A two-person race where everyone picks their side and digs in, slinging spirited pleas, peppering propaganda and shouting down from an ivory tower at anyone who

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has sat at the very top of the NBA MVP rankings over the last several weeks. This battle between him, Nikola Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo has been close, but now there is a wide gap between Gilgeous-Alexander and the rest of the field.

This stretch of January around Martin Luther King Jr. Day is usually peak evaluation time in the NBA front-office world. It’s one of the milestone points where teams will have full-staff pow-wows and talk things out,