Nikola Jokic is on his way to losing his status as NBA’s golden boy
Credit: Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images The reign of Nikola Jokic as the NBA’s best player has corresponded with some of the league’s worst years in the public eye. Jokic has won three MVP awards and a championship this decade, Sambor-shuffling around his doubters to become the go-to answer for most of NBA media as the league’s best player for six years running. Meanwhile, the league has struggled to manage tanking, injuries, load management, and a sense of sameness in the on-court product team to team.
For so many in NBA media, the Serbian big man was seen as an antidote to these problems. Jokic never misses games, plays unselfishly, and makes basketball beautiful. Watching Jokic and Denver, one can’t help but think of legends like Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or Bill Walton.
But Jokic has not been back to the conference finals since winning the NBA title in 2023, and has seemingly run out of answers against Minnesota in this year’s first round. The Nuggets star is shooting worse than 40 percent from the field, and punctuated a blowout loss to the shorthanded Timberwolves on Saturday night by getting into a shoving match with Minnesota’s Jaden McDaniels in the final seconds of the game. Down 3-1 in the series after three of the worst games of his career, Jokic is quickly losing all the goodwill he built up during his career.
Many of Jokic’s biggest celebrators in the national media are openly questioning not only his future upside, but the way they analyzed his run up to this point. “He is regarded as, correctly, this transcendent talent. Which he has been.
But I do wonder if we got a little ahead of ourselves on some things,” said FS1’s Nick Wright on Monday. Wright, who despite being an NBA diehard was notoriously late to come around on the three-time MVP, argued the cumulative effect of all the early exits is catching up to Jokic: “When you add the way they lost as the defending champs, last year not getting out of round two, they lose in round one this year, it is fair to [ask], ‘Did we accelerate it too far? '” .
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