AP – Denver Nuggets star from Serbia Jokic was announced on Wednesday night as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player – his third time winning the award in the past four seasons, a feat that just six other players in league history have accomplished.
He averaged 26.4 points, 12.4 rebounds and 9.0 assists. Others averaged more in each category – and Jokic has had better years in each of those categories – but he was the only player to rank in the NBA’s top 10 in points, rebounds and assists per game this season.
Jokic got 79 of a possible 99 first-place votes from the panel of reporters and broadcasters who cast ballots on awards when the regular season ended. “It’s got to start with your teammates,” Jokic said on TNT, where the award was announced. “Without them, I’m nothing. Without them, I cannot do nothing. Coaches, players, organisation, medical staff, development coaches… I cannot be whoever I am without them.”
It likely was not a coincidence that Jokic appeared on television for the award announcement wearing a T-shirt commemorating the life of one of his mentors, Golden State assistant coach Dejan Milojević, who died earlier this year after a heart attack on a road trip.
Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was second and Dallas’ Luka Doncic was third, both getting into the top three of MVP voting for the first time. With Jokic from Serbia, Gilgeous-Alexander from Canada and Doncic from Slovenia, it marked the third consecutive season that three players born outside the United States (US) finished 1-2-3 in the MVP balloting.
This time, the foreign dominance atop the NBA was even more pronounced: Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is from Greece, was fourth – so this became the first time in the award’s 69-year history that international players went 1-2-3-4 in the voting. It also became the sixth consecutive year that a player born outside the US won the award.
