Nikola Jokic's First Team All-NBA selection validated by dominant postseason performance

Nikola Jokic’s best argument for the First Team All-NBA selection he secured Thursday as the NBA continued to roll out their end-of-year awards was what had just transpired over the last month.

Jokic engaged in a memorable back-and-forth with Joel Embiid for the First Team center spot throughout the regular season. Denver got off to a 9-1 start and raced to the top of the Western Conference after the first month of the season. Embiid then took hold off the First Team selection at times, at least from a public perspective when he was voted as the Eastern Conference’s starting center for February’s All-Star game. As the playoffs tipped-off, arguments could be made that both franchise cornerstones deserved the honor.

But Jokic separated himself from Embiid in his first career playoff appearance when the Nuggets’ center emerged as the best player in Denver’s two playoff series and arguably the top postseason performer over the first two rounds across the NBA. He stood head and shoulders above Damian Lillard in the Western Conference Semifinals and although All-NBA is a regular season award, and many voters described the choice as a coin flip throughout the season, Jokic’s postseason performance backed up what 100 media members declared Thursday.

Jokic received 59 first-place votes to Embiid’s 40 as the 24-year-old became just the second Nugget ever to be named to an All-NBA First Team, joining David Thompson who did so twice in both 1976-77 and 1977-78. Jokic is the first Serbian to ever be named First Team All-NBA and is only the seventh Nugget to be named to an All-NBA team, joining Thompson, Alex English, Fat Lever, Antonio McDyess, Chauncey Billups and Carmelo Anthony.

The voting wasn’t as close as some anticipated and based on how Jokic and Embiid fared in the playoffs maybe it shouldn’t have been a narrow decision.

Jokic carried a young supporting cast that was inconsistent at times throughout the postseason nearly to the Western Conference Finals, became the second player ever (Oscar Robertson) to average at least 25 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists in the playoffs and had better playoff debuts than Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing. Jokic was in Ironman in the postseason too, logging 65 minutes in Denver’s quadruple-overtime Game 3 loss to Portland, the fourth-most in NBA history and the most since 1953.

Here’s how their postseason numbers compare:

But the margin between Jokic and Embiid in the regular season was razor thin. Here’s how the pair’s numbers looked side-by-side in a number of categories:

Make the regular season argument from a numbers perspective how you wish. Embiid’s counting stats top Jokic’s, but the Serbian’s advanced numbers blow his counterpart’s out of the water. Denver’s bench, which throughout the regular season was one of the NBA’s best second unit’s make Jokic’s on/off differentials looks less impactful than they should. Both players had enormous seasons and the two could go back-and-forth (depending on Embiid’s health) for the honor over the next few seasons.

But Jokic’s intangibles put him over the top when it comes to the two big men’s regular seasons. He was more durable, played more minutes, and had more responsibility thrust onto his shoulders than Embiid. Jokc logged 80 games to Embiid’s 64 and was the one constant for the injury-plagued Nuggets who trotted out 16 different starting lineups this season despite the fact that Denver, unlike Philadelphia, didn’t undergo a roster upheaval over the course of the regular season. The Nuggets’ 54 wins in the more difficult Western Conference, compared to Philadelphia’s 51 in the East, also carries weight.

Few saw Jokic’s rise, from unheralded second-round pick to franchise cornerstone and now First Team All-NBA selection, coming. But Michael Malone was one of the first to realize his ceiling.

“I mean you can talk about some of these very young bigs who are very talented, the kid in New York, Minnesota, Philly, I don’t know any of their names,” Malone said after Jokic tallied 27 points and 14 rebounds in a home victory over Toronto in February of his rookie season. “I know this kid’s name, though. I know Nikola Jokic and I wouldn’t trade him for anybody in the world. He’s a special young man, he’s a special young talent and he’s only going to get better as he continues to get stronger, learn the NBA, finishing around the basket, defensively. But he’s a heck of a young talent, I give a lot of credit to [general manager] Tim Connelly and the front office for finding him and making him a part of the organization.”

Three years after Malone said he’d rather build around Jokic than Karl-Anthony Towns, Kristaps Porzingis, and Jahlil Okafor, who was once considered one of Philadelphia’s cornerstones when Embiid battled injuries throughout his first few NBA seasons, Denver’s big man has risen to the mountaintop as the NBA’s top center.