Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic was snubbed for the 2024-25 MVP as voters placed him second behind Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Jokic, despite becoming just the third player in NBA history to average a triple-double in the regular season, came up short of winning his fourth MVP award in six years. The only other time he didn’t win the award this decade was in 2022-23 when he was the runner-up to Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers.

This time, Jokic actually got closer to first place than Embiid did in his year, where he got 674 points and 15 first-place votes. Giannis Antetokounmpo had 606 points and 12 first-place votes in the 2022-23 season.

Jokic got all 29 first-place votes that didn’t go to SGA, with the final tally going 913 points to the guard and 787 points to the big. Antetokounmpo finished third in this year’s voting.

A global media panel of 100 voters selected the winner of the 2024-25 Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Award.

The complete voting results ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/j4nqOAWVT2

— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) May 21, 2025

Jokic led the Nuggets to the fourth seed in the Western Conference while averaging 29.6 points (third in the NBA), 12.7 rebounds (second in the NBA) and 10.2 assists (second in the NBA) per game. He shot a career-high 41.7% from the 3-point line and recorded 1.8 steals per game, another career high. He is the first player since per-game stats began to be tracked in the 1969-70 season to finish in the top three in the three major stats.

However, the voters opted to give the award to Gilgeous-Alexander, who also had a phenomenal campaign. The 26-year-old led the Thunder to the best record in the entire league as he took home the scoring title at 32.7 points per game. SGA also set a career-high in assists per game, with 6.4, good for the 14th-best mark in the league.

Gilgeous-Alexander becomes the third player in Thunder franchise history to win the award after Kevin Durant (2014) and Russell Westbrook (2017). The Canadian is trying to rewrite the script and bring a championship to Oklahoma City, something that Durant and Westbrook weren’t able to do in their MVP seasons.

Jokic’s MVP last season, with SGA finishing second, had a larger margin of victory for the Nuggets player.