Nikola Jokic Wins 2nd Straight MVP Award
DENVER (CBS4) - For the second straight season, Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic has won the NBA's MVP award. The official announcement is expected later this week from the league.
Jokic began the season with long odds to repeat as the league's Most Valuable Player but the Serbian big man was statistically better than he was last season.
Jokic carried the Nuggets almost single handily considering the season ending injuries to the team's other top players in Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. The fact that Denver made the playoffs and won 48 games is a testament to Jokic's worth to the Nuggets.
Without diving too deep into the NBA's advanced metrics, which measure a players statistical impact, Jokic was the regular season leader by a wide margin in all of the key metrics that are most often used to measure a player's performance.
In layman's terms, no other player in the entire NBA is as impactful as Jokic.
Jokic finished the regular season averaging 27 ppg, 13 rebounds and 7 assists. No player in NBA history has ever averaged 25p, 7r and 13a.
He's the first player to record 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 500 assists in a single season. He led the league in triple-doubles with 19 and ranked in the top 10 in points, rebounds, assists and field goal percentage -- something no other player in the league has done in the past 50 years.