For weeks now, Shaquille O’Neal has publicly backed Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to win the 2024-25 NBA MVP award.
So O’Neal wasn’t thrilled Wednesday night when the NBA named Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić the league’s Most Valuable Player for the third time in his career. And he let Jokic know it, right to his face.
“You know I love you, the best player in the league. I want to congratulate you,” O’Neal said to Jokić during the TNT pregame show. “But I want you to hear it from me first. I thought that SGA should’ve been the MVP. That’s no disrespect to you, but congratulations.”
Shaquille O’Neal tells his “vice president of the Big Man Alliance” Nikola Jokic that he did not think The Joker should win his 3rd MVP this year pic.twitter.com/f5jAciL5Th
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 8, 2024
Jokić seemed to handle the feedback well.
“Thank you Shaq. We don’t judge people here, so that’s fine, it’s your opinion,” Jokić said with a smile. “I’m joking. … There are a lot of players that deserve [to win MVP].”
Jokić, who also won the MVP award in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 campaigns, received 79 first-place votes and 926 points in the final voting tally. Gilgeous-Alexander finished in second place, landing 15 first-place votes and 640 points.
Jokić and the Nuggets are back in action Friday for Game 3 of their Western Conference semifinal series against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Nuggets trail the Wolves 2–0 in that series.
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