Joel Embiid has lost the NBA MVP honor to Nikola Jokic two years in a row, but with two weeks remaining in the 2022-23 regular season, his odds of finally winning the coveted honor were higher than ever. As of Monday morning, he’s a down-225 favorite on Caesars Sportsbook, while Jokic (up-175) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (up-325) lag behind. The Philadelphia 76ers still have games ahead of them against Jokic’s Denver Nuggets and Antetokounmpo’s Milwaukee Bucks, but Embiid is undeniably on pole as the race nears its conclusion.
But that doesn’t mean Embiid has gotten over the disappointment of recent seasons. In a Q&A with The Athletic’s Shams Charania, Embiid fumed about the way he believes the award’s criteria change annually while appearing to take a shot at Jokic.
“The criteria are changing,” Embiid said. “If we want to talk about the last three years since I was in the race, it was the first year that I didn’t play enough games. Last year I came back, I played enough games, I led.” the league in scoring, and obviously Nikola deserved it and he won it.
“But on the other hand he won sixth in the west. And then this year I’m leading the league in goals, I’m doing all those things defensively… I should also be on an all-defensive team. I don’t care, but every year it’s something. And when you add analytics that don’t make sense. You can talk about analytics as much as you want. If you have some guys in the league, eye test tells you they are not good defensively, but analysis says they are the best defenders. That’s when analytics don’t make any sense at all. I don’t make the rules, I don’t choose the criteria they use, so it’s really about what people like.”
Embiid is almost certainly talking about Jokic here. The eye test suggests he is a poor defender due to his limited foot speed, which has been exploited in several playoff matchups against top-ranked ball-handlers. However, the metrics have long seen Jokic as an underrated defender. FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR, for example, ranks Jokic as the fourth-best defender in the NBA this season, and while other metrics aren’t quite as emphatic, almost everyone considers Jokic a positive defender. There are a number of possible explanations for this, ranging from his rebounds (you have to actually get the ball to end an opponent’s possession) to the turnovers he generates (Jokic averages 1.2 steals per game during his career and records sixth in the NBA in total deviations) to the vast difference in how well Denver does with him on and off the court, but it’s almost undeniable that Jokic looks like a better defender on paper than he does on tape. The truth, as with most things, lies somewhere in between.
But that wasn’t the only shot Embiid fired at Jokic. When Charania asked if he viewed this season as a title or a loss, Embiid responded by deflecting the pressure on other, unnamed players.
“People have been talking about who has the most pressure to win. People want to mention me,” Embiid said. “I’m not at the top of that list. I’m not a two-time MVP, I’ve never made the first-team All-NBA, I’ve never won anything. So why is there pressure on me to do something? when there are guys who have won two MVPs, a few MVPs and also done nothing?”
Based on Embiid’s descriptor of “two-time MVPs” who “haven’t done anything either,” there’s only one possible fit in the NBA. Today, four two-time MVPs are active in the league. Three of them have won championships: LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo. The only one who doesn’t have that is Nikola Jokic.
There’s quite a bit of pressure on both of them to win the championship this season. Embiid never made it past the second round of the playoffs. Jokic has reached the Western Conference Finals but has come under increasing scrutiny this season as he may be the first player since Larry Bird to win three straight MVPs despite never reaching the Finals.
Embiid’s team will face Jokic on Monday but as of this writing Embiid is listed as iffy. Embiid’s 76ers defeated Jokic’s Nuggets in their first matchup of the season. So if he actually sits, he’s won the only competition between the two that year.
Embiid’s frustration with the MVP process was palpable even before this interview. He took things to a new level here, even stating candidly to Charania, “I really think I’m not popular.” Whether or not that’s true is ultimately debatable, but he’s probably not helping himself on that front by posting such a inflammatory interview.