Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic becomes lowest draft pick ever to win MVP award – ‘I didn’t even think I’d be in the NBA’

‘The Joker’ earns top award with 90 per cent of first-place ballots after league-high double-double season

‘I think I did a good job of using that opportunity,’ says Jokic of being drafted by Nuggets in 2014

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Nikola Jokic, of the Denver Nuggets, after their double over-time win against the Portland Trail Blazers in game five of their Western Conference first-round play-off series at the Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado. Photo: AFP

Published: 2:01pm, 9 Jun 2021Updated: 2:34pm, 9 Jun 2021

Nikola Jokic was selected with the 41st draft pick when he entered the NBA seven years ago. Now, by overwhelming consensus, he is No 1.

The Nuggets’ big man was revealed as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player for 2020-21 on Tuesday, making him by far the lowest draft pick ever to win the award. “The Joker” now has his name etched alongside the greatest players in league history, which surely seemed unlikely when he was that unheralded prospect out of Sombor, Serbia, in 2014.

“To be honest, I didn’t even think I would be in the NBA,” the 26-year-old Jokic said. “My goal when I started to play basketball back home, it was playing in Euroleague because that was kind of the closest top league to my country.”

Jokic was the runaway winner, getting 91 of the 101 first-place ballots cast – 100 of them from a global panel of sportswriters and broadcasters who cover the league, the other being an aggregate first-place ballot compiled from fan voting.

Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets lays up a shot past Deandre Ayton of the Phoenix Suns in the first half of their Western Conference second-round play-off series at the Phoenix Suns Arena. Photo: AFP

That fan vote was the outlier: It went to 2011 NBA MVP Derrick Rose of the New York Knicks, the only vote Rose got.

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