I have a confession to make that I have been meaning to get off of my chest. It's going to sting some Sixers fans, make me some enemies, and ultimately be used as a mark against me: I think Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo would all be deserving MVPs this season. Each has submitted an all-time great season of a different sort, and each is an incredible basketball player in their own way, full stop.

Seriously, the discourse about this award has done all of these guys a disservice. Denver's big man basically averaged 27-14-8 while shooting 58 percent from the field. The notion that the case for Jokic rests on VORP alone is as disingenuous as suggesting that Embiid's offensive success is strictly about free throws, and it undermines your position as someone arguing in favor of another candidate. You do not have to pretend Jokic is some overrated goon to make a case for Embiid as the league's deserving MVP this season. Fans being fans is one thing, but the media back and forth during the back half of this season has been absolutely insufferable, a big reason why I have mostly stayed out of the debate. 

Nobody has watched Embiid more than I have over the last half-decade. So I'm going to tell you why I think he deserves to win MVP this year, and why I think he's going to fall short.

The ironclad positives

A shot at the scoring title

Joel Embiid became the first center to win the scoring title at the center position since Shaquille O'Neal did it in 2000. And to do that in today's environment, with offenses better than ever and with several all-time greats competing for the honor, is something special.

"What does the NBA MVP award mean?" has a different answer depending on the person. Were it simply about awarding the so-called best player in the world regardless of other context, LeBron James' trophy case would have a few more awards on the shelves, as would Michael Jordan and others. And since we can't make a case for any of the primary candidates using the best player, best team argument, each has to present some sort of unique case to the voting panel.

So this is where Embiid's case starts: scoring titles are not a big man's race. O'Neal's name is the one that comes up often, but go back through NBA history and you'll find that the change in style of play over the last 15 years didn't change the composition of scoring races. Since 1980, these are the only centers to win scoring titles:

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What's noteworthy here is that two of those three scoring titles come with an asterisk. Prior to his retirement after winning the 1993 NBA championship, Michael Jordan had won seven consecutive scoring titles, and he would immediately rip off three more after returning full-time to the Bulls. So as great as Robinson and O'Neal were during the mid-90s, there is essentially one year in the last 42 seasons where it was impossible to dispute that the most consistent scorer in basketball was a big man.  And though there will be some notable players who fail to qualify for the leaderboard because of games played this season (a la Kevin Durant), their averages trailed Embiid even if everyone was eligible. Scoring 30.6 points per game is tops in the league, better than LeBron James' 30.3 (the top non-qualifier) and better than Giannis' 29.9 (the top leaderboard qualifier).

Getting to 30+ points per game would have been a unique achievement on its own, another rarity amongst centers in the NBA's modern era. The last center to do so was Moses Malone in 1982, when he fell short in the scoring race in a battle vs. "The Iceman" George Gervin. It was a more common feat in the 1970s and 1960s, especially for Wilt Chamberlain, but it was a different league back then, a lot of people considering the Bird/Magic era the dividing point that signifies the modern league.

Embiid has arrived at this point, without a peer in the game's most basic category, by fine-tuning the things that made him special, adding components to his game that were not there when he entered the league. 

He is earning more trips to the free-throw line than ever, much to the chagrin of rival fanbases, and that is only part of his story. He has been an above-average three-point shooter on a healthy volume of threes in back-to-back seasons, finally showing a level of consistency to quiet concerns about his shot selection. Embiid's midrange touch has come down some this season after a historic year last season, though as of late he has made up for that by rededicating himself to pick-and-roll basketball with James Harden at point. 

After years of criticism over his unwillingness or inability to be effective as a roller, Embiid has managed to close the year doing excellent work there. He is second in average roll volume in the league this season, tied with Anthony Davis at around 4.6 possessions logged per game, and his 1.24 points per possession are right in line with big men who make a living out of it, a la DeAndre Ayton (1.25). Combine that with his pick-and-pop effectiveness, in addition to everything else he does to score the ball, and you begin to understand why he is such a tough cover, how teams end up taking lots of fouls trying to stay within arm's reach of Embiid. 

