Sixers’ Joel Embiid May Be Losing His Grip On The NBA’s MVP Award

With two weeks to go in the 2021-22 NBA regular season, Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid was the odds-on favorite to take home this year’s Most Valuable Player award. However, momentum has begun to shift away from him in recent days.

On Tuesday, ESPN’s Tim Bontemps shared the results of a MVP straw poll of 100 media members that was conducted from last Thursday through Saturday. Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic led the way with 62 first-place votes, 31 second-place votes and four third-place votes, while Embiid was second with 29 first-place votes, 37 second-place votes and 34 third-place votes.

Betting markets quickly adjusted in the wake of Bontemps’ report. Jokic is now a minus-140 to win MVP at FanDuel Sportsbook, while Embiid is right behind him at plus-125. Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo is the next-closest player at plus-1400, and Phoenix Suns guard rounds out the top four at plus-8000.

In the previous edition of Bontemps’ straw poll conducted in mid-February, Embiid had an ever-so-slight lead over Jokic. As Bontemps noted in a YouTube video, the difference this time around was “16 or 17 first-place votes going from” Embiid to Jokic.

What caused Embiid to lose ground to Jokic over the past month? Bontemps offered a few theories.

“First, Jokic had an incredible month of March,” he said. “… Denver had a soft schedule in March. Jokic had an opportunity to rack up a bunch of wins, a bunch of big performances, that’s what he’s done. On top of that, they also had a win over the Sixers a couple weeks ago in the game between the two guys, even though they both played well in the game. And on top of that, I think despite the fact that Joel Embiid has played great over the past several weeks and has done nothing to hurt his candidacy, I think sort of the mood around the Sixers is they’ve kind of been underwhelming.”

In other words, a confluence of factors are conspiring against Embiid.

Jokic has 16 double-doubles and five triple-doubles in his 18 games since the All-Star break, and the Nuggets have gone 12-6 over that stretch to surge into the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference. He’s currently averaging 26.5 points on 58.0 percent shooting, 13.6 rebounds and 8.0 assists in only 33.2 minutes per game, and he’s on pace to become the first player in NBA history to average at least 25 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists across a full season.

The Nuggets are outscoring opponents by 8.5 points per 100 possessions with Jokic on the floor, per Cleaning the Glass, while they’re being outscored by 9.7 points per 100 possessions with him on the bench. That 18.2-point on/off differential is the highest among anyone who’s played at least 1,000 minutes with their current team this season.

Pick an advanced metric, any advanced metric, and Jokic likely leads the NBA in it as well. From estimated plus-minus to BBall Index’s LEBRON, win shares, box plus/minus, value over replacement player and PER, Jokic often has a sizable lead over his next-closest challenger. In fact, he’s on track to break the NBA’s single-season records for both PER and box plus/minus with only five games left to play.

Seeding had been the one major knock against Jokic’s MVP case for most of the year, but the Utah Jazz’s recent struggles opened the door for Denver to move up to fifth. The Nuggets might not be done there, either. They’re now only 2.5 games behind the Golden State Warriors, who are 1-7 in their past eight games and have four of their five remaining contests against teams currently in the playoffs or in the play-in tournament race.

Embiid has put up similarly absurd numbers since the All-Star break. He’s averaging 30.8 points on 47.3 percent shooting, 12.1 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.4 blocks in 35.2 minutes per game over that span. Any concerns about James Harden siphoning touches away from Embiid proved unfounded, as his production is right in line with the numbers he was putting up prior to the trade.

However, the addition of Harden could be hurting Embiid’s MVP candidacy in less quantifiable ways.

Following Harden’s debut, Embiid proclaimed that it was “probably the most wide open” he had ever been. The two have developed instant chemistry as pick-and-roll partners, but Harden has taken over the primary shot-creation responsibilities in the Sixers’ half-court offense.

Although Embiid’s usage rate hasn’t declined precipitously—he was at 37.7 percent prior to Harden’s debut and is at 36.7 percent since the All-Star break—he isn’t being forced to create nearly as much offense on his own. Only 49.4 percent of his made baskets were assisted before Harden’s debut, whereas 61.3 percent have been assisted ever since. That’s still a smaller share than Jokic, who’s been assisted on 62.5 percent of his made baskets this season, but Jokic has been creating slightly more on his own since the All-Star break than he did prior to it.

Embiid deserves credit for keeping the Sixers together prior to Harden’s arrival, as Ben Simmons’ holdout could have caused the team to go into an early-season tailspin. However, the addition of Harden gave Embiid some much-needed reinforcements, while Jokic appears unlikely to get either Jamal Murray or Michael Porter Jr. back before the playoffs.

As Bontemps noted, the Sixers’ up-and-down play over the past month likely isn’t helping Embiid’s MVP case, either. The Sixers are 10-6 in the 16 games that he’s played since the All-Star break, which includes wins over the Minnesota Timberwolves, Chicago Bulls and Dallas Mavericks. However, their best win over that span—a 113-106 victory over the East-leading Miami Heat—came without both Embiid and Harden.

The Sixers have had plenty of chances to notch marquee wins in recent weeks, but questionable rotation patterns and shoddy late-game execution has foiled them time and again. They lost to Jokic’s Nuggets at home in mid-March, dropped a home game to the short-handed Toronto Raptors later that week, and they fell apart late against the Phoenix Suns this past Sunday and defending champion Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday.

Had the Sixers gone 2-2 or 3-1 over those four games instead of 0-4, Embiid might still be leading the MVP pack. However, only three of the Sixers’ final seven games come against teams in the playoffs or in the play-in race. They’re now short on opportunities for statement games until the playoffs begin.

If Embiid goes on a one-man scoring rampage over the final week-and-a-half of the regular season and leads the Sixers to a top-two seed in the East, he could still swing the MVP narrative back in his direction. But for now, Jokic appears to have the inside track to his second straight MVP award.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac.