Nikola Jokic: NBA MVP with more than twice as many first-place votes as Joel Embiid

Nikola Jokic: NBA MVP with more than twice as many first-place votes as Joel Embiid

Serbian basketball player Nikola Jokić convincingly won the second consecutive MVP award, receiving as many as 65 "first" votes, 35 more than second-placed Joel Embiid.

Some U.S. journalists expected an uncertain fight, announcing that they would be close in the voting, but the remaining 90 journalists around the world thought differently.

In the voting system, whoever is chosen as first place received 10 points, the second seven points, the third five points, the fourth three points and the fifth one point.

Jokic won convincingly the most first places, as many as 65 out of 101, and thus achieved a convincing triumph. 27 of them thought that he deserved the second place, four journalists put him in the third place, and two thought that he deserved only the fourth position.

Before the two consecutive regular season MVP awards for Jokic, Antetokounmpo had won the previous two, being the only two European players to win more than one designation.

Before them, the only other player from Europe to win MVP title was the German Dirk Nowitzki in the 2006-2007 NBA season. Although Jokić had a great advantage over his rivals, a year ago he had an even bigger advantage when he practically blew away competitors - Embiid, Antetokounmpo...

In voting that included 100 of journalists who cover the NBA, Jokic scored 875 out of a maximum possible 1.000 points, including 65 first-place votes, second place in the voting went to Philadelphia 76ers Cameroonian center Joel Embiid with 706 points, including 26 first-place votes, third place went to Greece's Giannis Antetokounmpo, who accumulated 595 points with nine first-place votes.

That was somewhat expected, this season it was more uncertain because Embiid played almost the whole season, unlike the previous one when he missed several months due to injury.

This was a historic vote for the NBA's most important regular season award, as for the first time in history, the top three were non-U.S.-born players, and also the first time for four of the top five.

However, this time it didn't help that he was constant, that he didn't get injured, since the center from Sombor played an even better competitive year than when he was first named the most valuable player in the strongest basketball league in the world.