Nikola Jokic has had 36 assists in his past two games for the Nuggets. He's leading the league in assists this year, the first time he has done so in his 11-year career. But the haters are out in full force, saying that Jokic's assists aren't really assists, and that the scorers in Denver are too lenient. The uproar's getting out of hand, considering the facts some people are ignoring.
The debate centers on some handoffs Jokic runs on pick-and-rolls with Jamal Murray. Murray takes an extra couple of steps and creates a bit of his own shot off the screen, and makes the bucket. Jokic gets the assist, but that's the controversial part now.
There are a couple of questionable assists, sure, but I'd be willing to bet John Stockton had a couple along the way to 15,806, too. The fact is, as Jason Timpf points out, the problem is not Jokic-specific and needs to be ironed out league-wide.
Jokic gets all the same assist numbers on the road
If this were a true controversy, then Jokic would be averaging more assists at home thanks to the friendly hometown scorekeeper. Instead, the numbers show the facts.
For the 2025-26 season, Nikola Jokic has played 30 games on the road and 28 at home. He has exactly 314 total assists for each. Last year, he had 24 more total assists at home vs. the road, but he also played two more games at home.
The numbers don't support the narrative going around. Jokic's getting the same treatment on assists as everyone else when he goes on the road, and if there was a real controversy, he'd have many more assists at home.
The haters just want to find something to hate on
Nikola Jokic just had a historic couple of games, and he's leading the league in both rebounds and assists. He's been the consensus best player in the world for at least the last four or five years, and he's having the best statistical season of his career via the advanced metrics as well.
Haters want to hate on the person at the top. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander gets vilified for being a "free-throw merchant." And he could be getting more whistles than most do. But you can't take away his 55% shooting and his over-30-point-per-game average.
Jokic's going to continue to put up huge games, and someone who isn't a Jokic fan is always going to find something to criticize with his game. It's just the nature of the beast.