Nikola Jokić ties Bill Russell and Larry Bird for the most top-two consecutive finishes in MVP voting with six.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/25428900-how-many-votes-did-luka-doncic-get-2025-26-nba-mvp-full-voting-results-revealed-sga-wins
https://www.nba.com/news/nikola-jokic-5th-straight-top-2-finish-kia-nba-mvp-voting
Crazy that both Jordan and LeBron didn’t get it because one season of getting 3rd in voting (both should’ve been 1st). Funny enough, they each got punished by voters for getting MVP’s already but no rings. Which was also a narrative that may have cost Jokic a 1st place finish in ‘23.
Uh no?
Lebron didnt deserve it above Howard in 2011. Wade outplayed lebron in like 49 games that season lmao.
Nah. The agenda against Villain/Traitor Bron was horrendous.
Literally. It felt like everyone not a heat fan (even them too) hated bron for going to Miami.
Why should you get mvp or even 2nd for getting less wins with a way better and healthier team?
No logic you guys use
Lol I lived through that, literally no one was objective or “fair” to LeBron or the Heat during that season, whether irl or online. It was a nasty time to be a Heat or LeBron fan.
That’s an insane opinion
There’s no argument for Rose being a more valuable offensive and defensive player than Bron
Lmao the bullshit people are comfortable saying in this sub sometimes
put some respect on larry
Larry did that while basically having a debilitating back issue the last 6 years of his career
He ain’t crippled
He had a mangled back for like the last 6 years of his career
He’s clear. Being white is a disability though for most basketball players though. You actually get a handicap pass for stadium parking if you’re white and you get a roster spot.
I didn’t laugh 😭
Is Jokic better than Kobe Bryant in basketball?
Both of them have definitely had memorable nights in Denver
Bro☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
Fam lol
Was that her name?
All I know is that she’s a teenager
Uh, yeah.
Yall can’t be serious man 😂
Show me the MVPs and MVP finishes. All you can point to is rings, for which Kobe needed Shaq and Pau. Jokic has never had that level of talent around him.
You guys like to overrate Pau to put down Kobe
Lol what? This isn’t even me commenting on Jokic vs. Kobe, but Pau was a fantastic player. He led some pretty meh Grizzlies teams to 45-50 wins 3 straight years before getting to LA; was the main reason Kobe has ring number 5. If anything, people like to underrate how good Bynum and Odom were.
And yet, nobody with eyes and a brain would ever say Jokic is better.
Jokic also inarguably had a better team around him for his run than Kobe did for his last 2 rings. So yeah that’s a weird argument to try to make.
Look at all these Nuggets bozos desperately trying to convince the world Jokic’s repeated strings of failures are anyone else’s fault but his own.
If jokic has your spurs team (instead of Wemby) he’s winning 5 rings in a row btw
Not at this point. He has to win more and get his team across the finish line.
Better and greater are different things
There are two sides of the ball. He’s not as far off from Jokic offensively as Jokic is from him defensively. Kobe has 12 all defensive team selections. (9 first team, 3 second team) Jokic doesn’t even have 1. Jokic legitimately got targeted during the Minnesota series.
Kobe didn’t deserve half his all defense selections and got there on reputation more than impact.
Not saying jokic isn’t a cone, just that Kobe was not as good defensively as his resume suggests.
I watched Kobe play basketball.
I did too, I’m an old.
Once his offensive usage went way up his defense in the regular season was super gamble heavy where he got a good number of steals but also gave a ton of free buckets. Basically a wash in defensive advanced stats his whole career.
Definitely could lock up when needed, but it’s not like he was tony allen out there every year.
I mean yeah. But he could actually guard somebody when he needed to. He was never attacked on D like Jokic was in the Minnesota series.
For sure. Theres a massive gulf between “probably didn’t deserve some all defense selections” and where jokic is at defensively.
On paper by accolades he’s one of the greatest defenders of all time which no offense to him just isn’t true. Him having more all defense than gary payton, twice as many as jrue, 3 more than Hakeem, etc is a bit wild.
Uh, no.
The only thing you can point to is rings. Kobe needed Shaq and Pau to win. Jokic has never had that level of talent on his team. Get real, rapist fanboy.
Rings and actual defense lol. And I wouldn’t say I’m a Kobe fan but the one year Jokic won it was when Murray was playing lights out. Jokic needed a team to win too. Everyone does.
Kobe’s defense is not good enough to close the gap. Jokic still clears easily.
