Possible 3 Peat

The NBA MVP is the most cherished award in the league’s history. The NBA’s most valuable player award is supposed to go to the league’s player who provides the most important to their team throughout the 82 regular season games. Although, recently the MVP award has been heavily debated because it seems that more and more people believe it should be for the player who puts up the best statistical season.

In the last 5 seasons of the NBA the award has gone to James Harden once, Giannis Antetokounmpo twice, and Nikola Jokic twice. According to the RAPTOR chart, which takes the most simple and advanced statistics in all of Basketball and then puts them together illustrates that Nikola Jokic’s 2021-2022 season MVP is the highest-graded season in the last five years. This seems strange to non-NBA fans though because if you go back and look at the comments made when Jokic won this award, many people were saying that he was undeserving of the award. Jokic had a WAR (Wins above replacement level) rating of 23.9 and the 2021-2022 MVP runner-up had a WAR rating of 15.0. Marc Benz remembers when people were hating on Jokic last season. “I remember when Jokic won last season in every comment section people were saying how Embiid or Giannis were robbed and Jokic was undeserving of the award.”

This might not seem like an important statistic to the average fan but when you look deeper at it WAR is the most important statistic to a singular player’s value due to the subcategories that go into it. Gaby Okelloh knows how many 23 wins can affect a team. “23 wins, especially during the 2023 season is very impactful because there were teams one win away from changing the entire playoffs seeding. The Boston Celtics were only one win away from the first seed and would have led to an easier matchup in the playoffs.”

In the 2022-2023 season, the top five players in the overall RAPTOR WAR charting go Jimmy Butler with 10.3, Damian Lillard with 11.5, Luka Doncic with 13.0, Joel Embiid with 13.3, and sitting at the way top at a league of his own Nikola Jokic with a total RAPTOR WAR rating of 20.6. Jokics RAPTOR WAR rating is so high above everyone else’s in the NBA it’s unheard of. For comparison, the only player to ever obtain a higher WAR RAPTOR rating than Jokic in the past six years is Stephen Curry during his unanimous 2015-2016 MVP season. 

Embiid is the player who is supposedly going to win MVP during this season but according to multiple sources and statistics, it’s easy to see that Jokic deserves to win for the third season in a row. The only players to ever win the MVP award three times in a row are Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and Larry Bird. Jokic should very well join this list but will this happen? Probably not. 

Even though all the advanced statistics point to Jokic winning again during this season, a few problems come up with the chances of this happening. One of the main reasons why it’s even up for debate is because of the narratives that have been pushed for Embiid to win. Media narratives have been a problem in voting for awards in sports ever since the first games were played. A common example when you see media narratives affect awards is a player’s style they use in games. For example, people often say watching Jokic play is boring because his “bag” isn’t very deep. 

Another reason Jokic probably won’t win is because of an effect named voter fatigue. Voter fatigue broken down into simple terms is voters getting bored having the same person in the running every year which results in them not voting for that person even if they are deserving. Lebron James has been a victim of this in his whole career with many fans, coaches, and players agreeing that he’s the best player in the world but it hasn’t always resulted in him winning. 

Behind Embiid and Jokic is Giannis Antetokonmpo who is the only other player with a real shot to win MVP this season. Xavier Demarco believes that the most deserving player of this award is Giannis Antetokounmpo “In my opinion, Giannis deserves the MVP award because of the 3 candidates he’s the best 2-way player and he’s led his team to have the best record. He’s easily the best defender of the 3 and he can score better than Embiid (better efficiency, fewer free throws) and can pass better than Embiid (not Jokic). He always tries hard and doesn’t bait refs into giving him fouls.” 

Will Jokic win for the third time in a row and join a list of NBA legends? Or will somebody else receive the NBA’s most salient award?