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Group D: Candidates, but only if their team improves rapidly
14) Karl-Anthony Towns
Towns is hard to judge currently given all the drama surrounding his soon-to-be former teammate Jimmy Butler. He can be scratched from this list entirely if Butler isn't traded out of Minnesota, but if Butler's trade request is granted then it opens up the possibility for Towns to dominate.
The star center has shown little improvement since he has entered the league, but he is still young and this could be a year in which he switches himself on defensively, plays smarter basketball and takes over games the way he has proven he can. Towns is still just 22 years old, he clearly still has room to improve despite stagnating slightly over the last 18 months.
If Butler does indeed get traded and Towns responds by improving in all the areas he has been criticised - specifically the areas Butler has publicly addressed such as being soft - then he will catch the eye of the voters and become a leading candidate.
He averaged 21.3 points and 12.3 rebounds per game last season (with Butler) compared to 25.1 points and 12.3 rebounds per game the prior season (without Butler). Can he lift his numbers to new heights when Butler inevitably leaves Minnesota? It's likely, but that won't get him in the MVP conversation unless the Wolves take a big step forward.
13) Damian Lillard
Lillard's Trail Blazers finished third in the West last season before being swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Pelicans. What can Dame do to push himself past his Western Conference guard rivals and establish himself as the game's premier player?
After finishing third in the conference last year and putting up career-best numbers it's hard to see him climbing any higher, but it's not impossible. The equation is pretty simple for Lillard: lead the Blazers to more wins than either the Rockets or Warriors. If he can get his team to a top-two seed then he will be hard to overlook as a possible MVP winner, assuming his output remains steady.
It's tough to see this happening given there are at least four superior guards in the western conference alone, but it's possible we haven't seen the best of Lillard and the Blazers.
12) Nikola Jokic
Jokic is the best player on a team with no true superstar. The Nuggets have an excellent core, but they need Jokic to step into a dominant superstar role if they are going to continue climbing the Western Conference standings. Per Basketball-Reference, Jokic is one of just five centers in the history of the NBA to average better than 18 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists in a single season.
The other four are Wilt Chamberlain (he did it four times), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (twice), Bill Walton, and DeMarcus Cousins - pretty good company for the former second-round draft pick. Jokic and Chamberlain (twice) are the only ones to achieve those same numbers with the assist qualifier increased to six.
Can Jokic translate these numbers into winning 55+ games? If he does he will be firmly in the MVP discussion. The Nuggets are currently one of five or six teams fighting for three or four playoff spots; Jokic will rightfully enter the discussion if he leads them to the top of that pack, and maybe even win MVP if he takes them higher.
11) Victor Oladipo
There was a reason he was a number 2 pick in 2013, albeit in a weak draft. Oladipo put up good numbers for a young player on a bad team in Orlando, then became an afterthought when he appeared to have gone backwards during his stint with Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City. Now, finally on a team with good coaching and management, Oladipo has entered the start of his prime as a budding superstar.
If Oladipo plays the same thrilling brand of two-way basketball he did last year and leads the new and improved Pacers to a top-two seed in the East - meaning they will have to win more games than two of Toronto, Boston and Philly - he will be firmly in the conversation. He has the attractive stats (23.1 points per game on 47.4% shooting and led the league with 2.4 steals per game last year), he has the narrative (number 2 pick who was labelled a bust after his unsuccessful year with the Thunder), he has the media hype (honestly who doesn't love Oladipo? From experts on ESPN to average joe Twitter users, Oladipo was almost never criticised or slandered last season).
Mix those three factors with a top-two seed and he will be one of the lead candidates. Securing the top-two seed will be the hardest part in an Eastern Conference which finally has more than one team contending for a spot in the finals.
