Gary Harris on Jokić: 'He didn't really want to win the MVP this year'

At the midway point of the season, when ESPN's Tim Bontemps released his MVP straw poll, Nikola Jokić was the clear leader — and that led to a lot of pushback in some quarters. It was a "why are we giving this guy a third-straight MVP when he hasn't done anything in the playoffs" argument at its core, but there were other personal agendas from other quarters as well. We'll never know how much that pushback changed the narrative, and how much the Nuggets and Jokić taking their foot off the gas the last month of the season (they were the runaway No. 1 seed) played a role. What we do know is Joel Embiid won the MVP award, with Jokić second.

Jokić doesn't care in the least.

Don't take my word for it. Here is former Jokić teammate Gary Harris talking about the former MVP during a recent appearance on Jeff Teague’s Club 520 podcast.

"Once you give him attention, he don't even want all that attention. He didn't really wanna win that MVP this year. Once they started talking about all the other stuff — the different narratives — he was just like, I'm cool. I'm straight. They went on a little five-game losing streak, they put Embiid first and then I feel like that took a lot of pressure off of them as a team, in general. But, just playing with him he's so selfless — I mean everyone can see it on a bigger stage. But that's literally been him the whole time.”

The MVP race this season will be interesting, as will the narrative around it. Jokić will be in the middle of it all if he plays like himself, and the casuals throwing around the "he doesn't deserve it because of the playoffs" will have no cover this time. Embiid will be in the mix, but will he be haunted by the same "what has he done in the playoffs?" narrative? Giannis Antetokounmpo has been in the mix the past two years and sometimes it feels like we almost take his greatness on both ends for granted. If Jayson Tatum can lead the Celtics to team success he will be in serious consideration, and the same can be said of Luka Dončić and the Mavericks. Others such as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Stephen Curry or Donovan Mitchell could jump into the conversation if they and their teams have enough success.

Just know nobody will care about all that less than Jokić. He's spending his summer hanging out with Aaron Gordon in Serbia watching horse races.