The MVP race for the 2021-22 NBA season has been one of the best in recent memory, with three big men—Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo—all having worthy cases to win this year’s hardware. If it were up to 2014 MVP Kevin Durant, the choice would be simple: Embiid.
Durant said the 76ers big man is who he would choose as this season’s MVP, touting his team’s success and the fact that the 7-footer led the league in scoring at 30.6 points per game. He also acknowledged that the other contenders would also be worthy selections.
“But you can just close your eyes and just pick any one of the guys out of the top six or seven, and you can have a good MVP this year,” Durant said, according to ESPN’s Nick Friedell. “That shows how great our league is right now and how talented our league is from top to bottom, but I would go with Embiid if I had to choose.”
Embiid played in a career-high 68 games this season, averaging 11.7 rebounds and a career-best 4.2 assists per game. He led the NBA in free throws made (654) and attempted (803) despite missing 14 games, and had 46 double-doubles.
In discussing a potential back-to-back award for Jokic, Durant said that repeat winners should significantly top what they did the previous season, and compared him to Stephen Curry’s back-to-back MVP wins in 2015 and ’16.
“If you’re going to get two in a row, you can’t duplicate the same thing you did before, in my opinion. That’s just how I feel,” Durant said. “I’m not saying this is the holy grail. I’m saying this is how I feel … So I think back-to-back MVPs are special and the season that you have to have team-wise, individual-wise, all has to come together in order for you to win back-to-back (MVPs) in my opinion. So I feel like Jokic has an incredible season, but Joel’s season was just as good, if not better.”
On his own candidacy for the award, Durant acknowledged that he likely missed too many games to get serious consideration. An MCL injury limited him to 55 games, though he maintained his typical high level of production, averaging 29.9 points, 7.4 rebounds and 6.4 assists per game.
“I see why I’m not in that conversation,” Durant said. “But I’m sure there’s a lot of guys in the league that play MVP-caliber basketball for their clubs … there’s just so many great players playing right now, it’s hard to choose. But I can really say, it’s 10 or 12 of us maybe that can be in that conversation. That’s pretty cool to see that in our league.”
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