Sports
NBA MVP Trophy Renamed For Former Chicago Bulls Star Jordan
The Michael Jordan trophy will be awarded to the NBA's top player in honor of the Bulls star who was named MVP five times in his career.
CHICAGO — The National Basketball Association’s MVP Award will now bear the name of a former player that is well acquainted with winning the honor, the NBA announced on Monday.
Former Chicago Bulls star Michael Jordan, who captured six NBA championships and won the league’s Most Valuable Player five times, had the honor named after him by the league. Jordan, who was also the All-Star Game’s MVP three times and was the Most Valuable Player of the NBA Finals six times, is widely considered one of the greatest players in the history of basketball.
During his career, Jordan won 10 NBA scoring titles and garnered both the Rookie of the Year award and the NBA Defensive Player of the Year honors as well. Jordan was also named to the NBA’s 50th and 75th anniversary teams.
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The trophy was designed by Mark Smith, a former vice president of innovation at Nike’s Jordan Brand, who worked with Jordan to come up with the look of the trophy. The NBA said that the journey symbolizes Jordan’s journey to becoming a league MVP.
The bronze trophy features a player breaking out of a rock to reach for the ultimate rock — a crystal basketball, the league said in a news release. From the bottom to its top, the patina of the trophy grows more burnished — “raw to refined” — signifying the MVP’s hard work and progression from entering the league to achieving the NBA’s greatest individual honor. The trophy’s reach symbolizes an MVP’s endless chase for greatness.
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“I’m incredibly honored to have created the NBA’s MVP trophy in partnership with Michael Jordan,” Smith said in the release. “Sculpting Michael’s vision of his own pursuit of athletic achievement into this award has been the opportunity and challenge of a lifetime. As we worked together on this project, it was very important to Michael that the figure not be a likeness of him, but instead that the recipient should be able to see himself in the award. For Michael, naming the award in his honor was recognition enough.”
Jordan won the MVP trophy five times, tying with Bill Russell. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has the most MVP awards with six.
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