Despite Joel Embiid finishing second in MVP voting this year, he wasn’t selected to the All-NBA First Team for the second year in a row.
The NBA allows 100 media members to vote for awards like MVP and the All-NBA teams every year. The media had the choice to vote Embiid into the first team as a forward but chose not to because Embiid isn’t considered a forward. As a result, Nikola Jokic earned not only his second consecutive MVP over Embiid, but he was voted an All-NBA First-Teamer over Embiid as well.
The controversial exclusion has led Commissioner Adam Silver to consider reshaping the voting rules for All-NBA selections. Should Silver’s rule change be implemented, All-NBA selections will become positionless.
“I think we’re a league that has moved increasingly towards positionless basketball,” Silver said Thursday in San Francisco, in his annual press conference at the start of the NBA Finals. “The current system may result in some inequities just based on the happenstance of what your position is.
“It’s something that we will discuss with the players’ association because it has an impact on incentives in players’ contracts.”
Jokic and Embiid have finished 1-2 in MVP voting in back-to-back seasons. Embiid lost out on MVP both times and was named to the All-NBA Second Team twice in a row. The Process being left off the second team has caused quite a stir on NBA Twitter and on sports talk shows across the country. Jayson Tatum, a First-Team selection, said Embiid being snubbed “doesn’t really make too much sense.”