As he has faced more attention, due to both his improving skill and the state of the Sixers' roster, Embiid's effectiveness against double-teams has improved in meaningful ways. Embiid has posted more assists than ever this season with his turnover number remaining flat year-over-year, and his effectiveness against double teams has steadily improved over each of the last four seasons.

The game is about buckets. Embiid is going out and getting them. And in the spirit of awarding someone for marked improvements to their game, Embiid has a strong case as someone who rose to the occasion and exceeded what people thought he was capable of. Even an Embiid believer would have been hard-pressed to tell you that this year is the year he would put up historical numbers as a center. 

Leading his team through the storm

To me, this is the central plank of Joel Embiid's case for MVP, and it's legitimately impossible to quantify, which is an admittedly tough sell for voters. He was not the only player in this race to deal with adversity, far from it, but he was certainly the only one who was expected to lead a team led by an executive who promised in public that the Sixers were prepared to wait years to trade a disgruntled teammate. The Sixers were staring down a lost season when Embiid returned from his COVID absence in late November, and calls to simply make a trade and get it over with rang out around the league.

All Embiid did in the time afterward was carry the organization on his back. At different points throughout this season, Embiid has had to be their best player and their public spokesman, with the latter job carrying as much (if not more) responsibility with how adversely his actions could impact trade talks. Whether he actually believed they had enough on hand to win or not, and Embiid was quite clear that they did, the big man repeatedly assured the public he was content with the guys they had available. It helped that the Sixers were able to keep winning while he made those claims, buying the organization time to wait out the trade market and eventually put a star next to him that they felt was worthy of being his co-star.

Again, we don't need to be unfair to Jokic and his effort this year in order to make Embiid's case. The Nuggets going without Jamal Murray for the entire season and Michael Porter Jr. for most of it is the sort of thing that would absolutely bury most teams. At the very least, you would think this would have dented Jokic's numbers as a result of the additional attention teams can give him and the diminished pressure other guys can put on defenses. But his numbers are almost the same this season as they were last year — scoring up slightly, assists down slightly, efficiency up despite a dip in three-point shooting, and a nice uptick in rebounding. To do that in his environment and ultimately lead the Nuggets to 48 wins is a feat worth celebrating.

Where Embiid's season differs from Jokic's, at least in my mind, is that one guy dealt with his co-star actively trying to sabotage the team, compared to Jokic doing something star players are expected to do by lifting his team up in light of injuries (albeit doing so at an all-time level). The critical distinction for me is that Jokic was able to dominate in a place with very little pressure and media attention, while the Sixers were under the constant glare of the basketball world from mid-August until a trade was completed in mid-February. If Jokic's Nuggets would have crumbled this year, it likely would have been viewed as hard luck and faded into the background. That doesn't make his play less impressive, but I think Embiid earns extra points for his play in the middle of chaos.

You can look at how the Sixers were covered up until the very moment the Harden trade came through and see how different the stakes were. November 5th: "The 76ers need to trade Ben Simmons as soon as possible." January 20th: "The 76ers are wasting Joel Embiid's prime." February 4th, six days before the Harden deal: 'The 76ers made a mistake not trading Ben Simmons over the summer." And these claims were in moments when the team actually had success. From the ground level amongst fans to executives in suites around the league, there was bewilderment at the idea that they would hold out for something better than Tyrese Haliburton, Buddy Hield, and draft capital. 

Is this a narrative-based argument? Absolutely! This is a narrative award and almost always has been, and Embiid has a great story to tell. But if you want to argue it on basketball merit, Embiid was also forced to do things he would not have otherwise had to do because of the Simmons-sized hole in the roster. What's more, is that the Sixers never truly attempted to fill that hole because they held out hope that Simmons might change his mind and play for them. Embiid running Philadelphia's early transition attack instead of trusting Point Korkmaz to do so was one of the many downstream effects of the Simmons fiasco, and is just one example of how truly absurd this season has been.

