Nikola Jokić should demand a trade. The 30-year-old has every right to want out of this Mile High mess.
On Tuesday, the Kroenke family, which owns the Denver Nuggets, executed a panic move without historical precedent by firing Michael Malone three games before the postseason. No team has ever fired a winning coach this late in the season. But that’s only half of it. The team also relieved general manager Calvin Booth of his duties as the top basketball decision-maker, indicating that they don’t believe in either leading voice to run the show. Cleaning house in April, days before the playoffs? In a league of chaos, this is beyond the pale.
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Imagine if this happened on a team with LeBron James. Or Stephen Curry. Or Kevin Durant. With any other all-time great, we’d be asking the question: How in the world can they be OK with all this?
But with Nikola Jokić — who has famously shied away from publicly or privately throwing around his enormous political weight — we skip over that part of the news cycle. We assume that he’ll be fine with it all.
Frankly, it’s an insult to Jokić. The Serbian has been cheated out of multiple championship runs by the Denver Nuggets. By his own admission, Jokić is at the peak of his powers, averaging 30 points, 12.8 rebounds, 10.2 assists this season. Three-time MVP, first-time triple-double average. The 10-year vet has been neck-and-neck with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the MVP race this season, but his best argument for the hardware is buttressed by how terrible his supporting cast is. When SGA has been off the floor, the Thunder have outscored opponents by 75 points across 1,199 minutes. When Jokić has been off the floor? The Nuggets have lost by a whopping 252 points in 1,366 minutes.
When it comes to quantifying his supporting cast, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
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Jokic’s starless supporting cast
I don’t think people quite understand how bad the supporting cast has been around Jokić in Denver for his entire career.
I’ll put it another way. Do you know how many of Jokić’s teammates have made the All-Star team while playing next to him? I’m not talking about Paul Millsap earning four All-Stars with Atlanta before joining the Nuggets on the downside of his career. I’m talking about All-Stars in a Nuggets jersey since Jokić joined the league in 2015-16. Want to take a guess?
The answer is zero. Jokić has never played with an All-Star in his seven trips to the All-Star game or in any of his 10 years in the league for that matter.
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You might be thinking that it’s a technicality, that surely Jamal Murray or Aaron Gordon, through all their slow starts, made an All-NBA team by season’s end. Nope, no All-NBA appearances by a Jokić teammate either.
Jokic hasn’t had an All-Star or All-NBA team in his 10 years in the league. (Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images)
(Dustin Bradford via Getty Images)
Fine, you might say. At least with an offensive savant like Jokić, you’d have the competency to pair him with multiple defensive stalwarts who were named to an All-Defensive team. The number of All-Defense members next to Jokić during his career? That answer is also zero.
Not one.
No All-Stars. No All-NBA members. No All-Defense awardees.
It’s been 10 years. A decade without a star teammate — even on the defensive side — has never happened for a player of Jokić’s caliber. Not even close. By my book, it’s probably the most underrated storyline in the NBA — how Jokić has been bereft of any star support throughout his career.
Jokić stands alone — historically
I looked up the 24 MVPs dating back to 1984 and found that Jokić is the only MVP winner (and he’s won three) to have never played with an All-Star, All-NBA or All-Defense member in their first 10 seasons in the league.
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You thought LeBron had it bad in Cleveland the first time? At least he had Zydrunas Ilgauskas (2005 All-Star), Mo Williams (2009 All-Star) and Anderson Varejao (2009-10 All-Defense). And that’s only in six seasons. James’ supporting cast through 10 seasons earned 12 All-League accolades. That’s actually below average for an MVP.
All-League Awards By Teammates, First 10 Seasons of MVP’s Career
A reasonable expectation for Denver at this point is to have surrounded Jokić with a supporting cast that has achieved 16 total All-League awards, or about 1.6 per season. That’s the average for the 23 other MVPs in the study. Instead, the front office has failed to deliver him even one. Magic had 35 by now. Larry enjoyed 32. Steph 27. Tim Duncan, James Harden and Steve Nash all had 16 All-League awards by teammates at this point in their careers. That’s par for the course.
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Can you imagine how Jokić’s legacy would change if he had even one star next to him all this time? Michael Jordan had Scottie. Karl Malone had Stockton. Kobe had Shaq. Jokić has … Jamal Murray, who has never finished higher than 10th in the West backcourt All-Star vote.
