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[SleepingHero]

I'm traveling this week for work, and have been absent often these past couple of weeks getting ready for the big upcoming work event, so I might not have the most up to date pulse of the conversation here, but...

Jokic is currently the best player in the NBA and it's not particularly close. We should be talking about him winning his 4th MVP in a row.

Historically that's an insane feat. To put it in context, only 3 players ever were able to win 3x MVP's in a row and those were Larry Bird (84, 85, 86), Wilt Chamberlain (67, 68, 69) and Bill Russell (61, 62, 63). 

To win 3 in a row would be putting Jokic into a category that seems a bit higher than he deserves at this point. By the time Larry won his 3rd MVP he had already been 2x NBA champion and was on his way to a 3rd. Both Wilt and Russell were in a totally different NBA than today and it's hard to draw parallels from those two to Jokic. 

To suggest Jokic should be on his way to 4 straight MVP's is silly to me. Literally has never been done before. He's been incredible the last 4 years don't get me wrong. But he has not even been close to the level of other pantheons in the history of the league like Jabbar, Jordan, and Magic.

Clarifying by the way, Jokic is a deserving MVP. He had a crazy season. But so did Luka. Historically to be a 3x MVP winner you have to be on another stratosphere of player with multiple championships underneath your belt. Only Wilt was an exception to that when he won his 3rd but there were only 14 teams in the league at that point and he had just averaged 24/24/9 playing 47mpg and all 82 games. Again, hard to draw parallels here. Larry is the best comparison and Jokic hasn't reached that level yet.

Given the historical context and the benchmarks Luka hit this year, it's hard not to award him his 1st imo. The biggest reason to me why Jokic is going to get it this year is because Embiid got a pity award last year from voter fatigue and embarrassed the league by getting ousted in the playoffs while Jokic went on to win his 1st ring.