NBA MVP Race: We’re Not Sure Anyone Can Catch Nikola Jokić

The Denver center is playing toward a rare threepeat, and his competition seems to be dwindling as we head into the season’s stretch.

Will Nikola Jokić win a third MVP?

It sure looks that way if the Denver Nuggets center manages to stay healthy the rest of the way. As always, injuries have whittled the field down some, with Steph Curry and Kevin Durant having missed considerable time. Giannis Antetokounmpo now looks like he’ll perhaps miss some time, too, just as Milwaukee was potentially on the cusp of closing in on first place in the East.

Luka Dončić deserves consideration, but his league-leading scoring numbers—one of the strongest cases he has, in light of his enormous usage rate—figures to possibly take a step back now with Kyrie Irving sharing the floor with him.

It may turn out Joel Embiid is again Jokić’s biggest competition. You may remember that Embiid, who has finished as the MVP runner-up in back-to-back years, lit up Jokić and the Nuggets for 47 points in a victory when they matched up on national television back in January.

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But in a year when Embiid has been merely decent defensively relative to his own lofty standards and expectations, it seems unclear—perhaps unlikely, even—that the Sixers big man would win the award while producing so much less total offense than Jokić. Meaning: It will be difficult to make a strong case for someone averaging four assists per night when Jokić—also a center who doesn’t necessarily possess the ball each play—is averaging 10 in a triple-double season, and doing so on better scoring efficiency. On a first-place team, no less.

The race certainly isn’t over, but Jokić looks likely to join a historic list of players to win the award three consecutive times since the award was introduced during the 1955-’56 season—Bill Russell (1960-’63), Wilt Chamberlain (1965-’68) and Larry Bird (1983-’86).

Through Tuesday’s action, Jokić is averaging 24.7 points, 11.5 rebounds and 10.1 assists per game with 63.2 field-goal percentage.