the serbian Nikola Jockicwith his second consecutive MVP in the NBA, led a vote unveiled this Wednesday by the league and in which three other non-American players appear in the top five: Joel Embiid (Cameroon), Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece) and Luka Doncic (Slovenia). The NBA officially reported this Wednesday that Jokic is the winner of the MVP of the 2021-2022 season after on Monday the ESPN network -and other American media later- announced that the Nuggets star was the Most Valuable Player of the league.
One hundred sports journalists participate in voting for the NBA awards. Jokic took 875 points with 65 journalists choosing him in the first position, 27 in the second and 6 in the third. For his part, embiid, of the Philadelphia 76ers and who was already second in the voting for the MVP of the previous season, received 706 points (26 were chosen as first choice, 39 in second position and 34 in third). This time there was less margin between Jokic and Embiid, since the previous year the Serbian added 971 points and the Cameroonian kept 586.
On the other hand, Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks (595 points), Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns (216 points) and Luka Doncić of the Dallas Mavericks (146 points) completed the list of the five players who received the most votes to be MVP this year. This is the first time in the history of the NBA that in the three most voted players for the MVP there is no American.
Jokic averaged 27.1 points, 13.8 rebounds, and 7.9 assists per game in the regular season. Also, he made history this year by becoming the first player in the NBA to have 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 500 assists in a single season. Despite the loss of Jamal Murray, the Nuggets, with Jokic in charge, managed to get into the playoffs as sixth-placed in the Western Conference, where they fell in the first round against the Golden State Warriors (4-1).
Jokic, 27, is the 13th player in NBA history to win the MVP twice in consecutive seasons. The center succeeded Antetokounmpo as MVP, who also took him consecutively in 2018-2019 and 2019-2020.