ESPN projects Nikola Jokic will win 2023-24 NBA MVP fairly easily
Aug 22, 2023, 4:01 PM | Updated: Apr 3, 2024, 12:22 pm
Denver Nuggets superstar center Nikola Jokic was robbed of last season’s NBA MVP award.
Not that Jokic ever really cared about winning the honor a third straight time — and he got something much better.
The Nuggets won their first NBA title and Jokic took home MVP awards for both the Western Conference Finals and NBA Finals. He may have been snubbed of one honor that went to Joel Embiid, but he added a whole lot of others to his trophy case.
Believe or not, projections for the 2023-24 NBA MVP are already starting to emerge. ESPN published theirs on Tuesday, after surveying “members of a Summer Forecast” expert panel. And the results were skewed heavily in Jokic’s favor.
He finished first with 77 points based on ESPN’s scoring system and 42.3 percent of the first-place votes. Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo came in second with 58 points and 23.1 percent of the top votes. Rounding out the top-5 were Luka Doncic of the Mavericks, Jayson Tatum of the Celtics and Embiid.
After all the unnecessary drama a season ago, and Jokic wildly outperforming Embiid in the playoffs, it feels like the voters may right their wrong. Jokic is still going to need to have a big season, but no one doubts that’ll happen.
Meanwhile, Nuggets head coach Michael Malone earned the third most votes in the Coach of the Year projection, trailing only Mark Daigneault of the Thunder and Erik Spoelstra of the Heat.
Malone already got the best of Spoelstra a couple of months ago, as Denver beat Miami in five games to secure the championship.
You can see the full results from all the award projections here.
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