NBA Playoff MVP Ladder | Nikola Jokic & Luka Doncic Lead List Heading Into Finals

And then there were two.

We're down to just the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks for the 2024 NBA title, and the storylines for the Finals are endless and juicy.

Kyrie Irving and Kristaps Porzingis face off against their old teams, and Luka Doncic and Jayson Tatum battle to win a first ring and perhaps take the mantle as next face of the NBA.

Either Doncic or Tatum will likely win Finals MVP, but why isn't there a playoff MVP to recognize greatness for the two-month journey these players have been on along the way?

There's a certain joy in the subjective silliness of a small-sample conference or Finals MVP trophy, and the little moments matter, but there's just as much to be learned by zooming out to see the big picture too.

This is your 2024 NBA Playoff MVP ladder top 10 as we head into the NBA Finals.

If you need a refresher, here were the Playoff MVP ranks after one round, and below are the ranks after two.

Honorable Mentions

Irving is a true honorable mention, just missing the cut at what would've been No. 11 on the list, but it should be noted how far Kyrie has fallen since a terrific first round when he debuted at No. 7 on the ladder.

In the two rounds since, Irving is averaging just 20.8 points and 5.5 assists per game and has scored 22 or fewer points in eight of 11 games. His Box Plus-Minus during this stretch sits at 0.3 BPM, barely above replacement starter level with only three games at above-average three-plus BPM.

His defense has fallen off mightily at 119 DRTG in this stretch, and he's dropped to sub-53% EFG.

Irving finally exploded against Minnesota once the series was effectively already over, and we're talking about Dallas like it has two superstars. Instead, Kyrie has barely even played like a star the last two rounds, and now he'll be defended by Derrick White and Jrue Holiday, his toughest assignment of the postseason.

Dallas could look much more like a one-star team than a two-star squad in the Finals.

As for Jaylen Brown, I have real questions over why he's considered Boston's second star at all.

Everyone is so eager to discredit Tatum's status as a top-five player — we'll get back to that — that they're apparently willing to credit a much lesser player as something he's not.

Credit where it's due: Brown is scoring efficiently this postseason. He's done so against the worst defense in the playoffs, though, (Indiana and a Cleveland squad with no real answers on the wing). And even then, he's had just three 30-point games and seven games with at least three turnovers, which has been a consistent problem.

Brown has only four games with at least a 4.0 BPM these playoffs — an All-Star type performance — but he's had six already with a negative BPM. He has the worst offensive and defensive ratings of any Boston starter.

But Boston's starters are really good.

Maybe that's not a fair comparison. Fair enough, let's zoom out.

Among players who've played 100 minutes this postseason, Brown ranks 14th in Win Shares. He's tied for 50th in BPM with Jusuf Nurkic and T.J. McConnell. He ranks 62nd in ORTG.

Heck, Brown nearly ranks fifth among just variously-spelled Jalens in BPM, behind Jaylin Williams, Jalen Brunson and Jalen Williams and just barely ahead of Jalen Suggs.

Brown is an efficient secondary scorer. He doesn't create well for teammates, turns it over a lot, doesn't rebound a ton, is probably the worst shooter in Boston's rotation and is the Celtics' worst defensive starter, by a lot.

And sure, he made a few nice plays in the clutch in games against mediocre teams missing their stars, but maybe those games never get to the clutch if he plays better to start with.

Brown is a perfectly nice player in a great situation playing with the best teammates in basketball. Perhaps it's time we accept what Brown is, instead of insisting on pretending he's something he's not.

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Tier IV — The East Just Wasn't That Great

The truth is that none of the players from the Boston-Indiana series deserve to rank particularly high on a playoff MVP ladder.

Tyrese Haliburton is the one guy who's consistently played like a star, though he had a pretty disappointing first round and played only a game and a half in the ECF before bowing out.

It's encouraging to see how Haliburton came around — especially with his 3-point shot — after the slow start.

As for the Celtics, Derrick White should probably have been the ECF MVP — not either of the Jays — and he's been Boston's best and most consistent player this postseason.

White was brilliant defensively against Indiana with 17 stocks in just the four games, and he continues to play uber-efficient offense with 17.8 points and 4.6 assists a game on 47/41/89 shooting while almost never turning it over. He even hit the ECF-clinching shot.

White is the exact sort of do-everything player that consistently pops up on winning championship teams. Sub him in for Mike Conley, Jamal Murray or Jalen Williams, and one of those teams is probably playing in the Finals right now instead of Dallas.

As for Tatum? He's been fine, mostly. He hasn't needed to do too much yet, and he hasn't. The volume is there, but the efficiency has been moderate at best — especially considering the competition — and the shotmaking has been subpar.

For a guy that's the odds-on Finals MVP, Tatum will need to have saved his best series for last if Boston is going to win the championship. He'll also have to out-duel Luka Doncic to do it.

