Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic took home the 2020-21 Kia MVP award, sources say. He made history as the first Nugget to win the award and the lowest ever draft pick to do so (the 41st pick by Denver in the 2014 draft).
Six years ago, Jokic was a mostly unknown prospect out of Sombor, Serbia. As the regular season came to an end, Jokic was torn between saving his energy for the playoffs or trying to accomplish the feat of playing in all 72 games. He chose to go for the perfect attendance. His stats for the year: 26.4 points per game, 8.3 assists, just .3 behind Wilt Chamberlain’s all-time season average for assists per game, and 10.8 rebounds, tying his career high. Jokic also led the NBA in double-doubles (60), was second in triple-doubles (16), and was 3rd in minutes (2.488). Sixers center and fellow MVP candidate Joel Embiid had only 1,585 minutes.
He has vision like Magic Johnson, offensive tricks like Larry Bird and Tim Duncan-esque confidence. We’ve known he’s a darn good player for a while, but he truly blossomed into one of the league’s best this year. Jokic was the leading candidate for the award, but didn’t seem to want attention. He turned down several interview requests, rejected podcasts on national TV, and, generally speaking, let his play speak for itself, even as other candidates waged campaigns in the media for votes. Among everything Jokic impressed us with, celebrating himself wasn’t one of them. When guard Jamal Murray tore his ACL on April 12, many suspected this would be the downfall of the Nuggets. But Nuggets fans had faith in their team. And the Nuggets closed out the year with a 13-5 record behind the Joker’s production and finished 3rd in the Western Conference.
Ever since the season ended, some Nuggets staffers have peppered the teams PR staff about when the MVP announcement might be coming. There was more excitement from coaches and players, a team spokesman said, than there was from Jokic himself. But now that it’s official, there’s no need for Jokic to evade the questions any longer. He’s the MVP of the NBA. And nobody can ever take that away from him.
Source: https://www.denverpost.com/2021/06/08/nikola-jokic-mvp-nuggets
