Nuggets’ Jokic has a chance to join some exclusive clubs

SALT LAKECITY (AP) — The clubs that Nikola Jokic might be on the cusp ofentering are highly exclusive.

There’s thethree-consecutive-MVP club, with only Bill Russell, WiltChamberlain and Larry Bird as its current members. Then there’s theaveraged-a-triple-double club, which includes only Oscar Robertsonand Russell Westbrook.

Jokicdoesn’t care about being added to either of those lists. It mighthappen anyway.

The bestteam in the Western Conference so far has been the Denver Nuggets,and the biggest reason why they’re atop the standings coming out ofthe All-Star break is the 28-year-old Serbian big man who was theleague’s best player two years ago, was the league’s best playerlast year and very well might be the best again this year.

“I can’tlie,” Cleveland guard Donovan Mitchell said. “I don’t know if youall have been watching what Jokic has been doing. It’s ...outrageous, to be honest. I don’t know how many people have won itthree times in a row. I definitely feel like I’m in thatconversation as well, but he’s otherworldly right now.”

Jokic’snumbers: 24.7 points, 11.5 rebounds and 10.1 assists per game, on63% shooting from the field, 39% from 3-point range. Such acollection of stats is unprecedented; others have scored more,assisted more, rebounded more and shot better, but nobody has everhad all those averages and percentages in one season — especiallynot a big man.

Westbrookis a guard. Robertson was a guard. In their average-a-triple-doubleyears — four for Westbrook, one for Robertson — they didn’t shootbetter than 48%. Jokic is making almost two of every three shots hetakes, and that’s with him as the top priority for every defenseDenver faces.

“I justthink that he just plays at his own pace,” Toronto’s Pascal Siakamsaid. “You can’t really disrupt what he does. He just plays at hisown pace. He does what he wants. His passing ability, the scoring,how smart he is on the basketball court. Yeah, it’s dope towatch.”

The Nuggetsare five games ahead of Memphis — Denver has 23 games left, theGrizzlies have 25 — for the top spot in the Western Conference.They’re well on their way to securing the No. 1 seed and home-courtadvantage throughout at least the first three rounds of theplayoffs.

And thatwould be huge, given that Denver’s 27-4 home record is the best inthe NBA. Evidently, teams don’t like playing at 5,280 feet abovesea level. And they can’t match the way Jokic thinks, with hisbrain in home games at 5,287 feet above sea level. He’s played in51 games; the Nuggets are 38-13 in those contests, 3-5 when hedoesn’t play.

Denvercoach Michael Malone was asked how he would create a pie chart toshow the components that make Jokic great.

“Athleticism, 1%. I’ll start there,” Malone said. “Then I would saythe big pieces of that Serbian pie would be IQ and unselfishness,the ability to make every one of his teammates better. What Imarvel at, having coached Nikola for eight years now, the thingthat I’m just blown away by is the consistency to being great. Imean, there are a lot of great players in this league. But forNikola to win the MVP, to win it again, and now he’s puttingtogether an even better season ... it just speaks to the fact thathe is so damn consistent.”

Conventional wisdom would have been that Jokic’s numbers, goodenough to win him the last two MVP awards, would take a dip thisseason simply because the Nuggets were getting two of their bestplayers — Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. — back frominjury.

It hasn’thappened, or at least, not much. His scoring is down slightly.Rebounds, down slightly. Assists, up slightly. Murray and Porterare getting their numbers — largely because Jokic looks for themevery chance he gets — and he’s still finding the way to fill allthe columns next to his name on the stat sheet as well.

“That, andthe ability to make everyone around him better, is what allowsNikola to be a historically great player in this league,” Malonesaid.

And itshould be noted that the player who is least impressed by Jokic is,well, Jokic.

If he hadhis way, he’d show up, play games, hop on YouTube to watch horseracing — he owns harness horses, and was even driving one when theNuggets’ brain trust showed up in Serbia to surprise him with lastyear’s MVP award — and live very quietly.

The Westshould be an absurd race down the stretch. Phoenix just got KevinDurant. The Los Angeles Lakers have LeBron James trying to make aplayoff push. The defending champion Golden State Warriors couldhave Stephen Curry back from his injury before too long. Dallas gotKyrie Irving to play with Luka Doncic. The Los Angeles Clipperswill be adding Westbrook. Sacramento is poised to end its longplayoff drought.

If nobodyis talking about the Nuggets, Jokic won’t complain.

“We don’tneed it,” Jokic said. “We know what we’re doing. We know what we’retrying to do. We believe in the basketball system that we havebuilt over the years, so it works. It’s still working. Nothing canaffect us from outside. We are thinking about ourselves and justhow to get better.”