Nuggets' Nikola Jokic Voted NBA MVP For 2nd Straight Season: Report

DENVER, CO — Nikola Jokic will soon join an elite group of NBA players as the Denver Nuggets center is expected to be named NBA MVP for the second straight season, according to an ESPN report.

An official announcement is expected later this week, a source with information on the vote told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, which would make Jokic the 15th player in league history to win multiple NBA MVP awards.

As exclusive as that club is — think Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, LeBron James territory — Jokic already started a club of his own this year. The 7-foot superstar was the first player in NBA history to score 2,000 points, grab 1,000 rebounds and record 500 assists in a single season.

The 27-year-old from Sombor, Serbia, averaged 27.1 points, 13.8 rebounds and 7.9 assists during the regular season, better overall numbers than he put up last season (26.4/10.8/8.3), when he won his first MVP.

With the Nuggets missing two max-contract players because of injuries in Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., Jokic carried the team to a 48-win season and the sixth seed in a crowded Western Conference. The Nuggets lost in five games to the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the playoffs. It wasn't as a result of Jokic, who averaged 31 points, 13.2 rebounds and 5.8 assists in the series.

"It's just remarkable what he's done," Nuggets coach Michael Malone recently said of Jokic. "I know that I’m very biased, I admit it wholeheartedly — the MVP isn’t even a competition. There's other great players, I'm not saying they're not great players, but what Nikola Jokic has done this year, with this team, with everything that we've had to go through, is incredible."

The other finalists for the award are Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid, who led the league with 30.6 points per game, and two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo of the reigning champion Milwaukee Bucks.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.