Orlando Magic center Nikola Vucevic has emerged as a star during the 2018-19 season, having been named an All-Star for the first time in his career. He is also on pace to set new career bests in points (20.7) and rebounds (12.1) per game this season.
Along with those gaudy statistics comes huge amounts of respect and admiration, especially from the home crowd, which led to the big man receiving “M-V-P” chants during Sunday's win over the Atlanta Hawks.
However, Vucevic jokingly said that the chants he received were staged, via John Denton of OrlandoMagic.com:
“I have TV from Montenegro here, so I paid some fans to do that so I could look cool back home. It was awesome. To hear the fans say that, obviously it means a lot to me. It means they respect what I do, and they support me.”
Vucevic delivered a performance worthy of garnering MVP chants though, as he went for 27 points and 20 rebounds Sunday, his first 20-20 game since March 28, 2014. The 20 boards marked his second-highest total in a game this season, coming up large when his team needed a victory.
With the win, Orlando sits one game back of the Miami Heat for both the Southeast division lead and the no.8 seed in the Eastern Conference.
It hasn't been a pretty year for Orlando at 33-38, but Nikola Vucevic has been the unquestioned heartbeat of the club in their first season under head coach Steve Clifford. In order for them to track down and fend off the Heat and Charlotte Hornets over the season's final few weeks, Vucevic really will have to play like an MVP — all jokes aside.
Follow Us
Subscribe