I know. I know. We write about Nikola Jokic all the time on Defector. We're just as aware of this as you are. I am telling you this at the start of this particular blog about Nikola Jokic because I want to make it clear that we do try to exercise some self-restraint here. OK, yes, fine, we did recently publish a whole blog about the fact that Jokic slapped a basketball a great distance, but that really was crazy. We try to keep the bar high, but the problem is that Jokic just keeps doing incredible things.
Take last night's game against the Kings, which Jokic finished with 35 points, 22 rebounds, 17 assists, and two blocks. Wilt Chamberlain is the only other player in NBA history to have put up more than 35 points, 20 rebounds, and 15 assists in a single game, and Jokic's particular stat line had never been achieved before. Nuggets fans like to track these performances, which they call Jokigamis. It feels like Jokic has been producing one every week this season.
We're not here to just talk about one great game against the Kings in January, though. What we need to wrap our minds around right now is that Jokic is, by some distance, having his best season as a pro. That is not something that gets said often about a guy who has been in the league for 10 years and has won three MVP awards, but it is the absolute truth. Jokic is scoring 30 points per game for the first time in his career, and he is averaging a triple-double. He also decided to become one of the league's best three-point shooters—the 4.3 threes he's chucking up per game are a career high, and he's shooting 47 percent on those shots. He has never once, in his entire NBA career, shot higher than 39 percent from deep. He ranks fourth in the league in steals per game, and his shooting splits are 56/47/81.
Lately, he's been doing a funny bit, where he gets a triple-double through the first three quarters of the game, and then rests the entirety of the fourth. Thursday night was the fifth game in a row in which he got a three-quarter triple-double, though he did have to come back and play the final frame after the Kings mounted a comeback.
There may be no surer sign that Jokic is in the midst of a truly special season than his own assessment. Jokic, a constantly self-deprecating figure who will rarely say nice things about his own play, was forced to admit after last night's game that he has never played better. "I think this is the best basketball of my life, that I ever played," he said. "I'm in shape, the ball is going in, I feel good. I think I can influence the game on different levels."
"Influence" is a good word to hone in on when trying to explain what's different about Jokic this season. He has always had a robust understanding of which of his many skills are necessary to lean on from one game to the next, but there were times in the past where he might get locked into one mode for a few possessions too many. It would take a few empty trips for him to realize that he needed to transition from facilitator to scorer; a flurry of tired-leg three-pointers would arrive when more methodical offense was needed; a burst of defensive intensity would sap his stamina at the other end at the wrong time. That kind of stuff just hasn't been happening this year. Jokic is navigating every game like a seer. He knows exactly what's coming next, and what he needs to do about it.
Is it ridiculous to theorize that maybe Jokic actually can see into the near future? Well, sure, he's only human. But how else to explain his muted reaction to the full-court heave he dropped straight into the basket last night?
Naturally, the 66-foot field goal came up in his postgame on-court interview. What was he thinking when he attempted it? “I knew it was going in,” he replied. “So.”
