Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic is the leading candidate to win MVP again this season, and for very good reasons.
You may not like it; you may not think he’s the best player on Earth — and he might not be — but he’s the rightful MVP of the 2022-23 NBA season; it’s as simple as that.
Jokic is on the verge of becoming the first center to average a triple-double for a season.
He leads the league in PER, win shares, offensive win shares, value over replacement, assists percentage, rebound percentage, defensive box plus/minus, offensive box plus/minus, box plus/minus, and offensive rating.
He is fifth in total rebounds, top-20 in points per game, second in assists, third in assists per game, sixth in field-goal percentage, second in true shooting percentage, and 15th in defensive rating, all while not being even top-20 in usage percentage.
He leads most of the advanced metrics in both offense and defense and is on the verge of making history, also leading the Nuggets to the first seed in the Western Conference.
However, once again, Nick Wright is unimpressed by Jokic’s unprecedented season.
“A guy who all the NBA MVP voters swear is the best player in the league — or at least, even if they don’t think it, they vote as if he is — for the second straight year was the seventh player taken in the All-Star Draft, which truly means, for the second straight year he was the eighth or ninth guy taken ’cause the captains can’t draft themselves and this year [Kevin] Durant and Steph [Curry] was out, but so be it,” Wright started. “This is not a criticism of Jokic (…) but a criticism of the overwhelming arrogance of the current crop of NBA MVP voters.”
"This is not a criticism of Jokic… It is a criticism of the overwhelming arrogance of the current crop of NBA MVP voters."
— @GetNickWright pic.twitter.com/dkchWEmLO4
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) February 21, 2023
Instead, the often-controversial — and often wrong — analyst is using Jokic’s All-Star Draft position as an example to prove why he cannot be this year’s MVP.
Maybe Wright forgot that this is an award that’s given to the most VALUABLE player, not necessarily the best player.
If that were the case, then Michael Jordan would’ve won at least 14 MVPs, and LeBron James would most definitely have a couple more under his belt as well.
The issue isn’t whether Jokic should win his third MVP in a row; it’s whether he’s the MVP this season, and he is.
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