, 2 Haliburton.
https://twitter.com/NBAPR/status/1733708418744242418
Top Comment:
Its for the whole tournament though Lebron wins it....not controversial
Have your say: 2023 r/nba Awards Voting
Main Post:
Hi everyone,
I did this a few years ago and thought it was a good time to bring it back. This is your chance to have a say on each of the major end of season awards. It's structured in the same way as the actual awards voting (1st to 5th place for MVP voting and 1st to 3rd place for the rest) so we can get a good comparison between our results and the real thing.
Voting will close in a few days and I'll release the results shortly thereafter.
Top Comment:
I hope there’s a ballot for All-NBA as well. I wanna see how cursed this sub’s opinions are
[OC] NBA MVP Vote Tracker: Joel Embiid has clear lead 27 of 41 first place MVP votes
Main Post:
I'm the guy who tracks the NBA MVP Awards every year. Through public tracking Joel Embiid has a clear lead for MVP with 27 of 41 publicly disclosed first place votes.
**View the 2023 NBA MVP/Awards Tracker**
As of Saturday morning in the spreadsheet we've found a presumed 41 of the 100 NBA first place NBA MVP votes:
- Joel Embiid: 27 first place votes
- Nikola Jokic: 7 first place votes
- Giannis Antetokounmpo: 7 first place votes
Trends:
- Embiid appears in third place in only one of twenty five ballots we've found votes one through three. This means there are likely less variables at play in this race than originally presumed.
- Voters appear to be making a decision between Embiid or Giannis/Jokic. There is not a consolidated trend running against Embiid.
If you are curious about the process the Basketball Illuminati podcast had me on as a guest this week. Find that podcast here: https://t.co/UZQ1kq0Oea
Amin Elhassan is one of the hosts and a past voter and shared details about the process.
If you want to read the how and why of the spreadsheet check my past Reddit post here.
Some cautionary notes:
- The point totals are not super reflective of the real thing because the spreadsheet doesn't award any points for missing second and third place votes. In many instances we have a first place MVP vote and no others. But again, Embiid is not appearing lower than second with much frequency in found ballots so far.
- There's not many ways to project with confidence what is in the missing votes. Lots of folks have compared this to elections, but elections have enough data and voters are more likely to stick with their stated preference. Example: Democrats don't vote for the Republican because they think he is going to win and they want to pick the winner.
- I source every vote. But a voter could have changed their mind. View the sources in the spreadsheet.
- I could have a voter in the spreadsheet improperly. Last year I did not misidentify any of the voters, but I've missed on a few in the past. There are several I'm keeping out right now because it ain't entirely clear. I have already identified that there is more difference between the All-Star voters and MVP voters this season than in the past two years.
Thanks to everyone who has sent a vote, a tip, or a theory. Please keep them coming. I will keep tracking all the awards until they are each announced.
Top Comment: It’s over, Embiid has the high ground.
NBA MVP Voting Results
Main Post: NBA MVP Voting Results
Top Comment: So there is a voter who didn't think Jokic is top5
Mark Jackson explains his MVP vote
Main Post: Mark Jackson explains his MVP vote
Top Comment:
He was voting for all-NBA in his head lmaooo
NBA All-Star Voting Results
Main Post: NBA All-Star Voting Results
Top Comment:
Players have never been particularly impressed with Draymond and Klay because they look at them and think I’m faster and I can jump higher. To an extent they really don’t give Steph the full credit he deserves either. Yet somehow these overrated not ready for prime time athletes keep winning championships. Go figure.