Only three players in NBA history have won five or more MVPs: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan and Bill Russell. Nikola Jokic should have joined that trio on Wednesday.
Instead, the Denver Nuggets big man stays grouped with Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Moses Malone — not bad company, but a reminder of how close greatness can come without fully arriving. And this MVP race, like every title chase, is another notch in the narrative of his legacy.
While Jokic hunts a title on the court, he chases ghosts of the NBA past. He’s one of the rare players not just playing for now but for the record book and history. Every great game, new record and highlight moment is a chance to strengthen his case as one of the greatest players of all time.
It’s no longer a question of if Jokic is one of the best to ever touch the roundball, but of if he’s closer to the top three players ever or borders on the top 10.
In finishing runner-up to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for this season’s MVP, it’s the second time this decade Jokic was snubbed by the voters of this award. He tallied a second-place finish to Joel Embiid in 2022-23, a decision that has aged like milk. And this one may do the same.
Jokic became the first player in NBA history to be a top-three performer in points, rebounds, assists and steals per game. He finished third in points (29.6 per game) and rebounds (12.7 per game) and second in assists (10.2 per game) and steals (1.8 per game). No player in NBA history had ever finished in the top 10 of all four categories and Jokic ended the season in the top three.
Jokic became the third player in NBA history to average a triple-double for the season. His averages included a career high in points, assists, steals and 3-point shooting percentage at 42%. The only other players to average a triple-double for a full season are Russell Westbrook, who did it three times, and Oscar Robertson, who achieved that during the 1961-62 season.
Those wild stats showed up in the catch-alls where Jokic’s 13.3 Box Plus-Minus and 32.0 Player Efficiency Ratings were NBA bests.
Jokic felt like he was at his peak, saying earlier this season that this, “the best basketball of my life.” It was the first year the Serbian showed any sort of indication that he actually wanted to win the award.
His play led the Nuggets to home-court advantage in the much tougher West with 51 wins despite the team’s massive internal turmoil, where both the general manager and head coach were fired. Calvin Booth was ousted for the team’s poor roster and arguments with Michael Malone, who was fired for the toxic relationship and losing control of the locker room.
Denver went 5-7 without Jokic and 46-24 with him. His presence made them +21.3 points per 100 possessions better. Without him, they played like a lottery team.
And it wasn’t brazen stat-padding or quiet and consistent benchmarks. No, Jokic had several iconic moments and games during the regular season.
He recorded the first 30-20-20 game in NBA history while setting a new career high for assists for a second time in the season.
He had a 100-point 24-hour period where he set a new career high in scoring.
He had the third 60-point triple-double, as he broke his scoring career high that he had just set earlier this season.
Maybe his best game of the year was when he set his (at the time) career-high for assists and his season-high for rebounds, while hitting the longest shot in Nuggets history at an estimated 73-feet.
There’s also the historic Jokic game against the Mavs, another three-quarter court shot, one of the best passes in his legendary assisting career, and a game where the 7-footer knocked down a career-best seven threes.
SGA and the Thunder had their highlights, too, but they were more machine than moments. OKC was so good that Shai spent many crunch times and fourth quarters on the bench with the team not even needing its top player to win an NBA-best 68 games.
OKC went 35-2 when SGA logged 33 minutes and 35 seconds or fewer, about a minute below his average. When Jokic played just a minute less than usual, Denver went 22-13. The margin for error wasn’t close.
SGA did have a monster season, claiming the scoring title at 32.7 points per game, which was 27th-best all-time. He also tossed 6.7 assists and snagged five rebounds a game, which pushed him to lead the league in win shares.
Gilgeous-Alexander was brilliant — there’s no denying it. His rise from fringe All-Star to MVP winner over the last two years is a testament to his work ethic and Oklahoma City’s vision. But Jokic didn’t plateau — he elevated again. He didn’t surprise us, which may be his biggest fault in the eyes of voters.
SGA’s team carried him when he was off whereas the Nuggets fell apart every time Jokic wasn’t on the floor. It seems this is a case where OKC’s historic winning season, which was led by an all-time great guard season, was too much to be outweighed by Joker’s very best individual campaign.
Basketball Reference’s MVP Tracker is “…based on a model built using previous voting results.”
Nikola Jokić (56.4%) and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (34.1%) were the only players who finished over 5% this season.
Probably the craziest MVP race in my time covering the NBA. pic.twitter.com/5J7dXe6DQ7
— Andy Bailey (@AndrewDBailey) April 16, 2025
New vs. old seems to be how this award was decided, similar to two years ago when it was “Embiid’s turn.” Jokic could have easily won five straight MVPs. Instead, he’ll settle for three. Just like LeBron James should have more than four, just like Jordan should have more than five. Jordan once said the MVP is a “popularity contest.” LeBron could’ve won 7. Voters get bored. But history doesn’t.
