NBA Legend Drops Controversial Nikola Jokic Statement

Who should have won the MVP?

Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

For some reason, any time Nikola Jokic wins the MVP award it becomes the topic of controversy. This season, no one seemed to have a problem with it, until the moment he actually won. Now, it's become a debate on whether he or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander deserved it.

On the newest episode of UNDISPUTED, Paul Pierce stated that what Jokic did was only MVP-ish. That if the first round of the playoffs were included, Jokic would not have won the award. For reference, Jokic averaged 26.4 points, 12.4 rebounds, and 9.0 assists on 58/36/82 shooting. In the playoffs, he's averaged 27.0 points, 15.0 rebounds, and 9.4 assists on 54/29/95 shooting.

"What Joker did during the regular season is just MVP-ish, from top to bottom," Pierce said. "The numbers is not gonna lie. Does Shai have an agrument? Absolutely. When I look at his team, he doesn't have a second All-Star, nor does Joker... I do believe Jamal as a second best player is better than what Shai has as a second best player."

Pierce believes that if the Oklahoma City Thunder had more national games, then Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would have won the award. - which would suggest a flaw in the voting itself.

"I think we just wasn't ready to give it to Shai right now because he didn't get a lot of national attention," Pierce said. "They didn't get a lot of national televised games. A lot of people looked up at the end of the year and didn't even know OKC was the number one seed... if he had gotten 20 national televised games this year he would have won it."

While there's an argument for Shai to win the award this season because the Thunder were the first seed, Jokic was dominating for 82 games. Not only that but the Nuggets and Thunder were tied record-wise.