Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokić has officially won his third regular season Kia NBA MVP Award… See more…
Nikola Jokić has officially won his third regular season Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Award.
It’s a remarkable accomplishment for a player whose career has thus far been entirely remarkable. He received 79 out of 99 first-place votes, 18 second-place votes, and 2 third-place votes for a total of 926 points.
Jokić led the Denver Nuggets to a top-two seed in the Western Conference for the second consecutive season. The Nuggets boasted the second-best home record and the best record against below-.500 teams in the NBA. Denver finished top-10 in offense (fifth) and defense (ninth) for the first time in the Jokić era.
To celebrate Nikola’s major accomplishment, we’ll be looking at his MVP season from three angles: the historical significance of a third MVP, the statistics behind his MVP year, and some highlights from Jokić’s 2023-24 season
Winning a third regular season MVP award puts Jokić in an exclusive class… a class comprised of all-timers from the NBA’s 75th Anniversary team. Here’s a full list of the nine players who have won three MVPs or more.
Six MVPs: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Five MVPs: Michael Jordan and Bill Russell
Four MVPs: LeBron James and Wilt Chamberlain
Three MVPs: Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Moses Malone, and now, Nikola Jokić
Jokić has won the MVP award in three of his last four seasons: 2021, 2022, and now, 2024. The one year he didn’t win the award—in 2023—he finished second place in voting to Joel Embiid.
He’s received at least one MVP vote for six years and counting.
In Denver’s very first game, Ring Night at home, Jokić dropped 29 points, 13 rebounds, and 11 assists for his first triple-double of the season just hours after receiving his 2023 NBA championship ring. He helped defeat the Los Angeles Lakers, 119-107, in a rollicking Opening Night victory.
Jokić would then have a stretch from November 6th to November 14th where he dropped at least 30 points in four consecutive games. In two of those four showings, he recorded a triple-double.
He became the 26th player ever to drop at least 35 points, 20 rebounds, and 10 assists in a game when he finished with 36 points, 21 rebounds, and 11 assists against the Houston Rockets on November 11th.
Now, things really got crazy at the turn of the new year when Jokić missed two total shots in three games from December 28th to January 1st. You could make a case that it was the single most efficient three-game run in modern NBA history.
He had the highest field goal percentage (92.9 percent) with at least 25 total shots in a three-game span since the NBA-ABA merger.
That brings us to, by far, the highlight of Jokić’s 2023-24 season. January 4th against the Golden State Warriors. A wonderful day in Nuggets history. Denver mounted an 18-point fourth quarter comeback to tie the ball game, and then Jokić did this…
