The NBA’s first MVP is a big fan of Denver’s MVP.

Bob Pettit won the freshly minted trophy for 1955-56 and another one three seasons later. He will be watching on television Friday night when the Nuggets and center Nikola Jokic, who last season won a third MVP in four years, play at New Orleans.

“He’s great,’’ Pettit, who turns 92 on Dec. 12, told The Denver Gazette from his New Orleans home. “I love to watch him.”

The 6-foot-9 Pettit won the NBA’s first Most Valuable Player award as a center and power forward with the St. Louis Hawks. Pettit, a native of Baton Rouge, La., who starred at LSU, was a co-owner of an investing company in New Orleans until retiring in 2006. He was a longtime Pelicans season-ticket holder until giving up his seats after the 2022-23 season due to mobility issues.

Pettit never has met Jokic but saw him play several times for the Nuggets in New Orleans and at the 2022 NBA All Star Game in Cleveland. Pettit was on hand as an honoree of the 75 greatest players in the first 75 years of the NBA.

“You watch him and he’s very mobile and he can hit from the outside,’’ Pettit said of Jokic, who is averaging a triple-double of 29.7 points, 13.7 rebounds and 11.7 assists for the 7-3 Nuggets. “He’s a very good outside shooter. He’s just got a real good game. He’s very good fundamentally.”

Pettit isn’t the oldest NBA MVP winner. That distinction goes to fellow Hall of Famer Bob Cousy, 96, who as a Boston Celtics point guard won the second trophy handed out for 1956-57.

Cousy also is a big fan of the Nuggets center.

“He touches all the bases,’’ Cousy said from his home in Worcester, Mass. “He’s a big man with little-man skills. His footwork around the basket parallels that of a much smaller person and yet he’s 6-foot-11. If you watch him, he doesn’t look like an athlete. He looks more like a truck driver, but he’s got all the skills that a smaller man has with the obvious advantage of good timing and being almost 7-feet.”

Cousy, who attended the Celtics’ championship ring ceremony before the Oct. 22 opener against the New York Knicks but left before tipoff, stopped attending NBA games before Jokic was a rookie in 2015-16. But he follows the big man closely on television.

After all, there is somewhat of a fraternity among NBA MVP winners. Only 36 players have hoisted the award, which was renamed the Michael Jordan Trophy in 2022 after the five-time winner.

The National Basketball Association got its name in 1949 with the merger of the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League, although the league considers its founding year 1946, when the BAA started. The NBA instituted a Rookie of the Year award in 1952-53, which Pettit won in 1954-55 with the Milwaukee Hawks. Strangely, there was no MVP award until 1955-56.

“It was pleasant surprise,’’ Pettit said of winning the first one during a season in which he led the league in scoring at 25.7 points per game and averaged 16.2 rebounds. “I didn’t know exactly what happened but it was a nice trophy. It was terrific. It means a lot more now than at the time I won it, and it was a brand-new award. The older I get the better it sounds.”

Pettit said he “didn’t even know” there was such an award until he was notified he had won it. But it was selected by a vote of players from its inception through 1979-80, so one presumes Pettit had at some point been handed a ballot. Players couldn’t vote for themselves.

In winning the first MVP award, Pettit got 33 of 80 votes to beat out Philadelphia Warriors forward Paul Arizin, who received 21 votes, and Cousy, who got 11. But the following season, Cousy claimed the trophy.

Cousy, whose Celtics in 1956-57 won the first of their 18 championships, averaged 20.6 points and a league-high 7.5 assists that season. He received 23 of 80 votes to edge out Pettit, who got 21.

“It was kind of a cherry on top of the ice cream soda,’’ Cousy said of Boston, with rookie center Bill Russell, winning it all being the bigger accomplishment that season. “It was nice in retrospect. … I didn’t talk to the media about this but in my thoughts, you could boast that you were the best player on the planet that year. You captained a world championship in the best league the world and they chose you as the best player. In my mind, without discussing it with anyone, I was the best player on the planet that year.”

Cousy, who played for the Celtics from 1950-63 and finished his career with a seven-game stint with the Cincinnati Royals as player-coach at age of 41 in 1969-70, never again was higher than fourth in the voting. But Pettit, who played in the NBA with the Hawks from 1954-65, won a second MVP in 1958-59 when he again led the league in scoring with a 29.2 average and averaged 16.4 rebounds.

Pettit donated his MVP trophies to LSU, where they were on display at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center until there was a recent renovation and they were put in storage. But the plan is to have them refurbished and again put on display.

Pettit used to attend LSU games regularly and was honored when a statue of him was unveiled outside the arena in 2016. He also used to attend Pelicans games regularly until he began to have trouble getting around.

“It’s so difficult for me to get up and down the stairs in an arena,’’ said Pettit, who now walks with a cane. “It’s much easier to sit home and watch it on TV and not have to worry about falling. When you get to my age, a big concern is falling.”

Cousy doesn’t know where his MVP trophy is and believes it might have been stolen. But he shrugs that off, saying he has plenty of other memorabilia from his playing days at his home.

Cousy is the oldest living member in any hall of fame of the four major pro sports who was inducted as a player. He doesn’t deny age has taken its toll.

“For the most part, I’ve maintained my marbles,’’ Cousy said. “But I’m 96 and I’ve got one foot in the grave and it’s in double overtime. I don’t know if I’m particularly happy being the oldest guy that once played a child’s game very well many years ago. But I’ll take it as a compliment.”

Both Pettit and Cousy follow each year who is named MVP. Jokic, a native of Serbia, won it in 2020-21 and 2021-22 before claiming his third for the 2023-24 season.

“They taught him well because he’s very good,’’ Pettit said. “I love watching him in Denver. They have a really nice team. He’s much better than some of the others that have played.”

Pettit didn’t offer specific comparisons between Jokic and any “others.” But Cousy said Jokic compares favorably to some of the NBA’s greatest centers.

“(Russell) was obviously the best big man, but he focused on shot blocking, rebounding and the rest of us Hall of Famers provided what else was needed (for Boston),’’ said Cousy, who was on six Celtics championship teams during Russell’s career, when they won 11 of 13 times between 1956-69. “Even (Kareem) Abdul-Jabbar had his limitations and Wilt (Chamberlain) certainly had his limitations. But this guy (Jokic) doesn’t. He covers all the bases, and so it’s the first time we’ve seen the whole package in one guy, in one big man.”

On Friday, Pettit vows to take an even closer look at Denver’s big man. He will be rooting for the Pelicans but won’t mind if the NBA’s latest MVP has a strong showing.