Joel Embiid has been named the league’s Most Valuable Player, according to the NBA (Twitter link).
The Sixers center surged during the second half of the season and topped Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, who won the award the past two seasons, and Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, who captured the league’s most prestigious individual award in 2019 and 2020.
Embiid, the third overall pick of the 2014 draft, led Philadelphia to the Eastern Conference’s third-best record while topping the league in scoring at 33.1 points per game. He also averaged 10.2 rebounds and 4.2 assists in 66 regular-season games.
Jokic, who was considered the frontrunner a majority of the season, averaged 24.5 points, 11.8 rebounds and a career-best 9.8 assists in 69 games while leading Denver to the Western Conference’s top seed. Jokic’s assist average ranked fourth in the league, an unusual feat for a center.
Antetokounmpo led the Bucks to the league’s best record by averaging 31.1 points (fifth in the league), 11.8 rebounds and 5.7 assists in 63 games. Milwaukee’s superstar tied for third in the league in rebounding with Jokic.
The votes were based only on the regular season, so Milwaukee’s first-round playoff exit had no bearing on the voting.
Considering the MVP debate raged throughout the season, it was a little surprising that Embiid won by such a wide margin. He picked up 73 of the 100 first-place votes, while Jokic received 15 and Antetokounmpo got the other 12.
Overall, Embiid had 915 points with Jokic in second place (674 points) and the Bucks star in third (606). The Celtics‘ Jayson Tatum received most of the fourth-place votes and the Thunder‘s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished fifth.
Donovan Mitchell, Domantas Sabonis, Luka Doncic, Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler, De’Aaron Fox, Jalen Brunson, and Ja Morant also received at least one vote apiece.
Embiid is the first Sixers player to win the award since Allen Iverson (2000-01).
All three deserved it, but it goes to show that if you whine enough you’ll get your way.
True, just look at when Marcus Smart won DPOY
Very similar as Smart deserved it as well.
Haha what? That clown didn’t even have the best defensive rating on his team, not even close. In fact Rob Williams had the best Drtg over any with at least 60 games. Celtics defense, including Smart is absolute trash without Rob Will.
If you want to play the “guard” game. Gary Payton was 20th in Drtg. Smart 63rd. Deserving? Efficiently no, straight trash. Thanks for playing, please try again.
I’ll give it to you on Williams and Smart but Drtg doesn’t mean a whole lot when comparing players from different teams. One team can play at the pace of molasses like the Cavs while the other runs balls to the wall like the Kings.
Smart as a 6’3″ guard took on the opposing teams best offensive threat night in and night out be it a speedy guard or rangy forward, hell he even held his own against opposing centers at times.
No disrespect to Williams but he just hung back and played free safety while smart was actually shutting guys down.
Depends on the Drtg youre looking at. On NBA.com it’s team based. On basketball reference it’s individual player based, per 100 possessions so it doesn’t matter how fast or slow a team plays.
Cry a river
Lol tacocat nailed it
You talking about your boot?
Most dominant player in the league. Congrats jojo emvp say it knucklehead and love it. Bwaaaaaaa Bwaaaaaaa Bwaaaaaaa
And as always Joel can’t stay on the court when it matters.
That’s why they couldn’t give it to jokic again. Complain after every call. Flailing his arms everywhere
Kendrick Perkins is on cloud nine today.
Jojo by a landslide. Congratulations Joel mvp.
No rings, but youre the “most valuable”, sure….
NBA MVP = broken system. You cannot be “the most” valuable unless you are the best player on the best team. The best team wins the title. Winning matters.
The MVP is a regular season award
I would agree that the system is broken, but so is your logic. Trying to base it off of rings means you are considering past seasons when it’s a season by season award.
I’d almost think that simply because the award is voted on BEFORE the finals even begin, you’d figure out it has nothing to do with the finals, or playoffs whatsoever.
But this is like the 4th award you’ve complained about the winner not getting to or playing well in the finals, so I guess just repeat that until the finals are over, then complain that whoever wins the FINALS MVP..didn’t win a National Championship in college, or whatever.
LeBron didn’t even go to college
Congratulations to all the people who helped him whine his way to a win like he whined his way to enough free throws to win a points per game title. The MVPs team is 13-5 without him this season is including 2-0 in the playoffs. All it took was the most toxic stupid discussion in history to give him the edge. If he doesn’t win a chip this year he should never be brought up in an MVP discussion again.
Wah wah
It’s fitting that Wah Wah is so popular in Philly
Sounds like you’re the one who’s doing the whining
No way did he deserve it
Wah
Why you crying? I don’t care who wins. But he definitely did not deserve it.
Give one factual reason why he didn’t deserve it? And please, spare us any“Jokic deserved it more” nonsense
Except these people don’t have a reason. They just say “Jokic is really good” and then if you can prove Embiid is better they just pivot to saying Giannis is better or something.
Hard for anyone to feel like this wasn’t influenced by outside nonsense and bias against the three-peat. That vote spread is utterly ridiculous. 15 first-place votes for Jokic? Seriously?
No disrespect to Embiid, but there’s no way it should’ve been such a landslide. Just another reason why I tend to not pay attention to sports awards anymore.
Yeah the voting was disrespectful this year…
A closer vote would have dispelled this… But you can see there was a anti-3 peat narrative built…
You paid attention to this.
