Denver center Nikola Jokic arrives at the AT&T Center on Friday headed full steam toward a third consecutive NBA Most Valuable Player award, a feat accomplished by only three players in 76-year history of the league.
Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic reacts in the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Memphis Grizzlies Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023, in Memphis, Tenn. Late on the night of June 30, 1999, Rod Thorn — then the NBA’s deputy commissioner — took to the microphone at the Washington D.C. arena then known as the MCI Center, and stumbled through a sentence that would change to course of basketball in San Antonio forever.
“It wasn’t like he was an early second round either,” said Spurs forward Keita Bates-Diop, who played with Jokic in Denver during the 2019-20 campaign. “He was an afterthought.”The 28-year-old Jokic comes into Friday’s game averaging a triple-double: 24.3 points, 11.8 rebounds and 10 assists. “As a big man, I love watching him and how he plays the game,” said Spurs center Zach Collins, who will get first crack at trying to solve the Jokic Rubix cube. “He’s incredibly smart. You can learn a lot from him.”At the instant Jokic’s selection was announced in 2014, the ESPN broadcast was late getting back from commercial. A Taco Bell ad played instead.Nobody — not even Tim Connelly, the Nuggets general manager at the time — could have foreseen the significance of the moment.
In the case of Jokic in 2014, the Nuggets had already nabbed a different 7-footer in the first round.
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Should Nikola Jokić win a 3rd straight MVP? ‘It’s not even a question,’ the Chicago Bulls’ Nikola Vučević says.As the Bulls prepare to face the Nuggets on Wednesday in Denver, the game plan will be centered around the impossible task of slowing the two-time MVP.
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Nuggets teammates come to Nikola Jokic’s defense: “He’s a smart defender”“He’s a good defender,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said, disputing the most common refrain used by critics when assessing Nikola Jokic’s value. “You do not have to be a great athlete to be a good defender.”
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Vucevic: No doubt, Nuggets' Jokic deserves third-straight MVPThe Bulls are in Denver to face the Western Conference-leading Nuggets on Wednesday. Before leaving town, Bulls center Nikola Vucevic put in a plug for his good friend Nikola Jokic to win his third-straight MVP award.
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Charles Barkley goes off on Kendrick Perkins and ‘ESPN disease’Perkins suggested Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokić is the NBA MVP favorite because of race. Barkley had a problem with that take.
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