Wtf are you talking about? Kobe has TWELVE all NBA defensive accolades.
I know I got a Nuggets flair but I’m just randomly stumbling into this convo with no real dog in the fight, but Kobe’s all defense selections are famously recognized as reputation awards for like the back half of em
Okay then how about the other six? Lmao
He’s a good defender was my point, but 12 is overblown he wasn’t an all time great defender, that’s it, like I said this isn’t me trying to bolster an argument just saw this one comment I wanted to respond to :)
The back half thing (you didn’t make it up but it gets parroted a lot) isn’t super accurate.
His last three were on reputation. That leaves him with nine earned All-Defense selections. Both 08 and 09 are included in that “back half” portion that people consistently shit on, and both those years had him putting up MVP caliber two-way play - they just happened to coincide with LeBron’s ascension into the consistently best player in basketball.
He’s both a better defender than current narratives would suggest, and a slightly worse defender than his number of awards would indicate. But, that’s still a decade of being a noticeably + meaningfully more impactful defender than Jokic.
Kobe and Jokic are on opposite ends of the spectrum defensively. Kobe is not a goat tier offensive player but still pretty good.
There’s only about 30 players to average 30 points in a season, and Kobe did it twice
I would argue he’s more than pretty good offensively
semantics dude. you know what i meant.
Pretty good? Kobe was elite offensively
Kobe was elite on both sides of the floor. Jokic is elite on offense but gets targeted on defense.
Jokic stans are funny bro. It’s okay, you will survive
It’s wild
some of the most insane fan there is. I fear that wemby stans might become worst
[deleted]
No flair pussies like you are funny. It’s okay, you will survive.
Jamal Murray had more impact than Pau towards winning a championship
Lmfao sure pal
Jokic is a consent first player so yes
Rhetorical question, right? Of course he is
I don’t think so, but some people might
Much better in the regular season, a bit worse in the playoffs. Good question overall
duh??????
Not a chance. Kobe was a very good defender. Jokic becomes a liability in the playoffs.
Kobe has beaten 25 teams that had 50 wins in the playoffs, Jokic has beaten 1…
Playoffs are what matter and I know I’m taking Kobe
Kobe had Shaq and Gasol, Jokić had…
A matchup against the wolves without ant and couldn’t get it done
Jamal Murray Aaron Gordon and MPJ. They are all good players. I hate this narrative fans push he has no help.
The narrative on MPJ Jokic Stan’s pushed that he was ass and would be nothing without Jokic, meanwhile he looked like an all star on the Nets scoring 20ish points on hyper efficient splits.
Miss me with that bullshit.
This is a bit besides the point, but I think Jordi Fernandez is just insanely good at putting players in a position to rack up gaudy stats that are genuinely efficient while also not jeopardizing the tank. MPJ is the third forward in a row (after Bridges and Cam Johnson) who has had ridiculously good stats as the first option on the Nets that are way better than anything he’s ever averaged before (or after in the case of the former two). I’m not at all convinced MPJ would look this good on another team. At a certain point, the Nets have fooled me too many times to buy into it.
Murray had 2 good postseasons, last one was 2023, and it fooled everyone into saying he’s a riser.
Take a look at his last few postseasons where he’s been well below where he should be. Take a look at Aaron Gordon being injured in multiple. Take a look at MPJ being a well known playoff dropper and his stats in the playoffs, and he was injured last year too (btw, using literal meaningless minutes on his last season where he was playing for nothing does not mean anything when the whole issue was his playoff performances)
You need guys who can be on the floor consistently (gordon) and actually perform to the level of their reputations in the playoffs (mpj, murray) to argue about how much success he should have had in the playoffs with them.
Jokic didn’t elevate Murray then. I like the one who got the job done 5x not 1x
So you’re saying any one of Murray, Gordon or MPJ is on par with Shaq lmao not to mention other teammates Kobe has had.
The hate is delusional
That’s not what he said at all, you’re just trying to cause confusion to push a narrative.
Also, shaq had to get with Wade to win another ring lol
You’re both deflecting. Never did I say Jokić had no help, I said he didn’t have generational players as his teammates. He’s pointing out MPJ’s stats on a 20 win team ffs
Also, I’m just gonna ignore that Wade comment because you’re just downplaying Shaq now
You ignoring facts is kind of the entire basis of your arguments , so I’ll let you have it lol
You have a good one, congrats to Shai
You bringing Shai into this conversation just shows your bias lmao
That’s 3 people vs 1 guy.