True, but it’s something I find more unfortunate than a thing to get worked up over or really care about.
Well deserved!!! Most impactful playoff defender with AD, averaging 33 and gets doubled and tripled every time he touches the ball. Best player in the world. Special all time talent. Top 75 player all time. Should be a 2 time MVP. Just a great guy to watch don’t take his greatness for granted! CONGRATS BIG FELLA!!!!!
Joel Embiid’s road to an MVP has been nothing short of miraculous:
•Starts playing at 15, moves to US at 16
•Drafted #3 overall, misses first 2 seasons
•”The Process” era ft. Fultz, Simmons, Colangelo, & more
•Rises to best center in the NBA!
Maybe he will shut up now. Doubt it but one can hope.
Lol reading the comments in here. All I see is a bunch of cry babies crying. Congrats Embiid
Congratulations to Embiid he deserves it like he deserves 22 free throws a game
Perhaps teams shouldn’t foul him so much. He gets mauled regularly, so this narrative that he doesn’t “deserve” his FTs is absurd and not based in reality. Giannis averaged more FT attempts per game than Embiid, Embiid is just a better shooter
I’m sure you being a Sixers fan has nothing to do with it. /s
For my part, I don’t have an issue with Embiid winning as much as I do with the vote split. Extremely unlikely it would’ve as lopsided as it was without the narrative and bias components in play.
The team played fine without him. The team is good in the playoffs without him. And once again he’s injured when it matters
I’m shocked…
I thought it was definitely going to Jokic…
The voting was definitely weird… Oh well… Joel had a great year…
Nah Jokic flat out tried to tank it once the crap about “racism is the only reason someone would vote for Jokic” stuff started. Philly worked the voters like they work the refs. Good news is he’s going to miss more time, fitting that he won the award from the lockerroom
So some ESPN talking head who has no relationship with the philly organization whatsoever worked the voters by suggesting racially motivated voting? And Embiids injury is good news because of something someone else said? Show me on the doll where the cheesesteak touched you
Now do 2021 and 2022
Worked the voters like they work the refs? Quite possibly the most asinine narrative on this thread. Stay salty bro
Lol the guy who sat out the game against Jokic won mvp. Jokic should have won it again but sjw NBA couldn’t allow that to happen. If you complain enough you get your way everywhere I suppose. Shameful
jokic already has that. he wants a finals mvp more.
Scored 46 on Jokic when he played him.
Had to be pulled off of him after being -12 against him in the first half, then dodged him in Denver. Embiid hasn’t played in Denver since 2019
I like how you pick and chose stats from subsections of certain games. You should look at his final line. He didn’t dodge anyone. Embiid played hurt half of the season. The guy has been insane for three straight years, if you think he did not deserve one mvp in that span, then I don’t know what you’re watching. The mvp doesn’t go to the same guy every year or else MJ, Kobe and lebron would have won the probably 32 of the last 35 mvp awards
Hasn’t played in Denver for years
Embiid is the most dominant player. He won the scoring title in back-to-back years and is a wall in the paint. Players were polled, and they too picked Embiid. Jokic is a great player, but not a dominant one, and his defense is nonexistent, and he shouldn’t have won last year except metric nerds love him.
It’s called the Most Valuable Player, not the Most Dominant Player, for a reason. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the league.
Other then the fact that they are the same thing that’s a great argument. You people always are looking for a new anti-Embiid angle.
Most dominantly injured and most dominantly crying
By a landslide .
Best player in the league won the award. That’s all you can ask for.
LeBron didn’t win it, although I’m sure his case is better than the begging cry baby who did.
Joker won
And his team is better than Philly
Hopefully Kendrick Perkins can sleep better now that a white person didn’t win it 3 years in a row.
ESPN made the narrative that only white players can 3-peat. You had guys like Kendrick Perkins alluding to it on national television. Now I actually do think that you can’t go wrong with voting for Jokic or Embiid. With that being said, the final month and a half narratives that ESPN was trying to throw out there to set a certain agenda was absolutley digusting. I think the biggest problems with these shows are that they influence the voting too much. Jokic could get a triple double and they act like its no big deal. Embiid will have a game where he goes 15 and 6, you won’t hear a chirp from the media. Jokic goes 20, 10, and 10 and the media talks about how stats like that aren’t mvp worthy. Theres a scoring title and theres a MVP award. You don’t win games by only scoring. Without Harden’s playmaking, all of Embiid’s numbers go way down. Contrast that with Jokic who sets up everyone and can create his own shot
15 and 6 lol go to bed son
Congrats Joel
76s won’t win anything without mcw, hinkie and okafor. Maybe they will all go visit Dario saric again
Wow. Never thought it was actually possible to cry your way to an MVP, but alas, here we are. This is very fitting of the world we live in and the society in which we participate, a society in which insanity is the new norm. It seems like the prevailing narrative of “everyone gets a chance” and “the world should care about my feelings” won the vote here. Enjoy your participation ribbon, Joel. Very impressive (LOL).
Jokic mvp
Is it clear he’ll accept the award? He ranted for 2 years questioning the legitimacy of the award and the basketball acumen of those who voted on it. Same people voted on it this year.
Embiid flopped his way to the MVP. I don’t like watching floppers so I don’t watch him play much. Constantly trying to fool the refs makes a mockery of the integrity of the game and shouldn’t be rewarded.