Nikola Jokić’s case to win the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award for a second-straight season is quite compelling.  The Joker finished in the top 10 in points (27.1), assists (7.9) and rebounds (13.8) per game while shooting an astonishing 58.3 percent from the field. As FiveThirtyEight’s Robert O’Connell wrote recently, no high-scoring big man has ever shot the ball as efficiently as Jokić has this year. He’s stuffed the stat sheet at such an extraordinarily efficient clip that his 2021-22 player efficiency rating is the highest in NBA history. Combine all that with leading the Nuggets to 48 wins without the services of Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. for all or nearly all the season, and it’s no surprise that Jokić led ESPN’s latest straw poll of MVP voters.  

One factor preventing Jokić from running away with the award, however, is his longstanding reputation as a defensive liability. 

Read on, courtesy of FiveThirtyEight: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nikola-jokic-bolstered-his-mvp-case-with-his-defense/