This award doesn’t always reflect dominance — it reflects preference, narrative, and sometimes plain old boredom. And in that system, Jokic’s steadiness may be mistaken for stagnation. While the bar is always higher for repeat winners, Jokic has more than elevated, he smashed through it yet again.
But Jokic isn’t chasing SGA or Embiid, he’s chasing basketball history. Whether Jokic wins three, four or five MVPs, his place among the all-time greats will be settled by something more enduring than The Michael Jordan Trophy. Joker is rewriting what the center position can be, reshaping the geometry of basketball. If his trophy case doesn’t match his contributions, that’s a reflection on the system, not on him. His trophy totals will be used against him on First Take — or whatever stupid take machine replaces the show in the cultural lexicon 50 years from now — but Jokic is already disrespected by those bozos anyway so what’s the difference?
Just like how the NBA was reluctant to draft Jokic, he has been slow to earn praise. He’s been known as the best player in the world for nearly five years, but even still, he gets overlooked and out-promoted for less proven players like Ja Morant or Anthony Edwards. At least SGA can stamp himself as an equal in terms of titles this spring, unlike when Embiid won it without ever making a conference finals. Though Embiid, like SGA, is heavily reliant on whistles for his dominance. Both have played with various levels of stars and standout defenders as teammates, whereas among more than 5,000 players in NBA history, Jokic is the only one to play his first 700 career games without a single teammate who made an All-Star, All-NBA, or All-Defensive team.
Jokic didn’t have the better story — he had the better season. He did more in more minutes with more pressure, fewer blowouts, and less help. He led in impact metrics, on/off splits, and did things no one in league history ever has. That should always be enough.
As with most things Jokic, he will have to remain as the basketball lover’s favorite player opposed to the aura guy with an underwear commercial. You had to love hoops to get what was happening with Jokic before the honors came. Or as former MVP and renowned basketball lover Bill Walton said six years ago:
“He’s a beautiful player who plays a mental game. He has what seems to have been lost in the world, which is peripheral vision. When you walk down the street in life, when you drive a car in life, when you ride a bike in the world on a street, it is staggering the lack of peripheral vision. But Nikola Jokic is the antidote to so many of our problems in the world.
“When you see someone like a Nelson Mandela or a Martin Luther King or a Mahatma Gandhi, someone who sees the future before anyone else does, knows how to get to where they need to be, where they want to be, that is Nikola Jokic. Happiness begins when selfishness ends. In a game that has been taken over by incessant dribbling for yourself, Nikola Jokic is such a breath of fresh air. And it’s his imagination. Watching him play basketball is like watching Bob Dylan come up with a song.
“He epitomizes Coach Wooden’s most oft-repeated mantra to us, which was, ‘Basketball, like life, is not a game of size and strength. It’s a game of skill and timing and positioning. It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play. It’s not how high you jump, it’s where you are and when you jump.’ Nikola’s a complete package of skill, timing and positioning, but even more importantly, he has so many elements of Steve Nash in his game. With Steve, there’s never been a player in my life who has elicited more awe and elicited more inspiration in terms of, ‘Oh my gosh, did you just see that?’ Nikola has a lot of that in him.
“When you watch Nikola Jokic play, you feel good about life. You feel good about the world. You believe that tomorrow is worth fighting for.”
Basketball is about selflessness; it’s a team sport, and this year’s MVP went to the player on the better team. There’s already a trophy for that, known as the Larry O’Brien. But if you ask which player did more for his team, the answer is clear and that’s why SGA’s win is a snub for Joker. At least the MVP trophy has spent five straight years with Jokic as No. 1 or No. 2, something last accomplished by Bird.
So we’ll keep watching Big Honey in Denver; he’ll always be ours. Those who have watched him ascend will likely even consider him the greatest player they have ever seen. But Wednesday’s vote revelation hurts the back of basketball card, and that will leave it to us, those who watch him, to educate the future about the ghost that rewrote the entire record book named Jokic.
The future will wonder how the best player of his generation — maybe the best ever — left MVPs on the table during the sport’s offensive peak. They’ll study the numbers, watch the tape, and shake their heads. This was a missed historic milestone. Jokic deserved to enter the rarest air. He didn’t just deserve this award — he defined it. But he played in an era where excellence was expected, not rewarded. History won’t look kindly on this or the fact that it has now happened twice.
