Throughout his career, Joel Embiid has made it clear that rings aren’t the only pieces of hardware he desires — namely, NBA Most Valuable Player Awards — in his quest to become one of the league’s all-time greats.

“You play the game to be the best,” the Philadelphia 76ers star center told ESPN last week.

“And to be the best, you’ve got to have something to show for it. Who has a lot of championships but [doesn’t] have any individual awards? Robert Horry. Would you say Robert Horry is a top-50 NBA player [all time]?”

Horry secured seven titles in 16 seasons with the Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs as one of the most successful role players in league history. But Embiid knows NBA legacies can reach a different stratosphere when championships are accompanied with the league’s top individual honor.

“Obviously, the main goal, and the ultimate goal, is a championship. And then, you can think about more. But you know, you got to put it all together,” Embiid said. “One, two, three MVPs and a bunch of championships.”

After finishing as runner-up to Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic in 2021 and 2022, Embiid broke through in May to claim his first MVP. And Embiid is putting up better numbers so far this season.

Thanks to performances such as Wednesday’s 51-point outburst, the 7-footer is leading the league in scoring for a third consecutive campaign.

Embiid is also on pace to become the first player since Wilt Chamberlain in 1961-62 to score more points (843) than minutes played (819) in a season, helping lead Philadelphia to a 19-8 record and a top-four spot in the Eastern Conference — even in the wake of the 76ers trading James Harden to the LA Clippers last month.

Embiid is averaging a career-high 5.9 assists per game, as new Sixers coach Nick Nurse has given Embiid more freedom to run the offense. It has translated to both team success and Embiid positioning himself, in his eyes, for more MVP hardware next spring.

And early returns are in following the season’s first edition of ESPN’s NBA MVP straw poll.

Embiid has a commanding lead through the first two months of 2023-24, claiming 63 of the 100 first-place votes and holding a 218-point advantage over Jokic.

The 76ers’ big man sees himself outdueling his rival once again.

“I have a pretty good chance [at another MVP],” Embiid said. “I mean, if I have a chance to be in the conversation, why not? I want it all. I’m not shy about it. I’m not going to sit here and be like, ‘Oh, I don’t care about this.’

“Anything that I can get my hands on, I want it.”

Plenty of competition behind Embiid

It would be foolish to think Embiid has this season’s race wrapped up. Over the past three campaigns, the players who led this initial straw poll — LeBron James in 2020-21, Stephen Curry in 2021-22 and Jayson Tatum in 2022-23 — finished 14th, eighth and fourth, respectively, in the NBA’s final vote.

While Embiid is off to a roaring start, plenty of compelling contenders lie in wait behind him, specifically Jokic, Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic.

Not only is that quintet putting up ridiculous individual statistics, but it could also represent a piece of history. If this were the final vote in April, it would be the first time in NBA history that the top five finishers in the MVP race were foreign-born players.

Even with a brief recent dip in form, Jokic has put together yet another brilliant season for the defending champions. He already has 10 triple-doubles, leading the league for a third straight year, while posting averages of 26.5 points, 12.4 rebounds and 9.3 assists on 53.9% shooting for Denver, which has dealt with a lengthy injury absence for Jamal Murray yet remains third in the Western Conference standings.

Antetokounmpo, meanwhile, scored a career-high 64 points last week, and he is averaging 30.6 points per game to go with 11.1 rebounds and 5.4 assists for the Bucks, who have endured a tumultuous start to sit second in the East.

Gilgeous-Alexander has seen his MVP hype rise at the same speed his Thunder have rocketed up the West standings. Oklahoma City is in second place in the conference, while Gilgeous-Alexander — a first-team All-NBA selection last season — landed in his highest spot yet in the straw poll on the strength of 30.7 points, 5.7 rebounds, 6.4 assists and a league-leading 2.8 steals per game.

After the Mavericks didn’t even qualify for the play-in tournament last season, tanking their final few games to ensure they would keep their protected first-round draft pick, Doncic has Dallas back firmly in the mix for a top-six playoff spot with some inspired play, averaging 32.7 points, 8.4 rebounds and 9.1 assists per game.

Those five stars have separated themselves from the field in a way that hasn’t been seen across previous straw polls. Each has multiple first-place votes — 63 for Embiid, 21 for Jokic, three for Antetokounmpo and six apiece for Gilgeous-Alexander and Doncic — and Doncic’s 306 total points are the most ever for a fifth-place finisher.

Stars to watch in the bottom tier

While the top five have separated themselves from the pack, there are a few other names to monitor.

Tatum, who is averaging 26.8 points while shooting a career-high 47.6% from the field, is the best player on the best team in the league to this point — the recipe for success, historically, in MVP voting — and he came in sixth in straw poll voting.

He was followed by a pair of young star guards in the Indiana Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton and the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards, each of whom is making his straw poll debut.

Haliburton received a massive boost with his play to the start of this season, leading Indiana’s NBA-best offense to the in-season tournament’s championship game. Edwards has been a driving force in Minnesota racing out to the best start in the West.

Behind Haliburton and Edwards are two of the league’s biggest, and oldest, stars in Kevin Durant (35) and James (38).

Durant is averaging over 30 points per game for the first time in 10 years, helping keep the Phoenix Suns afloat as they’ve endured significant injury absences for Devin Booker and Bradley Beal.

James, meanwhile, made it onto ballots for just the second time in seven straw polls since the start of the 2021-22 season, leading the Lakers to the inaugural in-season tournament title and playing in 26 of L.A.’s first 28 games.

Rounding out the poll were Kings guard De’Aaron Fox, who has Sacramento back into the top six in the West, and Wolves center Rudy Gobert, the elite anchor of the league’s best defense.