by Valerie Morales
After it was announced that Nikola Jokić earned the MVP award which rocked the city of Philadelphia there was an article in my inbox about why he deserved it, as if Jokić needed both defending and mansplaining, as if the other candidate who was in the running for MVP was a victim of smash and grab, as if Jokić’s reputation was suddenly at stake. I turned the radio on and the chatter was all about the eye test.
· Joel Embiid was on the better team.
· Joel Embiid led the league in points per game.
· Joel Embiid had more to manage considering the Ben Simmons drama and the offhanded way he was handed a melancholic James Harden, not to mention Doc Rivers coaching blunders.
· Denver wasn’t a good team anyway.
The endorsement of Embiid was swift but what I never heard anyone talk about was how the thought of being the Most Valuable Player is a dopamine rush; it puts you on a neural high where you begin to believe it’s you. And then, like being stood up at the altar, it’s not you.
MVP is a subjective title handed down by subjective analysts. The word valuable is inherently problematic and terminal. Different people define what valuable means differently based on lived experience. In finance terms, value refers to worth. What asset is the most worthy? Strangely, the MVP dodges which player has the most worth and hunkers done on who has had the better season. Or. Of the three finalists who is the best player? Or, who has the best stats? Or, who is the best player on the best team? Rhetoric echoes consistently until the announcement. Lately, the award is more or less about math because those who covet binary interpretations have a hero in Jokić and those who point to the standings smirk that yeah, Jokić won the MVP trophy, but he has to watch the playoffs at home.
The MVP therefore is sliced and diced and shredded into slaw. It means what you think it means which is exactly how the NBA searingly manipulates its publicity machine. Keep talking about us.
This season, Jokić did the same things Shaq did. But more. He did the same things- sans the sky hook- that Kareem did. But more. He did what Vlade Divac did but more. Jokić scores. And rebounds. And passes. He took his game to a greater height this season without the second-best player on the team, Jamal Murray, and without the third best player on this team, Michael Porter Jr.
Jokić scored more points than Giannis Antetokounmpo, Devin Booker and LeBron James. He averaged more assists than Jrue Holiday and Steph Curry. He had the second-best defensive year of his career. He shot 60% on the road. He made 47% of his long two’s. He played 74 games.
If a guard and a big man had a baby it would be Nikola Jokić.
And yet…
We don’t speak reverentially about Jokić in whispers like he’s basketball royalty the way we do LeBron James even as Jokić has a similar once-in-50-years skill set. It’s because of that damned eye-test. Nothing about how Jokic plays the game is scintillating, mesmerizing, and fabulous. He doesn’t wow. His skill is like a boat that never rocks and in that he’s predictably exceptional. But not charismatic and definitely not box office. He leads with skill not with flash, not with jaw breaking or Ja-breaking dunks. He’s a competitor and a European and for the last 4-years a European has won the MVP trophy, if that means anything at all in this global NBA game, and so the voting makes a Pavlovian kind of sense if you are math guy and believe in patterns. Jokić led in Win Shares. (yawn). He led in Defensive Box Plus/Minus. (double yawn).
Jokić is the 15th back-to-back MVP winner. The others are: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Steph Curry, LeBron James (twice), Steve Nash, Tim Duncan, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Moses Malone. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (twice), Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. Jokić, however, goes on another list. Back to back MVP’s who’ve never been to the NBA Finals.
There is Steve Nash. And there is Nikola Jokić.
Blame it on injuries. Blame it on coaching. Blame it on bad luck. Blame it on the NBA enforcing the leave the bench during a fight rule. Blame it on if it’s raining on Tuesday. It doesn’t matter why. It matters what is. Great regular season players. Unable to get to the Finals.
Unlike Nash who can only get to the Finals as a coach, 27-year-old Nikola Jokić has a lot of opportunities left. He is just starting the prime of his career and he has already proven he can take a team of above average players and lead them to the playoffs. And there is history on his side too. Giannis Antetokounmpo hadn’t been to the Finals when he won his second MVP award and then last year he was a champion.
Is the Nuggets roster a better playoff roster than the revamped Warriors, or the emerging Grizzlies, or the Clippers when Kawhi comes back, or the Suns? Right now, no. With Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. on the court, perhaps it’s a different answer. The Nuggets were in the conference finals in the Orlando bubble during a magical ride where Jamal Murray had a breakout series of performances until a leg injury but couldn’t handle LeBron James and lost in five games. Jokić averaged 33 points in the series.
It’s awkward because Jokić has quite the resume. All-Star. MVP. Dominant at his position. Face of the franchise. Top-15 in jersey sales. Killing it with the analytic crowd. What he has to prove is more complicated than the analytics brilliance he champions: can he get to the Finals? Or, is he the Serbian version of Steve Nash.
In 2006 Kobe Bryant had a breathtaking season, elevating a team with Luke Walton, Smush Parker and Lamar Odom to the 8th seed but Steve Nash won the MVP, his second, and on the street it was interpreted as white privilege. 16 years later the NBA has unearthed a different sort of piety. Global expansion has tamed some of the forgivable lines. In 2022, it’s about Embiid carrying the Sixers to first class seats while Jokić hovered in coach with sterling efficiency.
A month ago, the Nuggets lost a pretty forgettable series to the Warriors because in the postseason a one man analytics show cannot slay a beast, not even if the star is the MVP. Jokić isn’t Jesus Christ. He can’t raise the dead. He can’t build a team from scratch without elite talent. Despite that small detail, analytic evangelists have a disciple in Jokić while the man they didn’t vote for is sucking it up, trying to recover from a broken face, a concussion, a tough series with the Sixers and a broken heart at losing the MVP, unaware that MVP has zero to do with what someone deserves.
When Jokić won the MVP award, the morning the news broke, fans of Embiid, many of whom rationalize and don’t acquiesce well, were triggered and loudly protested that Embiid was a victim of a crime. Emboldened and hostaged by their disgust, they rued the vote tally which they dismissed as incorrect. Their anger diminished what Jokić accomplished the past few months as if he was irrelevant in this marshaling of their rage. And then a few hours later- as the world was predictably turning- in a meaningful game 4, Milwaukee was playing Boston when quiet Al Horford stole the show, brazenly scoring 30. It’s the way things are done in this sequestered world where you are celebrated for winning the top award of the regular season and then just as quickly remembered as an anecdote: the player who won his second MVP but has never been to the Finals.
