Denver Nuggets' Nikola Jokic officially named NBA MVP

[RuskieTitan]

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/33899716/denver-nuggets-nikola-jokic-officially-named-nba-mvp

Quote

The league announced Wednesday night that Jokic had captured back-to-back MVP awards. The Nuggets' big man is the second consecutive international player to win two in a row, after Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo -- who hails from Greece -- earned the title in 2019 and 2020.

This marks the first time international players have won the award in four consecutive seasons. Canada's Steve Nash went back-to-back for Phoenix in 2005 and 2006, followed by Germany's Dirk Nowitzki winning for Dallas in 2007.

International players finished 1-2-3 in this year's MVP voting. Jokic got 65 first-place votes and 875 points from the panel of sportswriters and broadcasters that cover the league and decide on awards. Philadelphia's Joel Embiid was second with 26 first-place votes and 706 points; Antetokounmpo was third, with nine first-place votes and 595 points. Devin Booker of Phoenix wound up fourth.

 

Not sure he deserved MVP this year, and his pitiful showing in the playoffs - losing in the first round 4-1 - doesn't support it either.

Edited May 11, 2022 by RuskieTitan
Title.

[roger murdock]

Pretty easy MVP 

Was clearly the best player in the regular season and took a bunch of scrubs to a 6 seed. The other MVP contenders either didnt win much more (Giannis, Embiid) despite better teammates or won a lot more but are clearly worse players (Booker, Paul), or started the season really slow (Luka, Tatum).

 

Probably the best regular season since 2016 Curry individually and nobody else stood out or had a rock solid argument. 

[seminoles1]

He was the obvious choice.

[Thelonebillsfan]

His second options in the playoffs were JaMychal Green and Aaron Gordon. 

The clear and obvious choice, he was head and shoulders above everybody else.

[RaisinBran]

He's the best player in the NBA right now so no issues on my end with the selection.

[DirtyDez]

Giannis has reached the point of 90’s MJ where he should win every year but won’t.  You can make the case Barkley legitimately deserved it in 93’.

[seminoles1]

8 hours ago, DirtyDez said:

Giannis has reached the point of 90’s MJ where he should win every year but won’t.  You can make the case Barkley legitimately deserved it in 93’.

Disagreed. Jokic is clearly in the same tier as Giannis.

[Mox]

Well deserved. Hopefully his help returns so we can see who really is that dude. He and Giannis are the guys now.

[champ11]

On 5/12/2022 at 12:12 AM, DirtyDez said:

Giannis has reached the point of 90’s MJ where he should win every year but won’t.  You can make the case Barkley legitimately deserved it in 93’.

I think Giannis easily wins it if the Bucks won more games. We've seen them put up 60+ in the reg szn and they pretty much coasted at least 3 months of the regular season. Which fair or not matters when all the voters are deeply analyzing the cases based on the one regular season. 

I still think most would default to him as the best player if asked 

[RandyMossIsBoss]

I think it was pretty close between him, Giannis and Embiid. Glad he won it for sake of my future bets, and happy for him... but with 2 MVPs comes twice a much pressure as he had before. Fortunately doesn't seem like the kind of athlete who will be bothered or influenced in the least by what the talking heads are saying, but as a fanboy it will be tough to see the inevitable hate that will be thrown at him as a ringless 2x MVP whenever he is anything less than amazing (which is rare, but does happen).