Based On The Early Voting Results, It Looks Like Joel Embiid Is Running Away With The MVP

Jesse D. Garrabrant. Getty Images.

The NBA awards ballots were due on Monday for everything from MVP to 6MOY to All NBA to All Defense. As we wait for the playoffs to officially kick off, one of the ways I've found myself killing time is checking in on what might be the best and most valuable tool on the internet this time of year. 

A fella named Max Croes, @Croesfire, puts together an awards tracker that is legitimately incredible. If you haven't seen it by now, give it a click if you're interested in this stuff. Given that we won't get the official announcement on this stuff for a few more weeks, this is a great way to see how things are pacing based on confirmed voter's ballots. Part of it is incomplete since it's a work in progress, but it gives you a great idea of how things are shaping up.

When it comes to everyone's favorite topic, MVP, the early results are a bit surprising given what we just saw on 3/30 from ESPN's straw poll. 

It gave us the impression that we were in for one of the closest races maybe ever. A true coin flip at that point of the season with about a week left.

Well, if you take a look at the tracker and see how the MVP race is shaping up, it's starting to look like a bloodbath

While some of the other placements are still TBD (2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th place) on several ballots which do impact the overall point totals for each guy, as of now things aren't even relatively close.

Embiid - 290

Jokic - 167

Giannis - 150

Again, it's VERY early in this whole process, but there's no denying Embiid is off to a great start, so it seems like his individual play plus the added narrative piece that every MVP winner gets/needs has him positioned for a race that might not even be all that close. In a race where there is really no wrong option in terms of the top 3, unless there's a massive influx of Giannis/Jokic 1st place votes, I'm not sure how they make up ground knowing that Embiid is for sure still going to get a shit ton and already has a 25-6 lead over the next closest (Giannis).

I'm not going to sit here and tell you Embiid isn't deserving if he pulls it out. I have eyes. He had an insane season by pretty much every metric. I'd say the same thing about Jokic or Giannis as well. The only real surprise so far is the distance between the three. Given that straw poll result, I expected it to be neck and neck the whole way through. Maybe there will be a late push to make this closer, but Embiid and Sixers fans have to feel pretty good about the start.

Looking around some of the other early results, a few things stand out:

- For All NBA, there are quite a few ballots that had Luka Doncic as a forward. To me, this seems like a cheap way to just get an extra guard on the teams, but I am certainly not complaining. Why? Because Luka is going to make All NBA as a guard where he has the most votes. Any vote for a Forward spot just takes away a vote from someone who could cost Jaylen Brown an All NBA spot, so I say keep going! As of now both Jaylen Brown and Jimmy Butler are pacing to take the 2nd Team All NBA slots, and considering Jaylen just needs to make 1 of the 3 in order to be supermax eligible, those votes for Luka at Forward are only helping that become a reality.

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- The DPOY race looked wild to start, with Evan Mobley getting out to a huge early lead. That lasted about half a day, and once more and more ballots got reported suddenly Jaren Jackson Jr has himself a sizeable lead. He's the leader with 10 first place votes and 62 points overall, so a guy like Brook Lopez (7, 45) has some ground to make up. Remember, not all the slots are filled out so the point totals will shift, but it's looking like despite missing that time to start the year, JJJ did enough.

- 6MOY is a similar story in terms of there being a bunch of slots not entered yet, but as of this blog, Malcolm Brogdon has an 83-44 point lead over Immanuel Quickley, with 13 first-place votes to his 6. Of all the races, this is the one that I think is going to see the point total difference adjust the most, so I would actually look at that lead more along the lines of 83-62 or something like that (not a huge math guy). There are a ton of ballots that reported Brogdon as the winner but don't have a 2nd place guy, who is most likely going to be IQ. 

The point is, there's a LONG way to go for all this stuff, but the early results are certainly a little surprising.