The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
‘Otherworldly’ Jokic on pace for triple-double MVP season
The clubs that Nikola Jokic might be on the cusp of entering are highly exclusive.
There’s the three-consecutive-mvp club, with only Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Larry Bird as current members. Then there’s the average-a-triple-double club, which includes only Oscar Robertson and Russell Westbrook.
Jokic doesn’t care about being added to either of those lists. It might happen anyway.
The best team in the Western Conference so far has been the Denver Nuggets, and the biggest reason they’re atop the standings coming out of the All-star break is the 28-year-old Serbian big man who was the league’s best player two years ago, was the league’s best player last year and very well might be the best again.
“I can’t lie,” Cleveland guard Donovan Mitchell said. “I don’t know if you all have been watching what Jokic has been doing. It’s outrageous, to be honest . ... He’s otherworldly right now.”
Jokic’s numbers: 24.7 points, 11.5 rebounds and 10.1 assists per game, on 63% shooting from the field, 39% from 3-point range. Such a collection of stats is unprecedented; others have scored more, assisted more, rebounded more and shot better, but nobody has ever had all those averages and percentages in one season — especially not a big man.
Westbrook is a guard. Robertson was a guard. In their average-a-triple-double years — four for Westbrook, one for Robertson — they didn’t shoot better than 48%. Jokic is making almost two of every three shots he takes, and that’s as the top priority for every defense.
“I just think that he just plays at his own pace,” Toronto’s Pascal Siakam said. “You can’t really disrupt what he does. He just plays at his own pace. He does what he wants. His passing ability, the scoring, how smart he is on the basketball court . ... It’s dope to watch.”
Denver coach Michael Malone was asked how he would create a pie chart to show the components that make Jokic great.
“Athleticism, 1%. I’ll start there,” Malone said. “Then I would say the big pieces of that Serbian pie would be IQ and unselfishness, the ability to make every one of his teammates better. What I marvel at, having coached Nikola for eight years now, the thing that I’m just blown away by is the consistency to being great.”
Conventional wisdom would have been that Jokic’s numbers, good enough to win him the last two MVP awards, would take a dip this season because the Nuggets were getting two of their best players — Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. — back from injury.
It hasn’t happened, or at least, not much. His scoring is down slightly. Rebounds, down slightly. Assists, up slightly. Murray and Porter are getting their numbers — largely because Jokic looks for them every chance he gets — and he’s still finding the way to fill all the columns on the stat sheet.
“That, and the ability to make everyone around him better, is what allows Nikola to be a historically great player in this league,” Malone said.