I think the teams Jokic has had are better than the teams Kobe had without Shaq.
I think Aaron Gordon and Gasol (17 ppg) are pretty close. And then Jamal 19 ppg and Mpj 17.3 were no slouches
Lol I love Aaron Gordon but he ain’t close to as good as prime Gasol
Because you dont know baketball lol, dude said Gasol and Gordon are pretty close hahaha. Gasol, Bynum, Ron Artest, Lamar Odom, Ariza are not better than the Nuggets supporting cast?!!
why are you comparing pure averages when the team scoring averages are a lot higher nowadays than before
None of those of those players are on the level of Shaq or even Pau
Maybe Jamal and AG for two seasons have played on the level of Pau most of his career
They don’t even hold a candle to Shaq
I don’t think Murray nor Gordon nor Porter are making the Hall of Fame.
Kobe literally won three rings being the second-best player on his own team
Duncan won two as the 2nd best. What’s your point?
are we calling MPJ going from 54/40/77 to 46/36/86 vindicating for him? His scoring only went up like 6 points while taking 5 more shots per game
The nets won fucking 20 games lol
Why are people hating this so much? This is greatness that will maybe never again be seen. Yes Jokic did have a bad playoff this season. Yes he underperfomed compared to Shai and Wemby in the playoffs, but keep in mind how their players are playing and how his teammates were this season with bad form and injuries. Anyways individually great result for him and totally deserved.
This is greatness that we’ve seen twice before
“Greatness that we will never see again” lmao. I’m sure we will never see another top 25 all time player again…
Shai dealt with the most injuries. No excuses
You dipshits really make it easy to root against the thunder. The flopping and foul baiting as well, but especially you dipshits
I can’t wait until Auston Mathews gets traded to Washington.
I’ve seen you dick riding okc in 4 different posts today. You’re why people don’t like okc fans. You won’t understand this so I won’t read your reply but you should probably get a job or a hobby or something. This can’t be good for your mental health. We’re worried about you bud. Jokic is doing something historical we should appreciate it not cry about okc when they’re not even the topic of discussion.
Reddit isn’t reality chief. What’s Jokic doing that’s historical? Getting punked by Gobert in the playoffs? Don’t be making fun of mental health
Huh. Denver’s 3rd to 6th guys a missed 30 to 50 games this season. Denver def had more top guys miss games. You can check bbref
Hartenstein missed 35 games
Caruso missed 26
Ajay 25
Jaylin 17
Dort and Chet 13
Oh and Jalen 49 games.
I don’t wanna hear it
Plus Shai missed 14.
Braun (starting sg) missed 41 games
Cam Johnson (starting sf) missed 29 games
Aaron gordan (starting pf) missed 52 games including the playoffs.
Watson (6th man who shouldve been starting/nuggets 2nd best defender) missed 30 games including the playoffs
Oh plus jokic missed 17 games
These are their top 6 guys fyi. Im not gonna list bums from 7 to 10 who also missed 20 to 30 games.
Im not sure why you took offense at me telling you to check bbref lol
Insane how long he’s been the best player in basketball. Sad to see Denver just not be able to put the team around him but at least he got one.
Biggest victim of the 2nd Apron stuff
And a cheap owner
Hello
Before this year started all I heard was how this was his best supporting cast ever, and Murray was all nba this year. Now after another awful playoff meltdown and its his team’s fault again
They always going to find a way to abstain Jokic from blame lol
Murray was worse than ayton in the playoffs
I mean are we going to act like Minnesota didn’t make Murray look like a scrub? Gobert did a great job of shutting down Jokic as well but it’s pretty easy to do when he has nobody else to go to.
Yes when they are not injured
Wolves were missing ant and dante, no excuses
Well you were talking about supportive cast. You dont have the best supportive cast if they arent playing. The nuggets beat the Timberwolves with Ant & Dante in the first game
So how did they lose the series then? The best offensive player of all time should be able to beat a team missing its best player, please get real for once
Three Celtics legends
Well deserved.
It might be too early to say this but Wemby is the only candidate that could achieve the same.
It’s absolutely absurd to be this of an outlier in the most talented era of all time. Jokic’s legacy is gonna be in very, very rare air. His story ain’t done but it very well could end up in the rarest air.
Nikola Jokic to Boston when?
Wemby should’ve been top 2
Nah he wasn’t carrying the same load regular season
Yeah, the Spurs as a whole were fantastic all year long, especially in that stretch where he was injured, they were a force. And then he was able to slowly ramp up as well.
