On May 3rd, this year marks the 20th anniversary of one of the league’s most memorable accomplishments in the last 25 years. Kevin Garnett, then a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves, won his only MVP Award on May 3, 2004, concluding a season in which KG averaged 24.2 points, 13.9 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 2.2 blocks, and 1.5 steals per game for the top-seeded Wolves.
Twenty years later, there’s another game-changing big man in the Northwest Division who is widely regarded as the favorite to win the MVP Award — only this would be his third time winning the league’s most prestigious individual award, and he’d probably dismiss the entire ordeal as a minor inconvenience. But no matter how disinterested Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic is in accumulating individual awards and accolades, that won’t stop very knowledgeable people from raving about Jokic’s season, which exists within a stretch of basketball that has propelled The Joker to unprecedented heights.
“I got [Nikola Jokic] as the MVP… What Joker is doing in our league, not even athletic… He’s ripping the records apart… Right now, he’s more dominant than Wilt Chamberlain."
Kevin Garnett had nothing but praise for Jokic 🙌
(via @allthesmokeprod)pic.twitter.com/1MZqOCzNHA
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) March 2, 2024
The comparisons to Shaquille O’Neal, Wilt Chamberlain, and any other dominant center in NBA history may appear premature, but I guarantee you that they are all justified. Nikola Jokic’s contributions to the Denver Nuggets offense go far beyond his numbers, which are eye-popping. As of Saturday afternoon, the MVP frontrunner was averaging 25.8 points, 12.3 rebounds, and 9.2 assists. These are merely the fundamental numbers. Look at the advanced stats, where Jokic leads the league in the majority of them, and his impact becomes even more apparent. The final test is the eye exam, which clearly favors Jokic over the rest of the field.
Whether or whether Nikola Jokic wants to be the NBA’s face is irrelevant here, because he has no influence over whether or not he wins MVP at the end of the season. That is not to argue that there aren’t many deserving challengers. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, and Jayson Tatum are all in the running, and if Joel Embiid hadn’t been injured, he’d have a strong case to become the third straight back-to-back MVP Award winner. However, the league and its MVP title currently belong to Nikola Jokic.
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