If Jayson Tatum wants to win MVP, he has a bit of an uphill battle to climb.
The Celtics star came in fourth place in ESPN’s first MVP straw poll of the 2024-25 season. Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo were the three players voted ahead of Tatum in ESPN’s poll, which 100 media members participated in.
While Tatum had a top-five placement in the poll, there’s a bit of separation between him and the top-three vote-getters. Jokic (57 first-place votes), Gilgeous-Alexander (24 first-place votes), and Antetokounmpo (19 first-place votes) received all the first-place votes in the poll.