Denver Nuggets center player Nikola Jokic has been announced as 2021 NBA Most Valuable Player Award as of today.
Apart from receiving his first award as an MVP player, Jokic is also the first player to earn this award for the Nuggets. At the same, he is the first Serbian player to be selected as the NBA MVP and he joined Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece) and Dirk Nowitzki (Germany) as MVP awardees from Europe.
During the second-round pick, Jokic was selected as the 41st spot in 2014 Draft Pick, and he was also ranked the lowest to be named as season’s NBA MVP, except three-time MVP Moses Malone who wasn’t selected in the NBA Draft,
On the 2021 Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Award, he has received 91 1st place votes from a global panel of 100 broadcasters and sportswriters and 1 Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Award fan vote, which lead him to garner 971 total points. The rank was followed by Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid with 586 points and Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry with 453 points.
The mechanics to win the MVP award are through votes, where if players received a first-place vote, it is equivalent to 10 points, 7 points for a second-place vote, and 5 points on third-place votes.
This is Jokic’s 6th NBA season, where he has proactively played 72 games, and reached the average of 26.4 points, 8.4 assists, and 10.9 rebounds. Behind Jovic, the Nuggets has also posted a 47-25 record, which made them proceed and earn the third seed in the Western Conference for the NBA Playoffs