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From Yaounde in Cameroon, Joel Embiid beats Nikola Jokic and Nigeria's Giannis Antetokounpo to 2022/23 NBA MVP award.
Cameroonian professional basketball player Joel Embiid has been named the 2022/23 NBA MVP, the league announced early on Wednesday, May 3, 2023.
Averaging a league-best 33.1 points per game, 11.7 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game, Embiid led the Philadelphia 76ers to the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference and received 73 of the possible 100 first-place votes.
He also served as the defensive anchor for the NBA's No. 8-ranked regular-season defense.
He is now vying for his first title, which would mark Philadelphia's first championship since it was won in 1983.
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Joel Embiid wins NBA MVP
Notably, Embiid has placed second in the voting in each of the previous two seasons.
He came up short in both contests to Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic. As the season went on, Embiid appeared to take a few shots at Jokic, which led to the development of a bit of a rivalry between the two.
In what eventually developed into a three-way competition between the two of them and Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jokic was the betting favorite for the majority of this season.
However, Embiid pulled away in the fourth quarter as his stats as an individual skyrocketed and Jokic's Nuggets struggled as a unit.
Embiid has now joined Wilt Chamberlain, who won the award three times while playing for the Sixers, Julius Erving (1981), Moses Malone (1983), and Allen Iverson (2001) as the fifth member of the 76ers to do so.
Following Jokic's two triumphs, Embiid's rise makes him the second center to win the award in a row.
In addition to the two that Antetokounmpo already received, big men have now won the last five MVP titles.
Since all 11 of the previous winners were perimeter players prior to Antetokounmpo, this represents a significant shift from the last few years of NBA history.
Now that Embiid has received the reward he has long sought, he still has a much bigger ambition to pursue.
Most people would agree that the Finals MVP trophy is a much greater trophy than the MVP honor, notwithstanding Embiid's claim that the MVP is the best accolade a basketball player can receive.
If Embiid succeeds in doing so in the upcoming months, this season will go down as one of the best overall in NBA history.
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