NBA Fact or Fiction: Does Nikola Jokić have any challengers in the MVP race?

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Each week during the 2023-24 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into some of the league’s biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether the trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.

[Last week: Is the 65-game rule an All-NBA disaster?]

This week’s topic: Nikola Jokić faces a stiff MVP challenge

If your MVP ballot does not include five of Nikola Jokić, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Luka Dončić, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jayson Tatum and Anthony Edwards (in some order), you are reaching for a candidate.

Jokić’s case is the easiest to make. His Denver Nuggets perform like a 69-win team when he is on the floor and a 17-win team when he is not. That 52-win discrepancy is twice that of the other candidates.

We also agreed that he was the game’s best player at last season’s end, when he carried the Nuggets to an unchallenged championship. He took home MVP in 2021 and 2022 and finished second to Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid last season, when Jokić probably should have won for a third straight regular season and earned Finals MVP instead. His is one of the most dominant four-year runs in league history.

Oh, and Jokić is the most efficient three-level scorer, playmaker and rebounder of the group.

Among the top six candidates, Jokić’s 64.6 true shooting percentage is second only to Antetokounmpo, who is shooting 34.7% outside of the restricted area to his rival’s 51.3%. Jokić, a center, owns a higher assist-to-turnover ratio (3.07) than his challengers, including point guards Gilgeous-Alexander (2.87) and Dončić (2.46). At 6-foot-11, 284 pounds, Jokić naturally grabs the most rebounds of the bunch, both by volume (17.8 per 100 possessions) and percentage (20.4% of available rebounds when he is on the floor).

We should also mention that Jokić has played more games than all but Edwards.

If you were drafting a team for this season only, Jokić would be the No. 1 selection — at every benchmark of this campaign. But if you want to analyze the MVP race on a case-by-case basis, we can do that, too.

(Amy Monks/Yahoo Sports Illustration)

Jokić (73/76 GP; 2,524 MIN): 26.4 PTS (64.6 TS%), 12.3…

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Publish date : 2024-04-04 16:36:00

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