With one NBA MVP, Nikola Jokic achieved all-time greatness. With back-to-back MVP awards, he’ll be forever basketball royalty.
Jokic is the NBA’s MVP for a second-consecutive season. News came down early Monday morning via ESPN that the 41st pick in the 2014 draft is the league’s most valuable player again and just the 13th player in NBA history to win the award in back-to-back seasons.
He shares the distinct honor with some greats: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, LeBron James, Steph Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Jokic’s stats this season? Just plain stupid. He averaged 27.1 points on 58.2% shooting from the field, 13.8 rebounds and 7.9 assists per game. In his final game of the regular season, Jokic became the first player in NBA history to finish a season with at least 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 500 assists.
He led the NBA in practically every advanced statistic, PER, Win Shares, Box Plus-Minus, and VORP, just to name a few. He was the best player in the NBA this season based on whatever box score you preferred.
Still, Jokic’s stats still don’t capture the sheer dominance that he displayed this year. And if there’s one thing to remember from this season, it’s exactly that. It was as dominant of an individual season that I’ve seen from a player and maybe ever will.
Jokic’s statement games will forever stick in the minds of Nuggets fans. How he tallied 49 points in a narrow win over the Clippers but also handed Aaron Gordon an all-time assist on his game-winning corner 3 in overtime. How he took over to score 30 points in the fourth quarter and overtime of a win vs. the Pelicans after Denver squandered a 21-point lead. How in the playoffs, he eventually conquered Draymond Green and put home 37 points in both Games 3 and 4, the latter of which was the Nuggets’ lone win in the series.
If you watched Jokic on a nightly basis this season, it was incredibly obvious: No one played basketball at the level that he did this year. No one wielded control over the game to the degree that he did. No one carried the same level of responsibility night-in night-out as him. How the Nuggets were able to reach 48 wins in the West this season without Jamal Murray for the entire season and Michael Porter Jr. for all but nine games will forever be an impressive feat.
This MVP award is an acknowledgment of all of the above.
Jokic never tried to win another MVP this season. He simply went into every game, trying to get a ‘W’. He did whatever he needed to do that night to ensure his team ended up on the right side of the scoreboard. In the end, his back-to-back MVPs will put him alongside NBA royalty forever.
How will Jokic celebrate this distinguished honor?
“I mean, I don’t know,” he said before departing Chase Center after Game 5 and jetting off to Serbia for the summer. “Probably with some music, beer, friends around, family. Like how you are supposed to do probably.”
It’s going to be one hell of a night in Sombor.
