Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray appropriately dismissed the opinion of Fox Sports 1 “analyst” Nick Wright, who dropped one of the coldest takes in, let's say, 35 years on Thursday about Nikola Jokic and the NBA MVP race.
On First Things First, Wright revealed his personal MVP rankings, which had Phoenix Suns guard Chris Paul in the top spot, ahead of Jokic, the presumed front-runner.
Picking the Point God for MVP isn't illogical unto itself, though Wright's reasoning, as usual, was. His case against giving The Joker the regular-season award is predicated on the possibility that the Nuggets will lose in the first round of the playoffs — a la Russell Westbrook in 2017 or Dirk Nowitzki in 2007.
“The MVP having to be awarded in some hallway somewhere, because he's not playing in Round 2, it ain't great.”
Wright — who has maybe caught six quarters of Nuggets basketball this year — even claimed that Jokic would represent the “worst” MVP recipient in three-and-a-half decades.
“Historically speaking, he would be the worst one we've had in 35 years. Chris Paul wouldn't be. Chris Paul's an all-time great player. Nikola Jokic is having a great season.”
(Evidently, Wright is not high on Larry Bird's 1986 season, in which the Hall of Famer put up 25.8 points, 9.8 rebounds, and 6.8 assists per game on .506/.423/.896 splits for a 67-win Celtics unit.)
“Historically speaking, he would be the worst MVP we've had in 35 years."
– Nick Wright on Nikola Jokic. 🤦🏽♂️
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) May 6, 2021
Jokic's teammate, Jamal Murray, did not agree with the FS1 co-host's frigid take.
Nick Wrong lol
— Jamal Murray (@BeMore27) May 6, 2021
Needless to say, but Jokic's 2020-21 campaign has been historically valuable by any metric, including Win Shares and eyeballs. The Joker is averaging ridiculous numbers across the board: 26.4 PPG, 10.9 RPG, 8.4 APG on .565/.405/.858 splits, while starting all 66 games and keeping Denver in contention despite the season-ending injury to Murray.
Of course, those kinds of facts would only interest someone looking to base arguments on reality.
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