For the first time in three seasons, someone other than Nikola Jokic was named NBA MVP. While Jokic was able to come in second place — an impressive honor in its own right — the MVP award made its way to Philadelphia, as Joel Embiid was able to become the seventh player in franchise history to be named the best player in the league.
The pair had gone 1-2 in each of the last three seasons, with Jokic beating out Embiid in 2021 and 2022. But this year, Embiid finished first, and unsurprisingly appeared on every ballot that was submitted. This also applied to Giannis Antetokounmpo, as the third-place finisher got on every ballot as well.
But that wasn’t the case for Jokic, who only appeared on 99 of the 100 ballots that were cast. It made folks wonder who, exactly, left the Nuggets star off, and on Thursday afternoon, we learned that ESPN analyst Mark Jackson was the only person to not include Jokic. Here’s his entire ballot:
1. Joel Embiid
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo
3. Jayson Tatum
4. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
5. Donovan Mitchell
This, funny enough, was almost exactly the same as the All-NBA First Team this year, with the difference being Luka Doncic made it over Mitchell. Anyway, the NBA put out full awards voting results on Thursday, and if you’d like to check them out, you can do that here.