Truth be told, it would've been difficult for any Boston player to rank as all that "valuable" in three walkover series against relatively mediocre opponents missing stars — but that's not Dallas. Game on, Boston.

Tier III — The Previously Departed

Not much needs to be said here about guys that have already been gone for at least a round, but these are all players who contributed at a significantly higher level than the players already discussed, even if their teammates didn't come through enough to advance.

There's a fair argument to be made that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been the second-best player in the playoffs thus far at 30/7/7 on 58% True Shooting and an impressive 9.2 BPM. He hit a game winner against New Orleans and did everything on both ends against Dallas. He was clearly the best player in a series featuring Doncic and Irving, but his teammates simply weren't good enough.

Just another reminder that basketball remains a team game, not an individual one.

Stars lead teams, but teams win championships.

Tier II — Contenders to the Throne

The Western Conference Finals were always going to be billed as a showdown between two of the league's best and brightest young stars, and there's little question about which star came out on top.

Anthony Edwards wasn't good enough.

Edwards ranked No. 2 on the playoff MVP ladder after last round, but he wasn't great in the WCF. His scoring dropped to 24.6 points per game in the series, nowhere near enough with Minnesota's offense struggling mightily. This came after he sputtered to the finish against Denver, too, in an up-and-down series.

Still, Ant-Man wasn't exactly bad, either. He led all Timberwolves in points, rebounds, assists, 3s and free-throw attempts and played 37 more minutes than any teammate, effectively an entire extra game.

He also played tough defense, matching up against Doncic or Irving for most of the series.

Even in a down series, Edwards was still good, just not great. Minnesota would've lasted longer if Edwards played better, but it would've helped if Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels didn't stink, too.

Edwards was awesome in an opening-round sweep, up and down against Denver and then at his worst in the last round.

Doncic's arc has been just the opposite.

Luka was mediocre in the opening round, as Dallas struggled against the Kawhi Leonard-less Clippers. He was better but still not great against the Thunder while being outplayed by SGA but bailed out by P.J. Washington. And now, finally, great against the Timberwolves (as Dereck Lively II turned into Wilt Chamberlain for the week).

Still, there's something to be said about peaking later in the playoffs in the biggest moments against the toughest opponents, and Doncic has sliced and diced two of the league's best defenses over the last few weeks.

He's nearly averaging a 30-point triple-double for the playoffs, all while playing better defense than ever. And plus, he hit that iconic step-back 3-pointer in Game 2 that all but ended the WCF.

That said, Doncic is hitting just 51% of his 2s for the playoffs and only 34% of his 3s. That's just 56% True Shooting on a 116 ORG — all pretty average numbers — and it's not going to get any easier against Tatum, Brown, White and Holiday.

As good as Doncic has been, this is actually his worst playoff run by BPM with his least efficient shooting, and Dallas continues to win with elite defense and just enough offense, not the other way around.

Doncic's arc is trending up and Ant's arc ended up trending down, but the two have pretty similar numbers through three rounds. Both are bright young stars, buoyed by excellent defense, but Doncic has been a little better, while also getting a lot more help from his teammates offensively.

Unless he collapses with a terrible Finals, Doncic will likely end up this year's deserving playoff MVP, but let's not rush to crown him as the best player in the world.

He's played nowhere near that level and still has to beat the final boss before we can even move him to the top of the contenders list ahead of more proven names like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid — and even in the same stratosphere as Nikola Jokic.

Tier I — The King Stays King

Despite spending the last week presumably playing with his horses in Serbia, Jokic still leads all NBA players in playoff BPM, Win Shares and VORP. Even with only 12 games under his belt, Jokic was simply that much better than everyone else, just like he's been for four years running.

If you like Luka's 29/9/9, you're sure to like Jokic's 29/13/9 even more — especially since he's 10 points per 100 better in Offensive Rating so far this postseason, with 7% better True Shooting than Doncic and 66% higher in Box Plus-Minus.

And he's better at just about any other advanced metric you prefer to check too.

Jokic is not going to win playoff MVP, not in just two rounds. You have to win in the playoffs, and Jokic didn't win enough, whether that was his fault or Murray's or his other teammates (hint: mostly the latter).

It wasn't the first time that by far the best player in the playoffs didn't win it all or even make it to the Finals, and it won't be the last.

Basketball is a team game. It's no coincidence that the Celtics and Mavs are still standing, considering the elite performances by role players like White, Washington and Lively at various moments.

And it's no coincidence either that the Nuggets are at home when Murray was a pretty strong contender for the playoffs' least valuable player, offsetting much of Jokic's greatness.

Doncic will win the 2024 playoff MVP when all is said and done, barring a disaster in the Finals. If he's even decent there, he'll effectively win it by default at this point in a postseason marked by half the superstars' teammates not being good enough and the other half getting injured.

So what will the final story of the 2024 NBA Playoffs be?

Will it be about the one remaining superstar who got just enough help from his teammates to get the job done when it mattered most? Or will the 2024 NBA Finals just be one final reminder that basketball remains a team game?