Unwilling To Settle For Joel Embiid And Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ‘Agendas’, D’Angelo Russell Scoffs At Nikola Jokic’s Lack Of MVPs

Discourse on who will win the 2025 NBA MVP award has reached the doorstep of D’Angelo Russell. DLo spoke about the very close race between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic on the latest edition of his The Backyard podcast. If you think you had thoughts on it, DLo has you beat.

Jokic has been absolutely torching NBA defenses ever since he joined the league in 2015. A three-time MVP, The Joker probably could have won the award several other times.

One case is in 2023 when he lost to Joel Embiid. Many didn’t think the 76ers star deserved it and that voter’s fatigue was at the crux of the ’23 MVP going to Embiid. While he did certainly deserve to win an MVP given that he led the league in scoring (33.1ppg) that year, it was Jokic who was more dominant across the board.

“Jokic gonna win MVP,” he said to his co-host with confidence. “He should be going on his like 5th MVP right now.” Russell wanted to be certain not to disrespect SGA. “Shai flowers brother I ain’t taking nothing from ya,” he stated.

D’Angelo Russell on Nikola Jokic.

“He should be going on his like 5th MVP right now…. We can’t keep looking over dude ” pic.twitter.com/FxaVJj2NsK

— n i k o l a e s t h e t i c (@nikolaesthetic) April 23, 2025

The 29-year-old  didn’t gush over Shai for too long though. “We can’t keep looking over dude,” DLo stated about Jokic.

He’s not wrong. Jokic averaged a triple-double in the 2024-2025 season, an incredible stat that would have guaranteed him the Most Valuable Player award in any other year. Unfortunately, it might not be enough.

Shai currently has the lead over Jokic in MVP votes

Jokic losing to Shai in 2025 would certainly not be as awful as when The Joker was beaten out by Embiid. SGA averaged 32.5 points per game this season and his dynamic play helped the Thunder land the No. 1 seed in quite the historic regular season run for OKC.

The Thunder finished 16 games ahead of the second seed in one of the most dominant showings over an 82 game slate. Their average margin of victory is the highest across NBA history at 12.9 points per game en route to putting up a record 54 double-digit wins.

That said, Jokic’s 29 points, 12.7 rebounds, and 10.2 assists per game is an insane statline.

Unless SGA has a vastly better postseason than the Serbian giant, it still seems like skipping over him will be a move that history doesn’t remember kindly.

About the author

Joseph Galizia

Joseph is a Las Vegas based actor and circus performer. For the last seven years he's had the pleasure of covering sports for multiple outlets, including the Lifestyles section of Sports Illustrated. In that time, he's conducted over 50 interviews with athletes, filmmakers, and company founders to further cement his footprint in the journalism world. He's excited to bring that skillset to the SportsRush, where he'll be covering the NBA news cycle.

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