Although Nikola Jokic created history this Wednesday by winning his third MVP trophy in the last four years, his accomplishment seems to have upset a lot of people from the NBA community. After Shaquille O’Neal blatantly told The Joker to his face, “I thought that SGA should have been the MVP, that’s no disrespect to you.”

Minutes after the winner was announced, former Warriors’ star Gilbert Arenas has taken those remarks one step further by pointing out how Jokic winning MVP again can hurt young athletes. While discussing Jokic’s controversial MVP victory during Gil’s Arena Podcast, Arenas started by congratulating The Joker for his incredible accomplishment.

But in the very next statement, the admiration turned into criticism, “They figured out how to give it to him.” Believing that Jokic should have won the MVP over Joel Embiid last year, while his team was the top seed in the West, the majority of the Gil’s Arena panelists claimed that Adam Silver and Co. tried to correct their mistake this year by making Jokic win.

However, Arenas believes the favoritism toward Jokic might affect the upcoming stars’ mentality, “It’s disheartening to the young youth because you’re telling them don’t be selfish and play for yourself because we’re not gonna give you the MVP.”

Citing the example of Kobe Bryant winning his maiden MVP trophy in 2008, Arenas reminded that Black Mamba won MVP after his team’s record improved while his numbers were significantly lower than the previous two years when he led the league in scoring for two straight years.

However, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander averaged over thirty points while also leading his team to the best record in the West, yet the league did not reward him with an MVP trophy. “What more can I do next year if I’m Shai?” Arenas wondered as he claimed the younger stars like SGA and Luka Doncic might slowly lose motivation because of the inconsistent criteria of winning MVP.

Gilbert Arenas has discredited Nikola Jokic’s victories before

Like Gilbert Arenas, his podcast buddies Brandon Jennings and Kenyon Martin also shared the same sentiment about Jokic winning MVP. While Martin claimed, “I think they got it wrong.” after Jokic won, Jennings believed SGA should have won instead, “Shai got robbed though.”

However, this podcast is not the first time Arenas has downplayed Nikola Jokic’s MVP victories. During a recent appearance on NFL legend Shannon Sharpe’s show Nightcap, Arenas made a bold claim about Jokic’s previous two MVP victories, “He is the worst MVP winner in the last forty years.”

Then, slowly dissecting Jokic’s victories, Arenas claimed that the league only awarded him the trophy in 2021 because a big man “ALMOST” averaged a triple-double in the season. Despite his team being third in the West and him averaging 26.4 along with nearly eleven rebounds and over eight assists, Jokic took home the MVP trophy for the first time.

Arenas questioned, “What was the historic part of that?” Then, doubling down on his question, Arenas pointed out that the Nuggets fell even lower, to the sixth seed the following year, but Jokic still won back-to-back. And, again on Gil’s Arena, Arenas had a similar question after Jokic won his third MVP, “What did he do individually?”

With no set criteria to determine the MVP, this debate is unlikely to stop anytime soon and will continue to divert the attention away from the actual winners of the award. Do you believe Nikola Jokic deserved to win MVP this year or was it just a result of favoritism?