Parsing the NBA's MVP debate a...

It's difficult to ignore how nasty the debate around the NBA MVP award has become in recent weeks.

Everything going on with Ja Morant has overshadowed it, but the unpleasant taste should stay. It's gone through the expected cycle of name-calling, bullying, and, most recently, racist charges from former players on daily debate shows.

Nikola Jokic, the two-time MVP, is at the center of it all. He's hoping for his third straight victory, which would place him in exclusive company. Only Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, and Larry Bird have held the award for three consecutive years, with Bird being the most recent, from 1984 to 1986.

Jokic is averaging a triple-double for the top team in the West, albeit the Nuggets have struggled in recent weeks. Numerous public straw polls have Jokic installed as a shoo-in for the award again again, prompting nitpicking of both his game and the voters' intentions.

The first charge was of stat-padding. Then it was bringing up prior MVP voting, a three-year period in which Steve Nash won two in a row, followed by Dirk Nowitzki in 2007.

It was slammed on television and elsewhere, with many Jokic supporters implying that any MVP vote that doesn't go to him indicates the voter is some uncivilized savage who doesn't understand the subtlety of his game.

Joel Embiid of Philadelphia is on the opposite end, having been second to Jokic for the previous several years, almost like Clyde Drexler to Michael Jordan, good but not good enough. Embiid leads the NBA in scoring once more, this time by a significant margin. He dominated Jokic in their one-on-one showdown a few weeks ago and remains a massive defensive presence.

And, as terrific as both guys are, neither is Giannis Antetokounmpo – the finest player in the game, the irresistible and merciless force on both ends who may be the last one standing in June. Nash and Nowitzki got their accolades from here, but not without controversy. Nash didn't have the typical look in 2005, but he helped lead a basketball revolution in Phoenix, transforming the game from a grind to a wide-open, entertaining, and winning style. He repeated the next year despite losing his prime scoring target, Amare Stoudemire, to knee surgery and keeping the train moving and the Suns atop the Western Conference. After a sad defeat in the 2006 Finals, Nowitzki led Dallas to 67 victories.

Even last year, there was a chorus of "nobody likes Jokic" as he swept to a second consecutive MVP award, despite the Nuggets finishing sixth in the West (they were third in the West in the COVID-shortened, 72-game 2020-21 season). Jokic has received 156 of a possible 200 first-place votes in the previous two years.

Even if he didn't receive every single first-place vote, it's difficult to argue with the legitimacy of his MVPs, but race managed to weave its way into the discourse, albeit awkwardly.

It's not a war one of these players wanted, but it's here and has been here. Announcing absolutes in any direction is risky, but we've been living in a social media cyclone.