Was Jokic robbed of the MVP?

[Roy T]

This is weird.
There have been seasons with multiple worthy candidates before inevitably leaving one fan base feeling shorted ('11, '12, '17', and '19 to name a few) but there was never this level of consternation and vitriol around here.

What's so different now?

Kendrick Perkins made it a racism issue, which is beyond ridiculous, but here we are.

[Big J]

No, he wasn’t robbed or the MVP. Yes, voters take past playoff performance into account when voting. It’s the same reason Giannis didn’t win 3 MVPs before he won a ring.

Makes sense, Embiid has a great history of getting deep in the playoffs.

Talk to me when he’s going for his 3rd in a row without winning a ring.

[Mr Puddles]

The MVP is flawed in the sense that it doesn't include playoff performances. It should take both regular and post season into consideration.

Isn't that why Magic and Bird trophy in the Conference Finals exist? That's essentially the Playoffs MVP until the NBA Finals.

I don't see the point of splitting up these trophies, there's no defensive player of the playoffs, or most improved player of the playoffs. It seems kind of illogical to have most important individual performance award in the NBA not include a player's performance in the most important part of an NBA season.

[Adam Stern]

This is weird.
There have been seasons with multiple worthy candidates before inevitably leaving one fan base feeling shorted ('11, '12, '17', and '19 to name a few) but there was never this level of consternation and vitriol around here.

What's so different now?

Kendrick Perkins made it a racism issue, which is beyond ridiculous, but here we are.

So you're saying RealGM has gotten racially defensive in response.
That would explain a lot.

[kieferli]

Jokic eyes on final MVP, he don’t care reg season MVP anymore

[Gil Renard]

No, he wasn’t robbed or the MVP. Yes, voters take past playoff performance into account when voting. It’s the same reason Giannis didn’t win 3 MVPs before he won a ring.

Makes sense, Embiid has a great history of getting deep in the playoffs.

Talk to me when he’s going for his 3rd in a row without winning a ring.

Jokic has now been to conference finals twice. Crybiid is still a conference finals virgin. If wins/rangz is your whole argument then the award should have gone to Giannis, who has a ring and his team was the #1 overall seed. There’s no basis for Crybiid being given the MVP other than pity party and racial politics.

[Tottery]

I think Jokic is a better player but Embiid had an awesome season and deserved the award. It's a regular season award. We have to stop using periods of time outside of the specified period of time for the award, to discredit players and teams.

Also, the "yes" and "no" options on the poll are opposite of the question of the thread title lol

I partially agree with you. On one hand, its a regular season award and should stop there. On the other hand, you expect MVP winners to turn it up during the post season or at least maintain the same level of play.

With that said, Jokic had the better season. Only reason he didn't get it is due to being a 3peat.

[Edrees]

Does this mean AD was robbed of DPOY as well? Every other top defender has been eliminated

[nomansland]

There should be a "who cares?" option in this poll.

But I don't ever want to hear an argument about playoff performance w/respect to the MVP conversation again.

[antonac]

I'm a massive Jokic homer but I'm saying no.

I do actually think Jokic deserved the award, but down the stretch Embiid certainly did enough to deserve it as well. Denver tanked the last games, and in particular that 52 point performance against the Celtics, certainly would have tipped the scales in Embiid's direction. What was obviously not OK was turning Jokic into a "great white hope" figure to swing an argument, especially when no one had any intention of following through on any sort of examination on racial bias in to society or sport. The big news channels went harder on this than they did on the black listing of Colin Kaepernick and I just think, **** them for that.

The play-off argument has been used to justify RS awards before, so I'm not mad about that, it does make anyone that leaned into it heavily look a bit stupid though.

As an aside about Denver's final stretch, I'm actually relieved Philly lost, Denver threw away their home court advantage to them in the last 3-4 games, that would have really come back to haunt them in a potential Finals, at least with the Celtics there was never a chance of catching them.

[baldur]

I think all-star game and these regular season awards must be re-regulated.

all star game is based on 50 games of the season, it is just barely more than half of the season, any player can boost his performance and play all-star game worthy during the second half of the season, why rule out this possibility? and all star game can be played right after the regular season, before the playoffs. oh don't tell me about injuries, they don't even try hard for the all star game, nobody will be injured.

[BelgradeNugget]

No, he wasn’t robbed or the MVP. Yes, voters take past playoff performance into account when voting. It’s the same reason Giannis didn’t win 3 MVPs before he won a ring.

Makes sense, Embiid has a great history of getting deep in the playoffs.

Talk to me when he’s going for his 3rd in a row without winning a ring.

Just to make clear about one thing you said which is not true. Giannis didn’t win 3rd MVP before he won a ring not because he didn't win a ring at the time of 3rd MVP voting, but because Jokic had a better season in every aspect than Giannis had that year - stats, wins, seedings, game played, everything. Giannis was not even close to Jokic that year, so Jokic won simply because he was the most deserving candidate that season, not because of voter fatigue, or what happened in the POs the year before, or because voters didn't want to vote for him so he wouldn't be among others 3x MVP winners.

[FluLikeSymptoms]

Ultimately I think it’s good for Jokic that he didn’t win. His life will be way easier. He’ll probably be around this good for another 7-10 so maybe he wins more, but if he won say 3 in 5 years like Moses it would be less of a sticking point and Jokic is better than Moses ever was. Better to be compared with him than the 3 legends who did it 3x in a row.

Embiid, I suspect he’ll be retired before he enjoys this MVP again.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Per the single-season all-in-one metrics, he was.

[jehosafats]

Negative. Embiid acquitted himself well towards the end of the season and deserved the nod. Lebron should've won MVP 5 seasons in a row. It happens. The Joker is only 28. He'll get another shot at it.

[DOT]

MVP is a regular season award

Embiid had, arguably, a better regular season than Jokic, or at least it could have gone either way

Jokic is the better player when you factor in postseason success. But MVP has never been about that.

[Roger Murdock]

No, he wasn’t robbed or the MVP. Yes, voters take past playoff performance into account when voting. It’s the same reason Giannis didn’t win 3 MVPs before he won a ring.

Makes sense, Embiid has a great history of getting deep in the playoffs.

Talk to me when he’s going for his 3rd in a row without winning a ring.

He’s never getting another one and shouldn’t have gotten this one because he’s not an MVP level player

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Robbed is too strong of a word, but it was clear to me he had the better RS of all of them

[Zugzwang13]

Yes he was. IMHO the only reason Embiid won is because media played the racism card and most people in US are too afraid someone is going to start posting that they are not progressive enough.

[Lunartic]

How is Jokic not winning a title a reason to give the MVP to a dude that has had almost zero post season success?

Either playoff success matters or it doesn't - if it does, then Embiid wouldn't even be the runner-up MVP, Tatum would be.