76ers' Joel Embiid Voted NBA MVP over Jokić, Giannis, Tatum in Anonymous Player Poll

Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid has the support of his fellow players in the race for the NBA MVP award.

In an anonymous player poll conducted by The Athletic's Sam Amick and Josh Robbins, Embiid received 50 percent of the 102 votes for MVP.

Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokić finished second at 25.5 percent, followed by Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks at 15.7 percent and Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics at 3.9 percent.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Luka Dončić of the Dallas Mavericks were the only other players who received any votes.

"There's not many people in the league you may fear, but I think he's one of those few people that you have appropriate fear for every time you go out," one player who voted for Embiid told Amick and Robbins.

The NBA officially announced Embiid, Jokić and Antetokounmpo as the three finalists for the 2022-23 MVP award.

The MVP race seemed to swing in Embiid's favor down the stretch in the regular season. His 52-point, 13-rebound effort in a 103-101 win over the Boston Celtics on April 4 firmly established him as the front-runner.

Embiid was already viewed as the betting favorite going into that game, but the markets shifted even more toward him immediately after.

The Sixers' superstar led the NBA in scoring average (33.1 points per game) and tied for ninth in rebounds (10.2). He did sit out the final two games of the regular season, but his 66 total starts are only three fewer than Jokić and three more than Antetokounmpo.

Jokić narrowly missed out on averaging a triple-double this season. The Nuggets center finished with 24.5 points, 11.8 rebounds and 9.8 assists per game. His team is the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference playoffs, but their 53 wins are fewer than the Bucks (58) and Sixers (54) had.

The player poll's MVP vote may be more lopsided than the actual vote is likely to be. In the final straw poll of 100 media members conducted by ESPN's Tim Bontemps, Embiid beat Jokić by a total of two points.

Jokić received more first-place votes than Embiid (42-40), but Embiid was voted second on six more ballots (45-39) to make up the point difference needed to finish in the top spot.

Whatever the actual outcome ends up being, this could be the closest MVP vote since 2004-05, when Steve Nash beat Shaquille O'Neal by 34 points for the award.