The National Basketball Association is one of the most watched sports leagues not only in the United States but all over the world due to its elite fan engagement and incredible star talent. Over the past decade, the NBA has seen an increase in viewership year after year, with no signs of slowing down. However, the NBA has a problem. A problem that may seem minuscule from the outside, but the closer one looks, the issue becomes even more glaring.
No player since 1986 has ever won three straight MVP awards (Most Valuable Player), and while this may seem insignificant, it is a somewhat difficult concept to grasp. In nearly four decades, there has never been a player deserving of winning three MVPs in a row. There have most definitely been players whose play has merited a three-peat in regards to winning MVP; Michael Jordan, Lebron James, Tim Duncan, Magic Johnson, Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Nikola Jokic are just a few examples of players who could have or should have won three MVPs in a row.
The main obstacle stopping these superstars from collecting the MVP triple crown is simple. Voter fatigue. The NBA hand-selects a panel of 100 people who vote on the most valuable player every season, and recently, voters and the media have grown tired of seeing the same players win the award. The most recent example of this is the current 2023 NBA season, where Joel Embiid just won his first MVP award over a back-to-back winner in Nikola Jokic.
Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets averaged 24.5 points, 11.8 rebounds, and 9.8 assists per game this season, whereas Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers averaged 33.1 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game this season. Jokic led his team to the number one seed in the Western Conference and dominated in almost every game he played, making his teammates and the team as a whole better. I'm not taking anything away from Embiid here, but he led his team to the third seed in the Eastern Conference, and he himself dominated games with big scoring nights, but Jokic was more valuable to the Nuggets than Embiid was to the Sixers.
This is not a one-time occurrence either; one could go look at the names mentioned earlier: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Steph Curry, Antetokounmpo, etc., and make the same case for those players. The voters need to appreciate greatness no matter if it's “boring” or “repetitive”. If a player is having a third elite season, they should continue to vote for them as the most valuable player. The voters, however, are only half the problem, as the media tries to push narratives that fit their own agendas.
The public has seen this firsthand on media sites such as Bleacher Report, ESPN, and talk shows like First Take. Certain media members sometimes cannot fathom having one player dominate for three straight years, so they hop on live television or social media and push narratives that others quickly follow or pick up. The best approach to avoiding bias is to simply watch the player and appreciate their athletic prowess to block out the media narratives and “voter fatigue” arguments.
The future of MVP voting remains unknown, but there is hope that perhaps we might finally see a player win back-to-back-to-back MVP awards in the coming years.
Editor: Joan Andrew Ramadan
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