Nikola Jokic did all of it once more. And the MVP trophy is his once more.
Jokic, the Denver Nuggets star from Serbia, was introduced Wednesday night time because the NBA’s Most Beneficial Participant — his third time profitable the award prior to now 4 seasons, a feat that simply six different gamers in league historical past have completed.
He averaged 26.4 factors, 12.4 rebounds and 9.0 assists. Others averaged extra in every class — and Jokic has had higher years in every of these classes — however he was the one participant to rank within the NBA’s prime 10 in factors, rebounds and assists per recreation this season.
Jokic received 79 of a potential 99 first-place votes from the panel of reporters and broadcasters who solid ballots on awards when the common season ended.
“It’s received to begin along with your teammates,” Jokic mentioned on TNT, the place the award was introduced. “With out them, I’m nothing. With out them, I can not do nothing. Coaches, gamers, group, medical workers, growth coaches … I can’t be whoever I’m with out them.”
It probably was not a coincidence that Jokic appeared on tv for the award announcement sporting a T-shirt commemorating the lifetime of one in all his mentors, Golden State assistant coach Dejan Milojević, who died earlier this yr after a coronary heart assault on a highway journey.
Oklahoma Metropolis’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was second and Dallas’ Luka Doncic was third, each moving into the highest three of MVP voting for the primary time. With Jokic from Serbia, Gilgeous-Alexander from Canada and Doncic from Slovenia, it marked the third consecutive season that three gamers born outdoors the U.S. completed 1-2-3 within the MVP balloting.
This time, the overseas dominance atop the NBA was much more pronounced: Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, who’s from Greece, was fourth — so this grew to become the primary time within the award’s 69-year historical past that worldwide gamers went 1-2-3-4 within the voting. It additionally grew to become the sixth consecutive yr {that a} participant born outdoors the U.S. received the award.
Jokic appeared on all 99 ballots, with 18 second-place votes and two third-place votes. Gilgeous-Alexander additionally appeared on each poll, with 15 first-place votes, 40 second-place, 40 third-place, three fourth-place and one fifth-place nod.
Doncic was on all however one poll and received 4 first-place votes. Antetokounmpo received one first-place vote on his solution to fourth. New York’s Jalen Brunson was fifth, adopted by Boston’s Jayson Tatum, Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards, Sacramento’s Domantas Sabonis and Phoenix’s Kevin Durant.
“Some folks say it’s the very best participant on the very best group,” Jokic mentioned, when requested to outline an MVP. “To me, it’s the man who’s essentially the most helpful, the group couldn’t play with out him.”
Jokic is now the ninth participant to win the MVP award no less than 3 times. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar received it six instances, Invoice Russell and Michael Jordan every received 5, Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James received 4, and Moses Malone, Larry Fowl and Magic Johnson are the opposite three-time winners.
Jokic’s shock rise to superstardom has been chronicled again and again through the years: He was the forty first general choose within the 2014 draft, didn’t even assume he had a sensible likelihood at enjoying within the NBA when his profession was starting and now has a Corridor of Fame resume at 29.
The opposite gamers with three MVP trophies in a four-year span are James, Johnson, Fowl, Abdul-Jabbar, Chamberlain and Russell. And Jokic turns into the fifth participant to be first or second within the MVP voting in 4 consecutive years — becoming a member of Fowl, Abdul-Jabbar, Russell and Tim Duncan.
Gilgeous-Alexander had maybe the very best feel-good story within the NBA this season, serving to Oklahoma Metropolis to the No. 1 seed within the Western Convention by averaging 30.1 factors, 5.5 rebounds and 6.2 assists. The Thunder received 57 video games, 17 greater than they did final season and 33 greater than they did two years in the past, their rise coinciding with Gilgeous-Alexander’s emergence as one of many recreation’s elite gamers.
“There may be not an evening once I don’t really feel like we’ve the very best participant on the ground. … There’s nobody I’d reasonably have on our group than him,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault, the league’s coach of the yr this season, mentioned final month.
Doncic made a case for the MVP award by posting the primary season in NBA historical past through which a participant averaged 33 factors, 9 rebounds and 9 assists per recreation. There had been 14 cases earlier than this yr through which a participant averaged that many factors and rebounds in a season — of these, 5 had resulted in MVP wins, together with final season when Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid averaged 33 factors and 10 rebounds.
And this was the second time ever {that a} participant averaged no less than 33 factors and 9 assists per recreation. The opposite was in 1972-73, when Kansas Metropolis’s Tiny Archibald averaged 34 factors and 11 assists. He completed third in that season’s MVP voting, identical to Doncic this season.
However ultimately, it was Jokic who stood above all others — and the vote wasn’t shut.
“I feel he’s said his case fairly properly,” Nuggets guard Jamal Murray mentioned. “He does it each night time. It’s arduous to do what he does and face the sort of stress that he does every recreation. He does it with a smile on his face. He makes everyone round us higher. And he’s a frontrunner on the court docket and anyone that we count on greatness from each time he steps on the court docket and he’s delivered.”
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This story has been corrected to Doncic averaging 33 factors, not 34.
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AP Sports activities Writers Arnie Stapleton and Pat Graham in Denver contributed to this report.
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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA