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The defending champions, Denver Nuggets' big man Nikola Jokic clinched the 2023-24 NBA MVP award to win it for the third time in the last four years. Jokic winning the MVP award marked the sixth straight year a foreign player clinching the award. The Joker interacted with the NBA on TNT crew after winning the MVP award, where legendary center Shaquille O'Neal told him that he thinks Shai Gilgeous-Alexander deserved the award more than him.
In the 2023-24 NBA regular season, Nikola Jokic played 79 matches for the Nuggets averaging 34.6 minutes per game, and registered 26.4 points, 12.4 rebounds, 9 assists, 1.4 steals, and 0.9 blocks per game. With these numbers, Jokic led the Nuggets in points, rebounds, assists, and steals per game average.
During his interaction with Shaquille O'Neal, the NBA Hall of Famer congratulated Jokic on winning the MVP award, becoming the first NBA player since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to win the award for the third time in four years. Shaq called Jokic the vice president of the "Big Man Alliance" and claimed that SGA deserved the award over him.
Shaq said, "Joker, as president of the ‘Big Man Alliance,’ you’re the vice president of the ‘Big Man Alliance,’ you know I love you, the best player in the league. I wanna congratulate you but I want you to hear from me first, I thought that SGA (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) should have been the MVP. That’s no disrespect to you and congratulations."
On Shaq's MVP take, Jokic joked with the NBA legend and said, "Thank you Shaq, we don’t judge people here. That’s fine, it’s your opinion."
Watch the video here:
After defeating LeBron James' Los Angeles Lakers 4-2 in the first round, the Nuggets have lost their opening two home games against Anthony Edwards' Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference semifinals and will next travel to the Target Center to face the Wolves in Game 3 on Friday night.
