Reigning NBA regular season MVP Nikola Jokic is on the pace of becoming a back-to-back Most Valuable Player as he is back as the leading candidate in the award race.
Jokic gathered 62 out of the 100 first-place votes in the poll initiated by ESPN. Last mid-February, it was Joel Embiid who led the rankings.
This time it’s Jokic in first, Embiid follows, and Giannis Antetokounmpo in third place.
Amazingly, the frontrunners for the award are all big men. In a guard-dominant era, those three mentioned are playing exceptionally well, and if this pace continues, regardless of who wins from them, it will be the fourth straight season that the MVP is awarded to a big man.
Antetokounmpo was the first to reclaim that glory by winning back-to-back MVPs in 2019 and 2020 before Jokic followed last season.
