Seven years prior, the Denver Nuggets utilized the 41st pick in the NBA draft on an unheralded center from Serbia.
On Tuesday, Nikola Jokic turned into the 6th worldwide player to win the NBA’s MVP.
“To be honest, I didn’t even think about being in the NBA,” Jokic said on TNT’s “Inside The NBA” after winning the award. “My goal when I started to play basketball back home was to play in the EuroLeague because that was the closest top league to my country. I could play in some big clubs in Serbia and grind my way up. But then the Denver Nuggets drafted me, and it was an opportunity for me to become an NBA player.”
Jokic was given the information during a team meeting at the Nuggets’ hotel ahead of Game 2 of their second-round series with the Suns on Wednesday in Phoenix, with NBA commissioner Adam Silver making the declaration over a video conference call.
“It’s a big accomplishment,” Jokic said. “But it’s something that, like I said to the guys, it’s not just me. I couldn’t do it by myself. It’s something that it is an individual award but it’s the effort of everybody who is part of the Denver Nuggets organization.”
Jokic was the runaway winner of the honor, asserting 91 of the 101 first-place votes and 971 total points. He played each of the 72 regular-season games this season, one of only 11 players to achieve that accomplishment in this pandemic-shortened campaign, while additionally assembling best statistical seasons in NBA history.
Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid and Golden State Warriors watch Stephen Curry completed second and third, separately, behind Jokic in the final voting, trailed by Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, the victor the previous two seasons, and Phoenix monitor Chris Paul.
“The difference between this year was I started this season really well,” Jokic said. “I played kind of the whole season really well stat wise. I think this was the best season of my life and the cherry on the top is the trophy that I got. This is the best season of my life.”
He additionally became the first center since Shaquille O’Neal in 2000 to win the league’s top individual honor.
As well as being accessible consistently for Denver, Jokic completed the season with vocation best midpoints of 26.4 points and 8.3 assists and tying a lifelong best by averaging 10.8 rebounds. He likewise shot 56.6% from the field, 38.8% from 3-point range and 86.8% from the foul line. He drove Denver into the second round of the playoffs despite injuries to three of Denver’s guards – Jamal Murray, Will Barton and PJ Dozier – an accomplishment that none of different groups that made it to the gathering finals of a year ago’s playoffs in the air pocket in Orlando, Florida – the Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat and Boston Celtics – had the option to match.
The combination of Jokic’s play and accessibility gave him an unassailable case for the honor according to the citizens. He becomes the first player drafted in the second round to win the league’s top individual honor in the basic draft era, and furthermore joins Hakeem Olajuwon, Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki and Antetokounmpo as international winners of the award.
Winning MVP likewise means that Jokic will be eligible to sign a supermax contract extension with the Nuggets following the 2021-22 season – a five-year bargain that would be well in overabundance of $250 million.
Jokic said the prospect of winning the award never entered his thoughts this season.
“I never thought about it. Like, even when the season was over, I was into the Portland series, so my focus wasn’t on that,” he said. “I didn’t want to even think about it because it’s just a trophy, and the season is not over. So I was just trying to keep my focus on the games.”
Inquired as to whether he was happy to he will not need to be gotten some information about the capability of winning the honor once more, Jokic said smile, “To be honest, yes.”
Not long after Jokic completed his news conference, Nuggets coach Michael Malone addressed the media and did as such while wearing a uniquely crafted T-shirt with an animation picture of Jokic encompassed by numerous individuals of the reactions he has looked throughout the long term. On the rear of the shirt was the shirt was the phrase, “MVP, and the joke’s on you.”
“I think the greatest thing I can say about Nikola is he fully represents the culture we’ve created here in Denver,” Malone said. “I’ve been here six years and to see the growth of our program, and obviously that definitely coincides with the growth of Nikola Jokic. The last three years in the Western Conference, the Denver Nuggets had the most wins in the Western Conference, [with] 147.
“That doesn’t happen without Nikola improving, and more importantly as he’s improved so has everybody around him and all you guys have heard me say countless times the reason why Nikola is a great player is he makes everyone around him better. We saw that all season, we’ve seen that for six years, we saw that in the first round against Portland. If Nikola was all about me, me, me, we wouldn’t have had the success and I don’t know if he would’ve had the success. He’s totally selfless, one of the more understated superstars in recent memory and as I told him today I love him and feel really fortunate to not only coach him but have the relationship I have with him because it is a special relationship and one I enjoy having with him.”
It may have been Embiid who won this award had he not endured a bone wound in his knee in March. He had the best period of his vocation and led Philadelphia to the best record in the Eastern Conference, however ended up missing 21 games during the regular season.
That was about the lone thing that could back him off, as he set career-bests in focuses per game (28.5) and each of the three shooting rates (51.3% by and large, 37.7% from 3-point range, 85.9% from the free toss line).
Embiid called the completion was “disappointing.”
“As a player you work hard for moments like this, but it’s out of my control. There’s nothing I can do about it,” he said.
Embiid, as Jokic, would have qualified for the supermax – which he is eligible to sign after this season – had he won MVP. Embiid will rather fit the bill for the augmentation when he is chosen to one of the association’s All-NBA teams eventually in the following not many weeks.
That arrangement, should Embiid sign it, would be a four-year extension worth $186 million, as indicated by ESPN’s Bobby Marks.
Curry, a two-time winner of this honor, completed third in the voting after missing everything except three games last season in the wake of breaking his hand. He drove the NBA in scoring for the second time in his career, averaging an even 32 focuses per game while shooting 42.1% from 3-point range on a career-high 12.7 attempts from behind the curve per game.
On the off chance that there were any doubts Curry, 33, was still among the game’s first class, he immediately scattered them. He almost without any assistance kept Golden State’s offense above water this season without Klay Thompson, who missed his subsequent straight season because of injury, this time with a torn Achilles.
Curry additionally is extension-eligible this summer. He can sign a four-year, $215.3 million deal, as per Marks, to remain with Golden State very much into his late 30s.
Antetokounmpo got one first-place vote while completing fourth, and Paul got two in completing fifth. They were trailed by Dallas Mavericks monitor Luka Doncic, Portland Trail Blazers watch Damian Lillard, New York Knicks forward Julius Randle and gatekeeper Derrick Rose – who got the lone remaining first-place vote through the fan vote – and Utah Jazz focus Rudy Gobert in tenth.
LeBron James got one fifth-place vote, binds him with James Harden and Ben Simmons for thirteenth in the democratic. James had never completed lower than 11th in MVP voting a ballot before this season.
Like a year ago, the NBA has reverted to its traditional rollout of the awards during the end of the season games, as opposed to having a huge awards show toward the finish of the postseason, because of the continuous COVID-19 pandemic.