Joel Embiid wins 2023 NBA MVP. How the 76ers star beat out Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo
Isabella Floyd
Published Apr 07, 2026
The “process” finally reached its most valuable stage.
Joel Embiid, 29, of the Philadelphia 76ers, is the 2023 NBA Most Valuable Player, beating Denver’s Nikola Jokić and Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo by a comfortable margin.
Results for the league’s most hallowed individual award were announced Tuesday night live on TNT. The award is decided by a vote of 100 media members who cover the NBA.
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“It’s been a long time coming,” said Embiid, during his televised interview with TNT’s Inside the NBA analysts, from the team hotel in Boston, where the Sixers are in the middle of a second-round playoff series against the Boston Celtics. He was mobbed by teammates in the hotel ballroom after his name was announced, burying his face in his massive hands as they hugged him and chanted “M-V-P, M-V-P.”
Embiid, who was born in Cameroon, didn’t start playing basketball until age 16, and is now a six-time NBA All-Star, won MVP for the first time in a career that began with him missing the entirety of his first two seasons due to complications from a broken bone in his foot. That was followed by years of being the centerpiece of former Sixers general manager Sam Hinkie’s “Trust the Process” campaign to slowly try to build a winner around him.
Embiid’s triumph comes after two consecutive seasons in which he was worthy of the award, but finished second to Jokić, the 2021 and 2022 NBA MVP who was trying to become the first player since Larry Bird in 1986 to win it three years in a row. Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell remain the only other players to win three consecutive MVPs.
“I’ve been through a lot,” Embiid said. “I’m not just talking about basketball, I’m talking about everything as a life – my story. Where I come from, and how I got here and what it took for me to be here so, it feels good.”
The race was expected to be one of the closest ever, with polling of league voters showing a dead heat between Embiid and Jokic late in the season. Embiid won easily with 73 first-place votes and 25 seconds, as voters were swayed by his dominance, the narrative of him winning his first award, perhaps rejecting Jokic as a three-time winner, and watching Jokic miss several games over the final two weeks.
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Embiid was 241 points (votes are weighted) ahead of Jokic, who garnered 15 firsts and beat Antetokounmpo by picking up 52 seconds to Giannis’ 23.
The Celtics’ Jayson Tatum finished fourth and Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who was an All-Star for the first time this season, finished fifth.
2022-23 NBA MVP Voting
| Player, team | First-place votes (10 pts.) | Second (7 pts.) | Third (5 pts.) | Fourth (3 pts.) | Fifth (1 pt.) | Total pts. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Joel Embiid, 76ers | 73 | 25 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 915 |
Nikola Jokic, Nuggets | 15 | 52 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 674 |
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bucks | 12 | 23 | 65 | 0 | 0 | 606 |
Jayson Tatum, Celtics | 0 | 0 | 1 | 89 | 8 | 280 |
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 28 | 46 |
Donovan Mitchell, Cavaliers | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 27 | 30 |
Domantas Sabonis, Kings | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 24 | 27 |
Luka Doncic, Mavericks | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 10 |
Stephen Curry, Warriors | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
Jimmy Butler, Heat | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
De'Aron Fox, Kings | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
Jalen Brunson, Knicks | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Ja Morant, Grizzlies | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
This year, the sheer dominance of Embiid’s season was enough to overcome the less flashy, analytically superior game of Jokić.
A 7-footer with outstanding range, Embiid led the NBA in scoring at 33.1 points per game. It was the second consecutive season in which he was the league’s top scorer by average. He was also tied for ninth in rebounds per game (10.2) and seventh with 1.7 blocks. Embiid shot nearly 55 percent from the field (a career high), made a third of his 3s and was an 86 percent shooter at the foul line in 66 games – just two short of his career best.
Embiid joins Chamberlain (1966, 1967, 1968), Julius Erving (1981), Moses Malone (1983) and Allen Iverson (2001) as Sixers to win MVP.
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“What I want people to remember is that anything is possible,” Embiid said. “For me, started playing basketball at only 16, that’s hard. That’s hard to make it and to be able to be in this position. It obviously took a lot of work and a lot of luck. But you know, I just want people to just remember that anything’s possible, no matter what you do, as long as you believe in it.”
Jokić, by contrast to Embiid, averaged “only” 24.5 points per game, but was tied for third in the league with Antetokounmpo in rebounds (11.8), fourth in assists (9.8) and shot an absurd 63 percent from the field. The Serbian center is the only player ever to average at least 20 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists on at least 60 percent shooting, and he also led the NBA with 29 triple-doubles.
Antetokounmpo, from Greece, won MVP in 2019 and 2020. He averaged a career-high 31.1 points on the NBA’s best regular-season team this time. The last American-born player to win MVP was James Harden in 2018.
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Embiid missed Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals with a sprained right knee, though the Sixers, led by 45 points from James Harden, beat the Celtics without him. Game 2 is Wednesday. He said “we’ll see” when TNT’s Ernie Johnson asked if he would play.
