According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, Denver Nuggets superstar big man Nikola Jokic has won his second consecutive MVP award.
Wojnarowski reports that a formal announcement is expected later this week. It’s a weird time to drop the MVP news on a Monday morning, but nonetheless is awesome to now know that Jokic has for sure won MVP. Jokic joins some elite company as he is just the 13th player in NBA history to win MVP in back-to-back seasons. The rest of that list includes: Michael Jordan, Lebron James, Steph Curry, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Jokic beats out Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid for the award and was more than deserving following his historic season. Not only did Jokic lead a depleted Nuggets squad to the postseason, but he became the first player in NBA history to record 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, and 500 assists in a single season (stat courtesy of our very own Ryan Blackburn).
It wasn’t just that though as Jokic also averaged a career high 27.1 points and 13.8 rebounds per game. To go along with those numbers, Jokic also dished out 7.9 assists per game as he followed up his MVP season last year with an even better year in 2021-2022.
Congrats to Jokic, who has now made not only Nuggets history, but NBA history as well!
