Denver Nuggets electric big man Nikola Jokić was honored with the NBA MVP for a third time in the last four seasons on Wednesday night, further enhancing his legacy among basketball’s all-time greats.
The NBA announced Jokić as the winner over Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Dončić, who were also fellow finalists.
It was a surprise that Jokić won by such a wide margin. He garnered 79 first place votes, and finished with 926 total points. Gilgeous-Alexander had 15 first place votes, and Dončiċ had four first place votes. Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo was the only other player in the league to receive a first-place vote. He finished in fourth.
“There’s a lot of players that deserve it,” Jokic said of the MVP race. “It’s probably details and the small things [that determine it].”
With the win, Jokić becomes the ninth player in NBA history to win three or more MVP awards, joining a A-list of the game’s elite players. Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, who the MVP is named after and LeBron James are the other three-time recipients.
“It’s hard to differentiate greatness from greatness from greatness,” Denver head coach Michael Malone said early last month of how Jokic has went in the lab and improved areas of his game from previous MVP seasons. “And then that’s what he’s been over multiple years now. I know the last six years now, we’ve had by far the best record in the Western Conference and only second in the NBA behind, I think, Milwaukee in that time.”
Embed from Getty ImagesThis was the fourth consecutive year that Jokić has been named a finalist for the coveted award. He finished second to the Philadelphia 76ers Joel Embiid in 2023. Instead, Jokić took home the ultimate prize, winning NBA Finals MVP last season while leading the Nuggets to their first NBA championship over the Miami Heat.
He followed up that history making campaign with an encore performance cementing his status as basketball’s best player. In 79 regular-season games, Jokić averaged 26.4 points, 12.4 rebounds, nine assists, 1.4 steals and 0.9 blocks per game.
He shot an incredible 58.3% from the field and 35.9% on 2.9 3-point attempts per game, earning his sixth straight All-Star nod in the process. He accomplished all of this while leading the Nuggets to a 57-25 record, tied with the Oklahoma City Thunder for best in the Western Conference, capturing a No. 2 seed in the playoffs.
A 6-11 center, Jokić is Denver’s top post player and its primary offensive facilitator. He consistently presents matchup nightmares that opposing All-Stars struggle to defend.
Jokić is the definition of a stat stuffer, leading the Nuggets in points, rebounds and assists and finished in the top 10 in the NBA in each category. He led the league in Basketball Reference’s win shares (17) for a fourth-straight season, beating out Gilgeous-Alexander (14.6) and two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo (13.2).
“It’s got to start with the teammates, without them, I cannot do nothing,” Jokic said on TNT after earning the award on Wednesday. “Coaches, players, organization, medical staff, strength coaches, development coaches. It is all one big circle. But I cannot be whatever I am without them.”
Jokić also topped the league in player efficiency rating, a measure that approximates a player’s per-minute productivity by quantifying all of his statistical accomplishments, both positive and negative. Jokić has led the league in PER for four straight seasons and is now the NBA’s all-time leader in the category. Jordan and James are second and third, respectively, on the all-time list.
“Nikola has matured, his ability to continue to make everyone around him better,” Malone said. “And when you win a championship, and we’re going to run it back, but in place of Bruce [Brown] and Jeff [Green], we’re going to try to put young players in and the fact that we have a better record than we did last year.
“And we’ve had Jamal Murray miss [23] games. It speaks to Nikola understanding it’s still my responsibility as a great player to help [the younger role players] as well as all the other guys to understand what their roles are, how to play on both ends of the floor, and most importantly, make those guys better.”
Jokić’s complete and utter dominance has run into a major obstacle in the postseason, with the Minnesota Timberwolves putting his quest for a second straight Finals MVP in serious jeopardy. The Nuggets beat the Los Angeles Lakers in a gentlemen’s sweep, 4-1 in the opening round, but face an 0-2 deficit against the Timberwolves after losing the first two games of their Western Conference semifinals series at home.
In order to keep their quest for a repeat alive, the Nuggets will need an MVP-level performance from Jokić when the series shifts to the Target Center in Minnesota for Game 3 Friday night.
