Joel Embiid Wins 2023 MVP Award

Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid won the 2023 regular season MVP award, beating out fellow Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, who was seeking his third straight award.

Embiid, who finished second to Nikola Jokic in voting for the award in each of the past two seasons, flipped the script this time around, finishing ahead of Jokic and Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo for the top honor. singles of the league

The MVP was named after Michael Jordan this season as part of an overall review of league awards.

Embiid’s win marks the third straight for a center after Jokic’s victories the past two seasons and the fifth straight overall for an international player dating back to Antetokounmkpo’s wins in the 2019 and 2020 seasons. In the past five years, the only international players to win MVP were Hakeem Olajuwon in 1993-94, Steve Nash in 2005-06 and Dirk Nowitzki in 2006-07.

Embiid, 29, had his best season for the 76ers this season, leading the NBA in scoring for the second straight year as he improves his efficiency, averaging career-highs of 33.1 points and 54.8 percent shooting to go along with 10.2 rebounds. . He 4.2 assists and 1.7 blocks per game.

He has also missed the past two weeks with an LCL sprain in his right knee suffered in Game 3 of Philadelphia’s first-round series against the Brooklyn Nets. The injury forced him to miss both the final game of that series and Philadelphia’s shock victory over the Boston Celtics on Monday night in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on 45 points from James Harden.

Jokic, meanwhile, nearly became the first center and only third player, joining Russell Westbrook and Oscar Robertson, to average a triple-double in a season, finishing with averages of 24.5 points, 11.8 rebounds and 9.8 assists on 63-for-16 shooting. percent from the field for the Western Conference-leading Nuggets. Embiid denied him the opportunity to become the fourth player in NBA history to win three consecutive MVP awards, joining Larry Bird, the last player to do so, between 1984 and 1986, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain.

A two-time MVP winner in his own right, Antetokounmpo is averaging 31.1 points, 11.8 rebounds and 5.7 assists for Milwaukee this season. He led the Bucks to the best record in the league before missing two full games and part of a third with a back injury in Milwaukee’s shock loss to the Miami Heat in the first round of the playoffs last week.

Throughout the season, ESPN’s MVP Straw Polls tracked just how close this race was going to be. In December, Jayson Tatum led the initial preliminary poll but garnered less than half of the overall first-place votes, showing it was still an open race. When the second edition of the opinion poll was conducted the week before the All-Star Break, Jokic had a commanding lead, with 77 of the 100 first-place votes to finish ahead of Antetokounmpo and Embiid, respectively.

But between then and the last straw poll that came out at the end of March, Jokic and the Nuggets struggled for the entire month of March, while Embiid went on an absolute streak after the All-Star Break, sending Philly up. in the standings while facing the majority of the league. difficult schedule.

As a result, Embiid finished at the top of the final poll at the end of March despite finishing with fewer first-place votes than Jokic.

Embiid made his closing argument with a dominating 52-point, 13-rebound performance to beat the Celtics during the final week of the regular season.