Ever since Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid was announced as the winner of the 2022-23 NBA MVP award, the basketball world has been wondering who was the lone MVP voter to leave Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić off their top-five ballot altogether.
It was a foregone conclusion that Embiid, Jokić, and Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo were the three front-runners. But while Embiid and Antetokounmpo both showed up on all 100 ballots, Jokić came in at 99. TNT’s Charles Barkley was among those who felt that the voter who didn’t include Jokić “shouldn’t get a vote.”
It was revealed Thursday that the offending voter was ESPN’s Mark Jackson, whose top five were, in order, Embiid, Antetokounmpo, Boston’s Jayson Tatum, OKC’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell. Not only was Jackson the only voter not to include Jokić in their top five but he was the only voter to put Tatum as high as third.
While he had been silent since the vote went down and controversy swirled, the ESPN NBA analyst took to the radio Thursday to clear the air and apologize for the “mistake.”
And here’s Mark Jackson on with @Jumpshot8 & @TermineRadio apologizing for his MVP ballot mistake pic.twitter.com/g9DEZRx3sA
— Noah Coslov (@NoahCoslov) May 11, 2023
“Mistake,” Jackson told Justin Termine on SiriusXM’s NBA Today. “And one thing I live by, you make a mistake, you own it. I’m not a guy that does it for clicks or be trending. Absolute mistake made by me.
“You can tell, I’ve probably been thinking ‘How did I make that mistake?’ You can tell I put one center, two forwards, and two guards, so I wasn’t even thinking. I apologize to the Denver Nuggets. I apologize to Nikola Jokić, who is not only in the MVP discussion and deserved to be on my ballot but he’s one of the greatest players in the history of this game. He’s a top-ten center of all time.
“So, I own it. If you want to take away my vote, or do whatever, you’re more than welcome. I made a mistake. He deserves, in my opinion, clearly…I would have still voted for Joel Embiid to be MVP but with Giannis and Jokić second and third. They deserve that.”
It’s a little unclear if Jackson didn’t realize he had made a mistake until the ballots were released or if he knew and was just hoping it would blow over. It also sounds like he’s saying that he might have confused his All-NBA vote with the MVP vote. Regardless, it’s a good move by Jackson to own the mistake and praise Jokić, lest he has to deal with the potential ramifications of that snub during the playoffs.
