Have you ever been so good at your job that people start to take it for granted? That is a feeling a handful of people out there can probably relate to. Nikola Jokic probably could. LeBron James has certainly felt it as well.
In the NBA's version of employee of the year, the Most Valuable Player award, players like Jokic and James have certainly received their fair share. However, the argument has always been they could have had more if the voters simply did not get bored of their excellence as employees. As fantastic as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been in 2024-25, the overwhelming feeling of voter fatigue has not escaped the MVP conversation as Jokic continues to dominate at a historic pace.
Jokic, James were too great for their own good
The back-to-back meetings between the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder this week were hyped up as some type of definitive answer to who should win this year's MVP. After the meetings were split at one a piece, that answer was not found. The issue here is there probably should not be much of a debate in the first place.
Gilgeous-Alexander has the classic case of being the best player on one of the best teams in basketball. In all fairness, the Thunder superstar has been one of the game's very best on an individual level too. However, the Nuggets superstar has experienced a season for the ages.
Jokic is not only averaging a triple-double as a center, which is absurd on its own, but there is so much more to it. The Serbian big man is top three in points per game, rebounds per game, and assists per game. That has never been done in league history. Jokic is also fourth in steals per game and is narrowly trailing his own NBA record for highest box plus/minus in a single season.
On top of the historic individual campaign, one of the other biggest arguments working in Jokic's favor would be how bad the Nuggets are without him. Denver experiences an 18.4 net rating swing with their superstar's on/off numbers per 100 possessions.
His own head coach, Michael Malone put it well when talking about this year's MVP race.
Malone said: "If you didn’t know that Nikola won three MVPs, and I put Player A and Player B on paper … the guy that was averaging a triple-double, the guy that is top-three in the three major statistical categories, things that no one has ever done, he wins the MVP 10 times out of 10. And if you don’t think so, I think you guys are all bull****ing."
Austin Rivers, a former teammate of Jokic's, shared a similar sentiment on his podcast: "I don't like when awards are given to people due to voters fatigue or due to somebody's won too much. ... They did it with [Michael] Jordan. They did it with LeBron."
Rivers continued: "There's been multiple years where they've just like given the award to someone else because like they felt it would do good for the NBA or all these bull**** narratives that are created. ... If Nikola was not on the Nuggets, they'd be a lottery team playing for Cooper [Flagg]."
It feels oddly funny that both Malone and Rivers had the same choice of expletives in their statements. However, there was another thing said in there that relates this experience back to James. Rivers mentioned how he felt LeBron should have 'at least seven' if it were not for this same issue.
While the exact number for James is somewhat disputable, it is hard to disagree with Rivers on the overall idea that this is a shared pain between Jokic and the Los Angeles Lakers superstar. The problem with being this great at your job is being constantly measured against yourself, or even other historic superstars, not the competitors in the field. When that happens, coupled with the overall desire for a fresh face, the trophy case starts looking lighter than it probably should.
Arguments have been previously made for James losing out on specific MVPs that could have gone to him. 2011 is a popular example that the NBA community loves.
The most jarring part of the experience for Jokic this season would be the fact that by comparison to himself, one could easily argue this is season as his most impressive body of work. Alas, there will always be one reason or another that voters are just not as impressed with continuous dominance from the same player. To that point, it always feels like guys like Jordan, James, and Jokic are owed an apology after the moment has passed and the MVP belongs to another.