Joe Paige | Sports Editor
With just a few weeks left in the regular season, this race for the MVP has really boiled down to three candidates, Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Nikola Jokić who has won the award the last two years. All three back up their candidacy with all equally strong cases.
Joel Embiid has elevated his sixers squad all the way to the 2nd seed in the eastern conference. Embiid is currently having one of the best seasons of his career, even with a considerably slow start to the season, every game he’s consistently showcased why he's one of the most dominant two-way forces in the league.
The All-Star center talked to Shams Charania of the Athletic, when asked about the amount of pressure he has compared to Jokić and Antetokounmpo he had this to say about his competition for the MVP...
| "People have been talking about who has the most pressure to win People want to mention me. I'm not at the top of that list. I'm not a two-time MVP, I've never made first-team All-NBA, I've never won anything. So why is there press on me to do something when there are guys that have won two MVPs, a bunch of MVPs and haven't done anything either?"
Embiid finished the past two seasons second in MVP voting behind Jokić. He has voiced on multiple occasions how he's become more focused on getting his team a ring and winning defensive player of the year rather than MVP.
This year is lining up as one of the best chances for Philadelphia to potentially make a deep post-season run. One of the biggest criticisms when evaluating Embiid and The Sixers is that they haven't been able to make it past the second round of the playoffs since the process begun.
It's good that we wont have much longer to wait because it's going to come down to the final day of the season until we can make any definitive decisions for who this award should go to.