2022-23 NBA Awards Media Poll: Most Valuable Player
Over the last few weeks, the NBA awards have been a hot topic of discussion around the NBA world.
The three finalists for each award were announced on Friday, April 14, but Fastbreak on FanNation has collected data from NBA media members around the country covering both the league at-large and individual teams.
These media members were asked to vote on their Top-3 for Most Valuable Player this season with the voting process working as follows:
- 10 points for every first-place vote
- 7 points for every second-place vote
- 5 points for every third-place vote
- 3 points for every fourth-place vote
- 1 point for every fifth-place vote
Below are the results from the voting that took place for the 2022-23 NBA Valuable Player award at the conclusion of the regular season:
Official results from Fastbreak on FanNation’s NBA Media Awards Polling 2022-23 - MVP
Media Members Pick To Win 2022-23 NBA Most Valuable Player:
Joel Embiid - Philadelphia 76ers
The NBA’s MVP race during the 2022-23 season has been one of the closest races we have ever seen for this award. You could make a case for many players being their team’s MVP and while very little separated this year’s three finalists in Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic an Giannis Antetokounmpo, it does seem like Embiid won over the hearts of voters in the final few weeks of the regular season.
As seen above, the Philadelphia 76ers big man was selected as this year’s MVP based on the media vote, as he received 13 out of 20 first-place votes, five second-place votes and two third-place votes, bringing him to a total of 175 out of 200 total voting points.
Playing in a total of 66 regular season games this year, Joel Embiid led the league in scoring for the second consecutive year at 33.1 points per game and he was virtually impossible to stop on the offensive-end of the floor.
Embiid tallied 44 games with at least 30 points this season, trailing only Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (45) for the league-lead, he had 13 games with at least 40 points and three games with at least 50 points. What is impressive is that Embiid did all of this while shooting 54.8 percent from the floor and 85.7 percent from the free-throw line.
Joel Embiid also made his presence felt on the defensive-end of the floor this year, averaging 1.0 steals and 1.7 blocks per game. After finishing as the runner-up in back-to-back seasons for the MVP award, Embiid helped the Sixers win on both ends of the floor this season and capped off his MVP season in many voter’s eyes with his 52-point performance against the Boston Celtics on April 4.
One of the best offensive talents in the league, it would be surprising if Joel Embiid was not named the 2022-23 NBA Most Valuable Player this year.
As for the other two finalists for this year’s MVP award, back-to-back league MVP Nikola Jokic and former two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo finished second and third in the media vote, respectively.
Jokic received five total first-place votes, as Antetokounmpo received the other two first-place votes.
Leading the pack in the MVP race for most of the season, Jokic led the Denver Nuggets to a 53-29 record, the best in the Western Conference. He had arguably the best regular season of his career, averaging 24.5 points, 11.8 rebounds, 9.8 assists and 1.3 steals per game in 69 total games.
As for Giannis, he led the Milwaukee Bucks to a 58-24 record this season, the best record in the NBA, while averaging a career-high 31.1 points, 11.8 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game. Still one of the better defensive players in the league, Antetokounmpo also finished second in the league in defensive rating behind Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson Jr.
Coming in fourth-place in the voting was Boston Celtics All-Star Jayson Tatum and behind him in fifth-place was Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Continuing to grow as one of the league’s best wing players, Tatum had himself a stellar season with the Celtics and has them in a great position to make another NBA Finals run. For Gilgeous-Alexander, he was a finalist for the Most Improved Player award this season and finished fourth in the league in scoring, leading the Thunder to the Western Conference Play-In Tournament after they were picked to finish last in the conference in the preseason.
Donovan Mitchell from the Cleveland Cavaliers and Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks were the only other players to receive votes for Most Valuable Player this year, as Mitchell received as high as one second-place vote and Doncic finished with three fifth-place votes.
