When the Denver Nuggets used the 41st pick of the 2014 draft on a Serbian teenager named Nikola Jokic, the broadcast did not even cut to the podium. ESPN was mid-commercial for a Taco Bell Quesarito, and Jokic himself was asleep back home when his family woke him to say he had been drafted. A decade later he had three Most Valuable Player awards, a championship, and a case as the best passing big man the league has seen. The gap between that draft-night footnote and his current standing is the shortest way to explain how thoroughly European and international development has reshaped the league's biggest individual honor.
The voting record backs up the anecdote. Giannis Antetokounmpo won back-to-back MVPs in 2019 and 2020, Jokic followed with 2021 and 2022, and Joel Embiid finally broke through in 2023, giving international-born players five straight MVP trophies. Jokic added a third award in 2024, taking 79 of 99 available first-place votes, and by 2025 he had strung together five consecutive top-two finishes in the voting, a feat only two other players in league history had managed. Even in 2025, when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander interrupted the run, the ballots behind him were still stacked with international names.
