Seven games into the season, Nikola Jokic’s numbers clearly aren’t as gaudy as what we have become used to seeing. His scoring, rebounding, and assists are all down, and he has struggled to get his shot going early in the season, which, in a lot of ways, feels like an extension of the latter parts of last season.
But the overreaction theater for one of the best players of all time has gone a bit far. On his most recent podcast, Bill Simmons was going through a list of his early-season NBA takes and declared that he thinks it’s time to pour one out for apex-Joker. He explained that he has been worried ever since he came back from the injury last season and thinks the old version of Jokic may be gone.
He expressed concerns over his poor three-point shooting and lack of free-throw attempts and said that he thinks teams are now just happy to dare him to shoot and live with the results. He didn’t go as far as to write him off, saying he thinks he can still be very good, and maybe even a top-five offensive player, but he’s afraid that his prime is over.
Now, I’m not here to say that Simmons is crazy or that he’s definitively wrong, but I do think we need to pump the brakes just a little bit here. Last season, Jokic clearly rushed back a bit to make sure he qualified for awards by playing in 65 games. He never got fully back into a rhythm, but it’s hardly like his play suffered, as he finished second in MVP voting, after all.
Jokic deserves more grace after "slow" start to the season
We all know what happened in the playoffs, but he ran into an incredibly motivated performance from Rudy Gobert and got very little help from his teammates, as it seemed like just about everyone hit a wall at the same time. It was ugly. There’s no doubt about it. But these things happen, and it should hardly become some kind of referendum on Jokic’s future.
Now this season, he’s off to a somewhat slow start, but the Nuggets are 4-3, and he’s averaging 22, 10, and 9. This has included a great start from Jamal Murray, a Christian Braun blow-up, more usage for DeMar DeRozan, and an entirely new cast of characters on the bench. I think Jokic deserves some grace as he and his teammates settle into the season.
Also, we've seen the full-on Jokic show, and while it's fun and leads to MVP awards, it may not be best for actually winning games and building a contender. The team needs to keep Jokic and the other stars fresh, and that's only going to happen by building up some other guys during the regular season. Diversifying the offense may be by design and may not be a bad thing.
It’s not like Jokic has ever been a guy who relies on athleticism, so the mileage and age shouldn’t be a huge concern. The shooting is an issue, but again, the sample size is still very small. So, write off Jokic at your own risk. If this is the beginning of the end, so be it. It has certainly been a magical run as the best player on earth. But I, for one, am not ready to start writing the eulogy after seven games at a level slightly lower than MVP-caliber.
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