Nikola Jokic to join Jordan and Kareem with second-straight NBA MVP award

Nikola Jokic put up numbers never seen before in NBA history. Not from Wilt. Not from Kareem. Not from Jordan. Not from LeBron.

With a historic season, the Denver Nuggets big man earned his second straight Most Valuable Player award, a person with knowledge of the decision told the Associated Press on Monday. The NBA will formally announce the result later this week. ESPN, citing sources, first reported that Jokic would be named MVP again.

The 7ft center became the first player in league history to record more than 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 500 assists in a season. And that sort of dominance helped convince voters that the Serbian star should be the 13th player of the NBA’s exclusive MVP back-to-back club.

The other finalists who will finish second and third in some order were Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid, who led the league in scoring average, and two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo of the reigning champion Milwaukee Bucks.

The 27-year-old Jokic averaged 27.1 points, 13.8 rebounds and 7.9 assists on a team that was missing two other stars, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr, for almost the entirety of the season due to injury. Required to carry the load night in and out, the big man from Sombor, Serbia, answered the call and guided the Nuggets to a 48-win season. They earned the No 6 seed in the West before losing in five games to the Golden State Warriors in the opening round of the playoffs.

“It’s just remarkable what he’s done,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone recently said of Jokic. “I know that I’m very biased, I admit it wholeheartedly the MVP isn’t even a competition. There’s other great players, I’m not saying they’re not great players, but what Nikola Jokic has done this year, with this team, with