Will Jokic three-peat?

Recent trends in MVP voting

Photo: public domain

Before 2007, no freshmen or sophomores had won the Heisman Trophy, and almost all played for a highly-ranked team. The winner that year, Tim Tebow, was a sophomore on a 9–3 squad. I don’t recall a junior or senior who’s won it since. It was good to throw tradition aside. If the outstanding player was an underclassman, so be it!

To date, no player has won three consecutive NBA MVPs. Nikola Jokic, however, may be on that course. He won in 2021 and ’22 and is even better now.

Would it dishonor some all-time greats if Jokic becomes the first to win the MVP Award three times in a row? I don’t think so. Kareem, Jordan, and LeBron may have deserved to win three or more consecutive MVPs at some point in their career. Denying Jokic (if he deserves it) won’t correct past errors but only add another one.

But does Jokic deserve it? I don’t know; the season’s not over.

Before I get to this season, I’ll discuss two trends I’ve seen in MVP results over the last 20 years.

First, John Holligern’s Player Efficiency Rating (PER) rankings overlap with MVP votes. In the last ten seasons of MVP voting, only 15 players in the Top 5 were not in that season’s top 5 in PER.