I don’t mean to be overly critical of Murray, Gordon and Michael Porter Jr., who are fine NBA starters and strong complementary players who have come up big in the playoffs, notably in the 2023 title run.
But the facts are the facts. None of them — Murray, Gordon or Porter Jr. — have even received a single vote for All-NBA first, second or third teams in Jokić’s tenure. Not named on a single ballot! That’s how far away from star status they are. Even getting a player worth an honorable mention would be a dream for Jokić.
The closest comp for Jokić’s situation is Kevin Garnett, who went 12 seasons in Minnesota with a supporting cast wholly unfit for a player of his caliber. Garnett in Minnesota saw an All-League award for a teammate only four times. KG played in the 1997 All-Star Game with Tom Gugliotta, who had averaged 20.6 points and even got an MVP vote that season. Wally Szczerbiak (2002 All-Star) and Sam Cassell (2004 All-Star and Second Team All-NBA) also played with Garnett during his first 10 seasons in the league.
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It took KG 12 seasons under Glen Taylor to realize that he needed to take control of his career and head to greener pastures. After his 12th season in the league, Garnett was traded to the Boston Celtics where he became immortal next to Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo — commensurate talent for an all-time great like Garnett.
The Kevin Garnett lesson
Jokić and the Denver housecleaning reminds me of a conversation I had with Chris Bosh in 2016. I asked him what drove him to leave Toronto and join the Miami Heat with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, a triumvirate that won multiple titles. He said it was a private conversation he had with Garnett, who told him in 2010 that he wished he left Minnesota sooner and advised Bosh to take matters into his own hands. This is the same Garnett who told reporters after defeating James in Cleveland in the 2010 playoffs: “Loyalty is something that hurts you at times, because you can’t get your youth back.” James and Bosh took their talents to South Beach weeks later.
It’s a message that Jokić should heed. The greatest don’t have to go it alone. LeBron didn’t. Steph didn’t. MJ didn’t. Magic certainly didn’t.
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It’s true that Garnett, James and Bosh hadn’t won a title yet before they decided to leave town. The Nuggets ran the table in 2023 and may have bought themselves some credibility in Jokić’s corner. But I would argue they won the title despite Jokić’s supporting cast, not because of it. Remember it took a Herculean effort from Jokić to pull off that historic run the likes of which we have never seen. That year, he became to lead all postseason players in points, rebounds and assists.
The Kroenkes can’t continue to take Jokić’s greatness for granted. In 2022, they lost front office exec Tim Connelly to Minnesota (coincidentally) and handed the keys to Calvin Booth, who has been notoriously inactive in his duties as Jokić’s caretaker. a shocking fact: Booth, in his three years, never made an in-season move. He also let key defenders Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Bruce Brown walk in the offseason. But hey, at least he signed Murray to a four-year, $208 million max contract that has yet to kick in.
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Because of Jokić’s introverted nature, it’s hard to know how much direct influence he’s had on the roster or how he truly feels about his supporting cast. What we do know is that the Nuggets’ roster is heavily connected to his representation. His agent Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management has six other clients on the roster including Murray, Russell Westbrook, DeAndre Jordan, Vlatko Cancar, Dario Saric and Peyton Watson. By , it’s the strongest team-agency alliance in the NBA in terms of player count, even outnumbering the CAA-aligned New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Lakers’ association with Klutch. (Maybe Schwartz could take over a la Leon Rose, who used to run CAA’s NBA operation before taking over the Knicks’ front office.)
While I don’t think Jokić will end up making a trade demand, he’s absolutely within his right to do so. Could you blame him if he wanted to play with Luka Dončić and LeBron in LakerLand? A package headlined by Austin Reaves might not get it done, but it’d certainly get the ball rolling. I wonder if the Nuggets would be entertained by Alperen Şengün, whom I’ve called “Baby Jokić” in the past. Houston’s vicious defensive wings — Amen Thompson, Dillon Brooks and Tari Eason — would be ideal next to Jokić. Or what about pairing Jokić with SGA in Oklahoma City and creating a Denver homecoming for Jalen Williams?
The truth is Jokić’s greatness has masked the disaster of not surrounding him with commensurate talent. As evidenced by the complete and utter lack of starpower next to Jokić, an MVP’s front office has never been more derelict in their duties than Denver’s over the past decade. The Nuggets are lucky their 30-year-old superstar is not one to publicly grouse or exert his power. Frankly, they’re lucky to even have him.
