The NBA MVP has always been a prestigious award given out to the game’s best players.
To win the award once is impressive, but to win it three straight years is something we rarely see in any sport.
Well, Denver Nuggets Center Nikola Jokic is on pace to win this third straight NBA MVP award this season.
The only players to win the award in three straight years are Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and Larry Bird.
Jokic is looking to join that prestigious group this season.
Usually, the MVP voters make it so no player wins it three straight times.
They always look to give it to someone else.
But, Jokic is having the best season of his career this year, in which he is averaging a triple-double.
Yet, throughout Jokic’s career, he has had almost no playoff success.
That fact rubs Stephen A Smith the wrong way.
.@stephenasmith talks about what it would mean for Nikola Jokić to win a third straight MVP:
"To be a three-time back-to-back-to-back league MVP and to not have even a championship appearance, let alone a title, to show for it, it's going to be glaring." pic.twitter.com/EsKG4CBopY
— First Take (@FirstTake) February 21, 2023
How can Jokic be a three-time MVP yet never make an NBA finals?
Even though the MVP is a regular-season award, not making the finals with a three-time MVP would be disappointing.
So far this season the Nuggets have been the best team in the Western Conference.
More than likely they will enter the playoffs as the number one seed.
But, anything short of making the finals would be a blemish on Jokic’s season and his career.
All the players he will be mentioned with as three-time MVPs have won a championship.
So Jokic will need to do the same thing to be recognized as one of the all-time greats.
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