Nikola Jokic: A throwback superstar for the modern era

In an era that was ostensibly supposed to be dominated by an augmentation of quick, talented point guards, the most fascinating players have been the leviathan men with skill sets they should have outgrown in their adolescence. The league is riddled with 6-11 impalas, 7-foot marksmen, and rangy ballplayers who teeter between sublime and majestic on either end of the floor. Nikola Jokic is both none and all of these things simultaneously, and at 22 years old, his potential lies in a hinterland that the Nuggets can’t wait to exploit for a full 82-game season.

At the beginning of the 2016-17 campaign, the Nuggets were in a bit of a quandary. Head coach Mike Malone worked through some lineup issues that were understandable. He had a team composed of young talent and veteran know-how that just never felt right no matter what five-man unit he had on the floor. It was vexing as puzzles are wont to be. The biggest issue was that one of the pieces just didn’t belong, and oftentimes, he placed that piece alongside what would have completed the picture.

Jusuf Nurkic received the brunt of the minutes at starting center to begin the year, but his skill set didn’t exactly fit Malone’s read-and-react offense. Nurkic, better suited as a big in an offense that relied more on pick-and-roll sets, often threw off the rhythm of an otherwise outstanding offense. In the minutes when Jokic was on the floor, Denver flourished. Jokic, with his soft touch around the rim and otherworldly vision, made the game easier on the rest of the team, while Nurkic was just a cog in the Nuggets machine. He was functional but not perfect.

On December 15, the Nuggets moved Jokic into the full-time starting role and traded Nurkic to Portland two months later to open things up for Denver even more. While Nurkic thrived as a roll man with Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, this story is about Jokic becoming the beau ideal for the Nuggets offense. After Malone made Jokic the starting center, the Nuggets had the NBA’s best offense. The team failed to reach the century mark only twice following the All-Star break, reaching 110 points in 17 of those 26 games, and Jokic was a huge reason why.

His numbers in a vacuum are staggering. After that move to the starting lineup in December, Jokic averaged 19 points, 11 rebounds and six assists, numbers sustained over the course of a full season only three times in NBA history — twice by Wilt Chamberlain and once by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It’s the assist total that separates Jokic from his peers. According to Chris Towers of CBS Sports, Only 11 players at 6-10 or taller have ever had an assist rate above 25 percent. Only seven had a usage rate over 23 percent. Only Jokic had a TS% over .600.

To understand why pundits are so high on Denver’s ability to make the postseason in a loaded Western Conference is to understand Jokic’s resplendent passing ability. Over the course of the season, Jokic averaged 6.3 dimes per 36, which was 174 percent greater than the league average for starting centers. Jokic’s over-the-head no-look pass was awarded the 2017 NBA Assist of the Year — and it was far from his best pass of the season.