Joel Embiid should win his first NBA Most Valuable Player award on Tuesday after finishing second in each of the past two seasons behind Nikola Jokic. There’s a sense of “a long time coming” for Embiid’s MVP, but he ranks just in the middle of the pack for MVP accrual share before he wins his first title, according to historical voting data from Basketball reference.
In the time period since 1984, Kevin Durant is ranked as the MVP for the first time with a 2.02 SPA. Durant finished second in 2010, 2012, and 2013 before smashing into second place in 2014.
Larry Bird has the second highest share of 1.75 as he was also runner-up three separate times before winning.
James Harden and Kevin Garnett are the other two players to finish as runners-up twice before winning the award.
Derrick Rose, Steve Nash, Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Nikola Jokic were the game’s MVPs for the first time with the lowest cumulative MVP share.