(By the way, I have seen some people suggest recently that Embiid actually gets dinged in this category for "helping to cause" the Simmons deterioration. That relies on a version of his Game 7 comments that leaves out, well, his full comments on the loss to Atlanta. I can't abide by that.)

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Joel Embiid stands on the court before the start of the Sixers' game against the Raptors at the Wells Fargo Center on March 20.

The "you could argue for the other guys, too" issues

Team success while on the floor 

Posting hilarious on/off splits has become a Sixers tradition during the Embiid era, the big man somehow able to emerge unscathed regardless of the absurd lineups that were put around him. But it's hard to use numbers like those without comparing them to his peers and saying, "Hot damn, they're pretty insane, too."

Here's what I care about — on-court impact when you are on the floor. I'm not giving people bonus points for playing with worse benches or handing out demerits for better benches. I want to know how your team performs with you in the game and with you available, and all three of these guys have been sensational. A quick rundown:

1. With Embiid on the floor, the Sixers score 115.6 points/100 possessions and allow 107.8 points per 100 possessions, good for the equivalent of the league's second-best offense and fourth-best defense. In games Joel Embiid has played, the Sixers were 45-23.
2. With Jokic on the floor, the Nuggets score 117.3 points/100 possessions and allow 108.9 points per 100 possessions, good for the equivalent of the league's best offense and the fifth-best defense. In games Nikola Jokic played, the Nuggets were 46-28.
3. With Giannis on the floor, the Bucks score 116 points/100 possessions and allow 107.9 points per 100 possessions, good for the equivalent of the league's second-best offense and fourth-best defense. In games Giannis Antetokounmpo has played, the Bucks are 45-22.

There is almost nothing to separate these guys here, save for the additional losses suffered by Jokic. They find ways to make the most out of their teams when they are on the floor, and they win games. That's the job, and they all do it well.

Weighing defensive impact

Subjective opinion alert — I think Embiid is a better defender than Jokic to a borderline comical degree, and while I will agree to the idea (backed by some numbers) that Jokic has made strides as a defender, I think he is exploitable in a way other MVP-level players are not, particularly in the playoffs. His case rests on being an offensive cheat code, and that's fine because he is one.

The issue with trying to push Embiid to the front on defensive merit is that the other guy in this race doesn't have the defensive question marks to answer. Perhaps more importantly, Giannis has been one of the few guys on the Bucks who haven't toggled the on/off switch a bunch during Milwaukee's follow-up season to their championship. He is relentless in a way few other players in the league are, and his combination of drive, instincts, and tools is one of the only things that has saved the Bucks from plunging even further down the defensive charts this season. With Brook Lopez on the shelf for a lot of the year, Giannis was expected to carry a lot of uncomfortable lineups for the Bucks, and while that leaves him slightly behind Embiid in terms of the on-court numbers, they also arrived there in slightly different ways.

Frankly, Embiid could do well to follow Giannis' habit of relentless effort. While he has admittedly carried an enormous burden on offense this season, there have been a few too many games where the big man waited until the second half to turn it up on defense and start caring/trying. Managing his workload ultimately ended up allowing Embiid to save some in the tank for some great second-half performances, and I didn't have much of a problem with him letting his foot off of the gas with them on the doorstep of the playoffs. But his gap would be wider vs. Jokic on the defensive end if he was as dialed in there as he has been on offense, and his team's record may well have been good enough to end the debate with a simple point to the standings. You could hardly ask him to do more than he did in the regular season, but I know what good Embiid defense looks like, and there were enough middling halves to say he could have been better.

"The standings should matter more!"

