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How Nikola Jokic steered Denver Nuggets to their maiden NBA title
Jokic, the two-time MVP at the NBA, put out an excellent defensive outing in the Finals to take Denver to their first-ever title.
The NBA Championships were won by the Denver Nuggets on Monday night, as the side sealed its first-ever title in maiden finals appearance. The Nuggets were led by star player Nikola Jokic, one of the finest players in the league, who received the NBA Finals MVP award to put a crown on his efforts as he took the Denver team to their greatest heights.
Jokic, a Serbian national who took his country to a silver medal at the 2016 Olympics, has enjoyed a stellar career with the Nuggets since he was drafted by them in the 2014 rookie draft. Jokic has grown to be considered one of the greatest draft steals of all time, being selected 41st overall. After early years of development spent acclimatizing to the NBA, which holds different rules to the European leagues Jokic grew up playing in, the Serbian star now boasts of 5 all-star appearances and 5 finishes in the all-NBA team, including thrice as a starter.
Jokic is one of the NBA’s recent flock of stellar international talent, alongside the likes of 2020 MVP Giannis Antetokoumpo, 2023 MVP Joel Embiid, and 2019 rookie of the year Luka Doncic. Jokic himself has already racked up two MVP seasons, in 2021 and 2022, but his individual performances finally translated to team success in the 2022-23 season.
Jokic enjoyed yet another fantastic year for the Nuggets, as he racked up a third consecutive 20-point and 10-rebound season average. This year, he nearly became the third player to average a triple-double season, finishing agonizingly close with 9.8 assists per game. Jokic already sits in the top 10 of all-time triple-doubles, a stat which indicates proficiency in scoring, playmaking, and defence.
While he lost out on the MVP award to Embiid this season, Jokic is widely appreciated as the best playmaker at his position. Centers are usually expected to be high-volume scorers and secure defenders under the basket and in the paint, but Jokic has added an extra dimension to his game, capable of pulling off ridiculous highlight-reel passes, involving the rest of his team in the game. Although he was still Denver’s only all-star this season, he was very ably assisted by Jamal Murray throughout the season as the Nuggets finished with the first seed in the Western Conference, and especially in the playoffs as Murray had some of the finest performances of his career.
Now boasting of the biggest contract in NBA history, Jokic delivered on the investment from the Nuggets owners, especially as he looked nearly untouchable throughout the playoff run. The Nuggets only lost 4 games throughout the run, with an unheard-of 80% win-rate in that period against the best of the best in the NBA. In the finals, Jokic had two games with triple-doubles, including a monster 32-10-21 line in game 3 after Miami had levelled the series at 1-1. Even in that loss, Jokic exploded for 41 points as the Nuggets fell short by a meagre 3 points.
Jokic, whose supermax extension means he will be the face of the Nuggets franchise for years to come, will feel his job is not done, as he remains in the prime of his career and will seek to gather more MVP awards and trophies for the Denver team. For the rest of the NBA, the task becomes to unseat the best player in the league, and there will undoubtedly be plenty of volunteers seeking to earn that title for themselves in coming years.
