Knicks Star Jalen Brunson's Controversial Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic Statement

Somehow, the NBA's Most Valuable Player award has become the center of unnecessary conversation and controversy throughout the past couple of seasons. Much of that has to do with talking heads like Kendrick Perkins creating narratives around the dominating performances of Nikola Jokic, but regardless, Jokic's MVPs now have unneeded dialogue attached to them.

One of those conversations came last season when many thought Luka Doncic wasn't receiving enough MVP praise because of his team's seeding, while Jokic was. Jokic ultimately won the MVP last season with his team in the second seed, but it didn't come without controversy.

New York Knicks star Jalen Brunson is one who believes Jokic's MVPs have a certain narrative around them as well. During a recent episode of Brunson's podcast, 'Roommates Show', he revealed his controversial opinion.

"Jokic is playing absolutely absurd, Brunson said. "The numbers are crazy. They're not seeded where they last year, right? They're not seeded where they were last year and people are still talking about him being an MVP. Individually, he deserves it. But when Luka was averaging damn near a triple-double, but their seed wasn't where people wanted it to be, they were like 'Oh, he shouldn't get an MVP because of seeding.'... Why do certain narratives work for some people?"

Jalen Brunson:

“[Denver’s] not seeded like last season, and people are still talking about [Jokic] being the MVP. When Luka was averaging damn near a triple-double, they were like ‘oh, he shouldn’t win MVP because of his seeding.’”

(via @Roommates__Show)pic.twitter.com/vLUGASBgMa
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) January 13, 2025

For decades, the winner of the MVP award has always typically been the best player on the best NBA team of the season. Sometimes that award will go to a lower-seeded team if their best player is overwhelmingly better than the next-best option, and that's what happened last season with Jokic. There are very rare examples of a lower-seeded team winning the award, like when Russell Westbrook won. Despite that, the same conversations keep happening every year for some reason.

Simply put, Nikola Jokic deserves all three of his NBA MVP awards. He was the best player in the league when he won them, and he's still the best player in the league today.

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