Well, for one, if this was truly the case, one of Devin Booker or Chris Paul would be leading the MVP race. The Phoenix Suns have been the best team in the NBA by a comfortable margin this season, and Booker has only recently begun to get some love as an option on the ballot. He wouldn't crack my top three, but if this is your reasoning, you basically have to vote for him as one of yours.

There was a point where the discrepancy in team record would really have made a difference for Embiid, especially if they had been able to pull out some marquee wins down the stretch. But with the season over, the Bucks and Sixers finished with identical records, the Nuggets only three games behind those two despite sitting lower in the Western standings as a result of the top-heavy nature of the conference. We're not talking about the gap between a 55-win team and a 45-win team, but one where the final margin was ultimately decided by a couple of games at the end of the season that did not really matter anyway.

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Joel Embiid stands on the court during the Sixers' game against the Raptors at the Wells Fargo Center on March 20.

The marks against him

The advanced stat gap

I am not going to sit here and tell you that you should put a lot of weight in specific catch-all stats, and NBA teams are pretty clear that most publicly-available metrics are bad. No argument from me. The fact of the matter is that Embiid is running a distant third behind Jokic and Giannis in a handful of these. And stats do matter for a very important reason — there is no reasonable way for you to watch every game of every worthy candidate for major awards, so eventually, most voters have to choose between trusting the word of others, trusting their gut, or trusting numbers, typically using some combination of all three. But not watching someone closely yourself and trusting what they've done outside of the spotlight is how you end up in a situation where people think Josh Richardson could be the three-and-D guy to tie it together for a lineup with two centers and a non-shooting point guard. On some level I get why people might be inclined to use numbers to decide tiebreakers and close races.

The bigger problem I have with people trying to tear down the very existence of advanced metrics is that none of these metrics are saying Joel Embiid has been bad. In fact, some of the stats that the creators have more or less poked holes in themselves show Embiid having an all-time, pantheon-level season. PER, John Hollinger's stat that served as a jumping-off point for a lot of people, rates Nikola Jokic's season as the single-best regular season of all-time. That concept doesn't mesh with my appreciation of basketball, but before tearing that down, consider that it ranks Embiid's season 15th in the history of the league. That's ahead of 1989 Michael Jordan, 2010 LeBron James, 2019 Giannis, and 2000 Shaquille O'Neal. Save for Jordan, who lost out to Magic Johnson for the league's top individual honor that year, each one of those guys won the MVP trophy that season. His PER, which stands at a gargantuan 31.16 after all has been said and done, would have been best in the league in nearly any season that isn't this one, and would have been amongst the many things cited by voters to give him the award.

And still, Jokic and Giannis both managed better marks in this category, as they did across basically all the major metrics stats-inclined people have used to make their cases. I would be inclined to go down the path of picking apart how each stat is calculated if Jokic's basic box score production or eye-test betrayed what he was doing was fraudulent. But think about how good and dominant Embiid has been this season and consider that Jokic shot roughly eight percent better than him from the field. That is not an insignificant gap. He nearly doubled Embiid in assists while posting less than an extra turnover per game more than Embiid. 

Beyond that, Jokic has been incredible to watch. He's one of the most unique and skilled players in the league, and if anything speaks to that, it's the public respect Embiid has paid him whenever he gets asked about him. Despite being pitted against one another for the major hardware two years in a row, both players have gone out of their way to show love to one another. Embiid is not above slighting competition, and while he has taken issue with voting habits, you've never heard him say a bad thing about Jokic for good reason. The numbers are not elevating some guy who shouldn't be given respect, they are (even if inflated) just one example of an ultra-valuable player's worth.

(A quick soapbox moment, though — any defensive metric that purports to show Jokic ahead of Embiid, Draymond Green, Bam Adebayo, and others by a comfortable margin, as 538's RAPTOR does, should be lit on fire, thrown in the trash, then launched on a rocket into the sun. The next good defensive metric that is publicly available will be the first.)