The Nuggets have basically the same record without Jokic as the Spurs without Wemby.
most definitely not relative to competition, and the nuggets overperformed relative to netrtg (negative netrtg, but well above 500 record) while the spurs were a significantly positive netrating and a still better record. Spurs also maintained better health than the nuggets throughout the season.
I can see the argument for wemby myself, and I hope he excels in the playoffs, but that is not a fair comparison to directly draw who is more valuable from and say it’s wemby.
This is just not true. The nuggets were a -0.2 without jokic and a 6.5 with him. The Spurs were a +3 without him and a +9.8 with him. And even then, in the games that Wemby DID play, he had a higher total plus/minus than Jokic despite playing like 300 less minutes. I can’t be bothered looking up the competition they faced but the teams the spurs played without wemby were generally pretty bad.
It is true. Wdym? I’m not saying the game on/off is worse (although it is, you cut off 0.2 from the spurs to make it 6.8 for wemby instead of 6.6 lol), I’m saying the net rating does not match for the nuggets relative to their win loss. Which is true. And the competition is that the nuggets played their easiest 16 game stretch of the season without Jokic.
Also yes, that’s how plus minus works. The spurs were better both with and without their main guy. It doesn’t mean inherently that the main guy is more valuable. I’m saying the record isn’t indicative of how good they actually were without their main guy anyway.
In other words, the Nuggets performed just as well without Jokic as the Spurs without Wemby (6.6 netrtg diff vs 6.7 netrtg diff) and had similar records (12-6 vs 11-6).
ok that’s not what i was saying. The netrtg without them is all I was highlighting, and that’s what it means to “perform without them”.
The records should correspond to the netrtg without them, they don’t, because the nuggets record is better than their netrtg says it should be.
But the netrtg gap is the same. By point diff per100 the gap between both teams without their best players is literally the same, and by record it is also the same. Your reasoning doesn’t make sense because it assumes that when both of those guys played their teams’ record was the same/their netrtg was the same. It wasn’t. Both teams also outperformed their netrtg.
Wemby played less than 2000 minutes
LeBron was out with sciatica at the beginning of the season and played more minutes than Wemby
Wemby is awesome, but you have to play t
He had a higher TOTAL plus/minus than Jokic despite playing 300 less minutes. He’s so good he was sitting out 4th quarters regularly in the second half of the season. Not his fault Jokic is going band for band with guys like Ayo Dosumnu every game.
And yet, Shai sat out a bunch of 4th quarters too and he still played over 300 minutes more than Wemby
Like i said, wemby is awesome, but you can’t win if you don’t play
Wemby was literally more impactful. He produced more than Jokic. The minutes don’t matter. If I give you 30 in 20 minutes and you give me 10 in 40 minutes I played better than you. By netrtg/plus-minus and virtually every advanced metric under the sun Wemby had better cumulative stats than Jokic.
Jokic wasn’t either
They played each other for top 2 and Jokic won
What kind of stats is this
One of these players is not like the other, one of these players just isn’t the same.
You keeping track of how many times a girl chose someone else over you?
The 76ers, Spurs, Thunder, and flairless are coming for this post instantly
His PR is insane
It’s insane PR to recognize that he’s been an incredible basketball player?
For real why can’t we just appreciate Jokic doing something historical? I don’t get the hate
Ok 👍
Who cares though
People who are interested in the NBA
This is lame as shit, trash ass post.
Y’all got ppl asking is Jokic better than Kobe wtf. Delete this shit
It’s just a stat lol
I would post the same thing for Wemby or Shai if I could karma farm like that.
Fam that shit lame, the post is a nothing burger for karma. It’s not something ppl have really ever celebrated, especially for someone at the level ppl are putting Jokic on.
Shit disappointing ppl feel like this is a topic to have discussion about.
Talk about how someone has 3mvps but only made it past the second round 2 times in their career. THATS AN INTERESTING CONVERSATION.
hahahahahaha you seem like a nice guy
Honestly I am, easily mad tho. Shit be stupid.
Kobe fans are lamer. You guys get aneurysm the moment someone is put in a better light than him.
It’s dumbass fans like you that we get unironic shit like “Bam shouldn’t have scored 83 out of respect for Kobe”. You’re all delusional.
I’m not even a Kobe fan, I’m just not an idiot. You mfs act like Kobe wasn’t one of the best players all time trying putting Jokics bum ass over him. Shit redacted.
Why?
Lmao who pissed you off so much