The Sixers’ latest injury report can wait a minute. Celebrating needs to be a part of the process, too.
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Embiid: An unlikely MVP
To sum up Embiid’s career, and how the 29-year-old big man got to the point where he was voted the most valuable player in the best basketball league on the planet, is an impossible task. But a good place to start reflecting is that despite all the natural talent that Embiid possesses, his career arc has been unique. “Unlikely” is another way to put it.
As a 16-year-old in Cameroon, Embiid was invited to Luc Mbah a Moute’s basketball camp just because he was tall. He did not even show up on the first day, instead electing to play video games with his younger brother. Embiid had played very little organized basketball at that point, thinking a volleyball career was going to be his future. That initial basketball camp led to another camp invite, and eventually, Mbah a Moute arranged for him to play high school basketball in Florida. At the time, Embiid knew almost no English.
After a rapid rise at Kansas that ended with Embiid becoming the No. 3 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, he missed his full first two professional seasons due to a broken navicular bone in his right foot. The Sixers, perhaps rightfully so, were extremely cautious with Embiid once he finally made it on the floor. While Embiid has not avoided the injury bug completely, he has appeared in 134 combined games over the past two seasons. To reach the point where he’s playing enough games to be in MVP consideration was certainly not a given after how his NBA career started. —Rich Hofmann
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How Embiid changed his game to become MVP
Perseverance and overcoming adversity are a major part of Embiid’s story. But the rise from perennial All-Star to MVP candidate, a steeper jump perhaps than it seems on paper, is due in large part to his dedication to the craft. Embiid has continually improved and evolved over his career.
Instead of heeding the calls to play like a traditional post-up big man, Embiid studied how the game was played at the highest levels. His main takeaway, which he came to alongside trainer Drew Hanlen, was that he needed to gradually migrate out to the perimeter. The elbow and “nail” areas around the free-throw line have now become his sweet spot. To get there, Embiid studied shooting big men like Dirk Nowitzki, in addition to wings like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.
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Embiid did not put himself in a box, which allowed him to become one of the sport’s most dominant players. The change to the perimeter, and the skill development over the years that has turned the 7-footer into a dominant face-up player, has allowed Embiid to win the scoring titles the past two seasons. He also sees the floor better than he ever has, compared to the low block. Embiid watches and studies a ton of NBA basketball, which undoubtedly helped him become the MVP. —Hofmann
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Jokić has bigger fish to fry
After a 39-point, 16-rebound, five-assist masterpiece in the Nuggets’ 97-87 victory over the Phoenix Suns in Game 2 of their second-round series Monday, Jokić said he planned to be by the pool, weather permitting, when the MVP announcement came down Tuesday.
His interest in finding out whether he would win a third straight MVP award and become just the fourth player in NBA history to do so?
“Zero,” Jokić insisted.
Jokić’s competitive fire burns hot. Somewhere deep down, he probably wanted to join that elite company. He obviously had a strong case after averaging 24.5 points, 11.8 rebounds and 9.8 assists (most all-time for a center) during the regular season while shooting a career-best 63.2 percent from the field and leading the Nuggets (6-1 in these playoffs) to the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference.
But as Jokić continues authoring a career that could one day put him in the discussion among the league’s all-time greats, an NBA championship, which would be the first for the Nuggets, would do more for his legacy than a third MVP trophy. —Nick Kosmider
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Antetokounmpo’s production wasn’t enough
For the first time in his 10-year career, Antetokounmpo scored over 30 points per game in a season. He ended the season with 31.1 points per game, to go along with 11.8 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game. It was the first time a player averaged at least 30 points, 11 rebounds and five assists per game in a season since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1973 and just the sixth time in NBA history.
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To go along with his historic individual numbers, Antetokounmpo also led the Bucks to the league’s best record. The Bucks tallied the most wins in the NBA, despite the team’s second best player, Khris Middleton, starting only 19 games this season and playing in just 33 total games.
But neither Antetokounmpo’s individual success nor the Bucks’ team success seemed to resonate with voters this season as the Bucks’ two-time NBA MVP (2019, 2020) finished third in voting behind Embiid and Jokić for a second consecutive season. —Eric Nehm
Required reading
• Joel Embiid unplugged: On NBA MVP race, how he feels entering playoffs and Sixers’ pressure to win
• The colorful world of Joel Embiid: Trolling, bluffing and sometimes downright annihilating
• Nikola Jokić’s passing and the warning given to all new Nuggets players: Keep your hands up
• How Nikola Jokić’s love of horses fueled fan campaign with ‘incredible’ impact
• Inside Nikola Jokic’s path from Serbia to the Nuggets to NBA MVP. ‘Just kind of lucky scouting’
• Giannis Unplugged: On MVP race, surging Bucks and why he’s ‘f-ing desperate’ to win it all again
• How does Giannis Antetokounmpo continue to be great? By being ‘a little crazy’
• In NBA MVP race, no need to belittle Jokić, Embiid or Giannis to make your guy big
(Photo: Dustin Satloff / Getty Images)