I'll spare you the list if you want to stumble through the various advanced metrics out there and pick apart which ones are good or bad. There have been some funny fake acronyms used by Sixers fans to illustrate their point that advanced stats are junk. But suffice it to say that Embiid is behind by a pretty healthy margin in every major metric. What that means is up to you.

Stumbling at the finish line

To me, the easiest way to pick apart Embiid's case for MVP is to point out the opportunity he had in front of him coming down the stretch. Not so long ago, he was the favorite to capture this award, with an end-of-season stretch filled with marquee games that could have been his launching pad to the award. Philadelphia's lack of success in those games doesn't necessarily fall on him specifically, but when a race is this close, these games are going to stand out to voters.

Two of those recent games came against Jokic's Nuggets and Giannis' Bucks. The easy way out for an Embiid booster is to point out his stat lines (impressive) and head-to-head success in those games. Indeed, I thought Embiid got the best of Jokic during their time on the floor together, and maybe the Sixers win both games against his MVP-level peers in relatively "normal" circumstances.

Where you lose me, though, is trying to set aside blame for Embiid in those games because Jokic and Giannis feasted on backups, or because Bones Hyland and DeMarcus Cousins went off to save Jokic in the Denver game. Exploiting an opponent when their best player sits on the bench is what superstars are supposed to do, and it is something Embiid has done at a high level for years. Not only has he not done that enough lately, but the Sixers have also actively lost some of those minutes. The Boogie and Bones show in the Nuggets game happened on Embiid's watch with the big man on the floor, not with DeAndre Jordan out there to absorb the blame. And as horrendous as Paul Millsap was defending Giannis in Philly's recent loss to Milwaukee, horrendous as Rivers' decisions with the backup center have been, Embiid almost certainly should have been expected to do better than 0-for-2 with no fouls drawn while guarded by Bobby Portis in that game. To be the MVP, you have to find ways to win wherever those opportunities are presented, and whenever the opponent hands you even the slightest advantage. 

To be fair to Embiid — he has gotten comparatively little credit for going to Milwaukee and beating Giannis' Bucks without Harden in the game right before the All-Star break. Embiid dropping an efficient 42-14-5 in a double-digit win over Giannis on his home floor is/was as impressive as Giannis' terrific recent effort in Philadelphia. Recency bias is a thing. But once the Sixers acquired Harden and blew the doors off of teams to open their time together, the pressure was always going to ramp up for Embiid in the wins and losses department. As a lone star, he had a story to sell about overcoming the odds and putting his team in a position they might not have been otherwise. With Harden next to him, with early claims of the Sixers suddenly being title contenders, the pressure was on to deliver better and bigger results in the final weeks of the season. The overall production was there, but opportunities for one last signature game and win fell by the wayside. Even Embiid's 30-ball in last Thursday's Raptors loss, their last meaningful game of the season, felt underwhelming measured against the standard he set this season, even though Harden's performance was far more impactful and alarming.

Fair or not, Embiid has lost control of the narrative recently. He may still win this award anyway, and he will have earned it with a series of high-profile wins and performances in the middle portion of this season. But closing out with a bang would have made it tough to deny him, and he/the Sixers have provided skeptics with enough ammunition to bury him. The Sixers have homecourt in a first-round series against the fifth seed in their conference, and many fans of the team are unconvinced they will beat Toronto despite having Embiid as he ascends to true greatness. To me, that's a great illustration of how things have turned over the last month. Confidence has faded in Embiid's Sixers, and while I think it's clear he's not the reason why, he's the one who will wear that as the face of the franchise and contender for MVP.

I have participated in MVP straw polls, and if I had a ballot, I would give my MVP award to Embiid. Seeing him win it would be an excellent story about a kid who was plucked from obscurity, overcame adversity, and ultimately turned himself into one of the game's greats. It's a great story regardless, in fact. But I think he's going to fall short. More fuel for the fire, at the very least.

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