Someone I was watching the game with mentioned this and I couldn’t agree more.
Jokic is literally the antithesis of Embiid. Couldn’t care less about individual accolades, never gets hurt, doesn’t get calls (relative to Embiid), and absolutely dominates when his team needs him the most.
The best player doesn’t always get mvp every single season so it doesn’t bother me but this should be four straight. You could almost double MJ and LBJ mvps if the truly best player always won it.
Joker is a better player than so many legends that people would find hard to accept. MJ and LeBron are the only two I think are clearly better and on a per game or per season basis he is right there. Career PER as of today is Joker, MJ, LeBron in that order. Anthony Davis is fourth so it’s flawed but still interesting.
In terms of legendary players I actually watched Hakeem is probably the all time legend (that I’m a huge fan of) I think he’s passed. Yeah Hakeem was legendary on defense but in some ways I think Jokic is the best complete offensive player. The other two are Magic and Bird, he actually does a lot of the same things those two did but puts up more prolific numbers. I think Hakeem and MJ supporting cast tend to be overrated but Magic/Bird had the loaded teams of their eras.
The gigantic question with Joker is how long he wants to play. Some things he says point to a shorter career, certainly not playing into his 40s like LeBron. Last night he seemed to be at his best ever in terms of athleticism. Mike Malone seems like a great fit as coach which is also something to consider, I think a big “what if” of sports is if LeBron could have had that one coach or even a longer run with Spoelstra, it’s certainly been a lakers years issue.