ESPN ran an offseason survey of 20 NBA coaches, executives, and scouts for their thoughts on a number of questions, and the experts voted Nikola Jokic most likely to win the MVP Award this season. If this prediction comes true, it would be Jokic’s fourth MVP, vaulting him into rarified air with only five other players in league history.
LeBron James and Wilt Chamberlain have won the award four times, Bill Russell and Michael Jordan have won it five times, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won a record six times in his career. Those are widely considered five of the greatest players to ever play the game, and that’s the company that Jokic would be joining.
If the Joker is able to add another MVP trophy to his resume, he would undeniably enter into the conversation for the greatest basketball player of all time. When you talk about these top players like MJ, LeBron, Kareem, Russell, and Wilt, a lot boils down to semantics, and one could reasonably make a case for any one of them being the GOAT.
That would become the case for Jokic as well, and if he could add another Finals MVP or two along the way while continuing to pile up regular season stats and accolades, he would start to feel almost inevitable.
Jokic almost unanimously regarded as best player in the league
Another question in the survey was a more straightforward, “Who is the best player right now?”, in which Jokic won the vote 19-1, with one Eastern Conference executive saying, "As long as he's walking and breathing, it should be him."
That seems to capture the general sentiment, as it’s almost unanimously acknowledged that Jokic is the best player in the league. One vote went to Luka Doncic, but as good as the young Slovenian superstar has been, he has still yet to capture an NBA Finals or MVP Award.
The MVP vote factored in narratives, team success, and storylines, as Jokic only received 7 of the 20 votes, while defending MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander earned 5 votes, and Doncic had 3. Still, even with voter fatigue and every other factor imaginable, if there is this much of a consensus that Jokic is the best player, and the Nuggets are expected to improve as a team, his case to win for the fourth time will be quite convincing.