{"id":140815,"date":"2025-05-22T11:20:27","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T15:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=140815"},"modified":"2025-05-22T11:20:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T15:20:27","slug":"nikola-jokic-mvp-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/05\/22\/nikola-jokic-mvp-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite Losing, Nikola Jokic Makes MVP History"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nikola Jokic<\/a> failed to win his fourth MVP in five years, which would have tied him<\/a> with LeBron James<\/a> and Bill Russell<\/a>. Yet, he managed to achieve something that even LeBron hasn\u2019t. Only two players in league history have been in the top 2 in MVP voting for five consecutive years. Jokic is now the third player on that list, joining Russell and Larry Bird<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite Losing, Nikola Jokic Makes MVP History<\/h2>\n

Nikola Jokic began his quest for MVP history in the 2018-19 season when he finished fourth in voting. The Nuggets had a 54-28 record, finishing second in the Western Conference behind the Golden State Warriors. The next season, Denver finished third with a 46-27 record, and Jokic finished ninth in MVP voting. That was the COVID-19 shortened season. In the bubble, Jokic and the Nuggets won two Game 7s before falling to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.<\/p>\n

From the 2020-21 season, Jokic has been one of the best players in the league, and it is not even close. He won his first MVP award that season, averaging 26.4 points, 10.8 rebounds, and 8.3 assists. And each year, he is playing better and better. Two seasons ago, he was close to averaging a triple-double, the only center to do that, but finished with 9.8 assists per game.<\/p>\n

That changed this season when he averaged of 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds, and 10.2 assists per game. Thanks to a spectacular season, Jokic finished second in MVP voting, his fifth consecutive time to finish in the top 2, entering elite company with Russell and Bird. LeBron has won four in five years, but the year he didn\u2019t win it, he finished third. That was the season<\/a> he signed with the Miami Heat as a free agent, and the media might have penalized him for that. Derrick Rose<\/a> became the youngest MVP that year, and Dwight Howard<\/a> finished second.<\/p>\n

Can Jokic Top Bill Russell?<\/h3>\n

After Jokic’s historic feat, only the great Bill Russell is ahead of him with six consecutive years finishing in the top 2. Russell won the award in 1958, finished second in ’59 and ’60, and then won it again for three consecutive years. In 1964, he finished third, ending his streak of top-2 finishes. But he won it again in 1965, so if we count the top-3 finishes, Russell has made it in eight consecutive years.<\/p>\n

As things stand right now, Nikola Jokic might be back at it next season. The Denver Nuggets will count on him to lead the way again. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a>, who won<\/a> it this year, should also be back at it next year. Then, we have the usual suspects like Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>, Luka Doncic<\/a>, and maybe Anthony Edwards<\/a>. But generally speaking, Jokic is guaranteed a top 5 spot next season, maybe even higher.<\/p>\n

How Many MVPs Can Nikola Win?<\/h3>\n

Right now, Nikola Jokic has three regular season MVP awards, tied with Magic Johnson<\/a>, Moses Malone<\/a>, and Bird. Only four players have won more individual awards<\/a>. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar<\/a> has six, Michael Jordan<\/a> and Russell have five, and LeBron and Wilt Chamberlain<\/a> have four each. In terms of MVP history, Nikola Jokic is already among the best individual performers.<\/p>\n

The most impressive stat<\/a> about his career is that through 839 career games, he has never had a single teammate make an All-Star, All-NBA, or All-Defensive team in the same season. He is the only player with more than 700 career games in that category. That shows you how little help he has had over the years.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nikola Jokic failed to win his fourth MVP in five years, which would have tied him with LeBron James and Bill Russell. Yet, he managed to achieve something that even LeBron hasn\u2019t. Only two players in league history have been in the top 2 in MVP voting for five consecutive years. Jokic is now the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5291,"featured_media":140855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,20,62,3],"tags":[2101,455,38,755,607,72],"class_list":["post-140815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nuggets","category-nba","category-news","tag-bill-russell","tag-larry-bird","tag-lebron-james","tag-magic-johnson","tag-michael-jordan","tag-nikola-jokic"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140815"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140856,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140815\/revisions\/140856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}