Nikola Jokic has won three NBA MVP awards. Extrapolating what we've seen to start this season, he should be on a clear track for a fourth. But voter fatigue is real, as are stubborn beliefs that MVPs should only come from the best teams. The Nuggets, now 7-3 after an 0-2 start, look pretty damn good right now. Who knows if they'll keep it up.
If they do, or even if they manage to crack the top six in the Western Conference come April, it won't be for any reason other than Jokic being by far and away the best basketball player on earth. He did it again on Sunday, putting up yet another stat line that forces you to start combing through the annals for historical reference.
With 37 points, 18 rebounds and 15 assists (and three steals for just fun) in Denver's 122-120 win over Dallas, Jokic has notched the third 30-15-15 game of his career. Only Oscar Robertson has more. The Nuggets just swept a five-game home stand with wins over the Mavericks and Thunder.
Unreal pic.twitter.com/bB7EfGUXqv
— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) November 11, 2024
You would be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't think the Nuggets had fallen off the top shelf of contenders prior to this season. They added Russell Westbrook (seriously, when will teams learn?) and lost the services of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, whose departure from what was, for years, a juggernaut starting lineup forced Christian Braun into the first unit.
Braun was not some kid of bench superstar, but every bit of production helped on those secondary lines. Denver's bench, as a result, has been arguably the worst in the league, starting with Westbrook, who was costing the Nuggets over 10 points per 100 possessions entering Sunday, per Cleaning the Glass.
Jamal Murray has missed three of the 10 games and entered Sunday shooting 40% from the field. Aaron Gordon has missed four games. To say that Jokic is carrying an otherwise mediocre team, at best, right now would be an understatement.
If you're sick of looking at Jokic's dominance through a point-differential window, too bad. It's insane the difference this guy makes on the scoreboard. On Sunday, the Nuggets outscored Dallas by 13 points with Jokic on the floor. They won by two. Do the math, and thats means they lost 10 minutes Jokic didn't play by 11. Losing a point for every minute your star sits is crazy.
But it's just how it goes in Denver. Entering Sunday, the Nuggets were outscoring opponents by over 13 points per 100 possessions, with a 128.8 offensive rating (best in the league by a mile), with Jokic on the floor, per CTG. Take Jokic off the floor, and they're being pummeled by 28.2 points per 100.
You guys! That is a 41-point on/off differential for Jokic. Even by his standards, that is certifiably insane. But I'll tell you what let's throw out the impact numbers out and look only at the traditional box-score stuff. The freaking guy is averaging 29.7 points, 13.7 rebounds and 11.7 assists. No player in history has ever put up those numbers for an entire season. Jokic probably won't, either.
But he's got plenty of room for a bit of natural decline without giving up what should be the inside track on a fourth MVP. He's shooting 56% from 3 for crying out loud, and not on insignificant volume. What... being utterly unstoppable anywhere near the basket while also being the best passer in the league isn't enough? Now he has to be Karl-Anthony Towns from beyond the arc, too?
This guy is absolutely unbelievable, and he is basically single-handedly bailing out an extremely vulnerably Nuggets team on a near nightly basis. Four of their eight wins have come by two points, and another was by five in overtime. Jokic, who leads the league with 38 clutch points, is making the difference late. He is shooting 57% inside the final five minutes of five-point games. On Sunday, he scored 11 of Denver's final 16 points.
There are other guys having great seasons, no doubt. Jayson Tatum. Kevin Durant. Anthony Davis. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Stephen Curry. Anthony Edwards. And you can bet the masses are going to spend considerable time over these next five months taking up the cause for one or more of these guys. Luka Doncic hasn't been superb by his lofty standards to start the year, but he'll be there in the end.
Because all of these guys have some degree of fresh sentiment to them. Tatum, who has been incredible in his own right in he early going, was the best player on the best team last season only to get benched in the Olympics, and he's looking for his first MVP. Same for Luka. And SGA. Curry is a long shot, but the Warriors have probably been the league's most surprising team. Durant, at 36 years old, was playing out of his mind while leading the Suns to seven clutch victories before picking up a calf injury. If the Lakers scrap their way into a top-six seed, it might be impossible to overlook Davis.
NBA MVP odds
Odds via Caesars as of Monday, Nov. 11. Fans can take action on the NBA with the latest Caesars promo code.
- Nikola Jokic: +225
- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: +300
- Luka Doncic: +325
- Jayson Tatum: +550
- Anthony Edwards: +800
- Anthony Davis: +1500
- Donovan Mitchell: +2500
All the while, Jokic -- the MVP favorite on Caesars Sportsbook as of Monday morning -- is just plugging along as a better player than all these guys who already has three MVPs in this case. His game doesn't appeal to everyone, though it's hard to imagine who, at this point, can't find the beauty in what he does on the court. Jokic is the definition of the player we take for granted because how many straight seasons can we sit here and gawk over triple-double averages and on-off splits?
We all like new, fresh stories. It's human nature. And all season long we're going to be looking for these stories, the same way we did when Joel Embiid was just due to win his first MVP. He was fantastic that season, no doubt about it, but there was almost definitely some "it just feels like his time" dust sprinkled into that debate.
The same will likely go for Luka this season. And the Mavs might very well be a better team than Denver when it's all said and done. Doncic will be an easier pick. But that probably won't make him the right pick. It'll just mean the masses have gotten tired of the same old thing being true -- that Nikola Jokic is the best basketball player in the world and it's not particularly close.
