Inside Nikola Jokic’s transformation to becoming the Nuggets’ leader

Inside a San Francisco hotel on the eve of the Nuggets’ first preseason game, Nikola Jokic set the tone for Denver’s upcoming season.

Jokic addressed the entire Nuggets roster and the group of team staffers who made the trip. He spoke about Denver’s 2020 playoff run and the work, sacrifice, and belief that was required in order for the Nuggets to become the first team in NBA history to overcome two 3-1 deficits. He talked about the overall talent on the Nuggets’ roster, and how if every player in that room bought in, Denver was capable of going one step further.

Jokic also discussed the commitment that was going to be required this year. That every weight room session, practice, and shootaround would need to be taken seriously. From Day 1, it was evident that Jokic’s approach this season was going to be different.

Paul Millsap also spoke that night and was candid about his free agency process. Millsap told his teammates that he had other suitors in free agency and could have signed elsewhere but believed in the Nuggets’ talent and that he could win a championship in Denver. Jamal Murray talked as well and gave his thought on the upcoming season and what was at stake. But Jokic’s heartfelt team-wide address overshadowed the entire evening, according to team personnel who were present in the room.

Jokic’s talk isn’t cheap. He has backed up everything he said on that December night.

Through 29 games, Jokic is playing at an MVP level. He’s averaging 27.4 points, 11.1 rebounds and 8.6 assists, all of which are career-highs, while logging a team-most 35.9 minutes per game. Jokic is currently the only player in the league that’s leading his team in points, rebounds, assists, and steals.

His stock is at an all-time high. That was evident on Thursday night when the 26-year-old was voted in by the fans as a starter in this season’s All-Star game. The selection is Jokic’s third-straight but this will be his first start. Jokic will be the first Nugget to start an All-Star game since Carmelo Anthony in 2011.

“Being an All-Star is an honor because you represent a lot of people behind you,” Jokic said. “People back home in Serbia, in Sombor, my family, so it’s an honor to be there.”

Jokic received the second-most fan, media and player votes of Western Conference frontcourt players and garnered the fifth-most fan votes in the entire NBA. That’s almost unfathomable considering where Jokic was just two seasons ago when he was still a relatively unknown commodity among the general NBA fanbase and trying to lead the Nuggets to the playoffs for the first time since 2013. Now, he’s an established superstar and one of the most popular players in the league who’s carried the Nuggets on his back all season.

It was evident that he was up to that Herculean task from the opening of training camp. There was just something different about how Jokic entered this season. He only had a two-month break after last year’s playoff run but was invigorated as Denver opened training camp. Nuggets staffers routinely remarked that Jokic’s enthusiasm was at an all-time high when he first entered Denver’s practice gym in early December. Jokic’s closest confidants inside the Nuggets’ organization noticed a change in his demeanor this year too.

“I feel like he understands that as he’s been in the lead of this organization, he knows they expect more,” Vlatko Cancar told DNVR. “I told him, ‘Once you show them you’re a great player, there’s no going back. You just have to keep going and going.’ And he understands that.”

On the court, Jokic didn’t waste any time getting going. He averaged 24.5 points per game in December, the most points he’s ever averaged over an opening month of the season. His previous high was 21.6, which he set in October 2019. Jokic opened the year with 20-straight double-doubles. He tallied five triple-doubles over his first 12 games.

Jokic has been a tone-setter off the floor too. As DNVR reported earlier this season, Jokic was the first player on the Nuggets’ roster last year to embrace the postgame weightlifting sessions that most of Denver’s roster now participates in.

“If he’s doing it,” Nuggets rookie Zeke Nnaji said. “We have no excuse not to.”

During practices and shootarounds, Jokic goes full speed. He’s at the stage of his career — Jokic is in his sixth NBA season and in the third year of a five-year, $148 million max contract — where he knows he’s setting an example for others. Those others range from Jamal Murray to second-year wing Michael Porter Jr., who Denver’s front office still believes can be part of a future championship-winning core even with his up-and-down start to the season, to the seven newcomers and six rookies on the Nuggets’ roster.

“One thing about Nikola is that if we’re warming up and if we’ve played a bunch of games, or we’re on a back-to-back and nobody wants to be there, he wants to be there,” Nuggets strength coach Felipe Eichenberger, who’s been in Denver since Jokic’s rookie year in 2015, told DNVR. “He’s going hard. Even during the warm-ups or certain things that don’t really matter. He is going hard.”

“That’s a skill. That actually is a skill that he’s developed. Going hard every single time is a skill. It tells everyone that Nikola is not tired. Nikola is not sore. But from the number of minutes and the position that he plays, it’s not true. He is sore. He just plays through things. And that’s his mentality.”

Who is the Nuggets’ leader? It’s been a tiresome storyline to track throughout the Malone era. But that question has an answer now. It’s definitively Jokic. He’s the lead by example-type of leader that every NBA franchise covets. Jokic sets the tone on the Nuggets’ practice floor and weight room, and then goes out on the court and plays at an MVP level.

Jokic has also used his voice more than ever this season. He knows JaMychal Green is going to play a significant role for Denver in the playoffs, so it’s not uncommon to see the All-NBA center in Green’s ear often throughout a game trying to get him up to speed. Jokic has been hard on Porter Jr., but only because he knows the second-year forward has the chance to be a special player.

“Me and Nikola’s relationship, a lot of it is him getting on me, knowing I can be better. I don’t take that personally,” Porter said. “I’m my biggest critic, I know I can be better, especially when I have bad games. We’ve got a good relationship on the court. He expects a lot from me.”

It’s a role Jokic has simply had to fill in order for the Nuggets to take another step. It might not have been natural for Jokic at first, but now it’s something he embraces.

“From the start of the season, he’s been locked in,” Cancar said. “And I couldn’t tell you if he got a better shot or his handles are better. But the thing that sticks out the most I think is he realizes how much he means to the team.”