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After a third place finish in last season’s Rookie of the Year voting and a silver-medal summer with the Serbian national team at the Rio Olympics, Nikola Jokic came into the 2016-17 season cemented as the Nuggets’ starting center and ready to build off the foundation he laid during his rookie year.
However, things haven’t gone smoothly this season for the Jokic, or the Nuggets, who are still looking for consistency within their rotations, which is partly to blame on the rash of injuries that have already hit Denver this season, and from their younger core.
After Jusuf Nurkic came into this year’s preseason looking like a man on a mission to take back what was his (Denver’s starting center spot) and essentially forced Malone’s hand into playing the two together for long stretches at a time, Jokic began to fade.
He initially struggled to defend opposing four-men, something that was completely understandable for a 6-foot-11 center playing out of position, and still has yet to show flashes of the player he was last season even since the Nuggets abandoned their twin towers frontcourt after eight regular season games.
After Friday night’s 113-111 overtime loss to the 8-4 Toronto Raptors, Malone tempered expectations on Jokic this season.
“You guys got to understand, he’s not going to be the same player he was last year,” Malone said after Jokic scored eight points, grabbed 12 rebounds, struggled defensively, but notably closed the fourth quarter and overtime for Denver. “Gallo was out, Wilson Chandler was out. Last two months of the season we played our young guys, we played them 35 minutes a night almost. We’re healthy, we have guys playings, so everybody stop expecting Nikola Jokic to be something he’s not. I think it’s unfair to him. He’s playing well, he’s rebounding, he’s looking for his offense, he’s playmaking for other guys and that’s all we need him to do.”
Malone has a point. With Danilo Gallinari and Chandler healthy, Jokic isn’t going to produce an excess of 20-point games like he did last year. However, he can still be a playmaking five from the block and elbows, passing, hitting cutters, and initiating the offense at times – all things he hasn’t done with consistency this year.
As the Nuggets’ season progresses it does appear that they’re closer to figuring out what lineup combinations work with this roster and Jokic than they were to start the year.
Jokic is playing more often with Gallinari and Chandler and less with another big, a combination in which he’s excelled. Those three have shared the floor in eight of Denver’s ten regular season games, have outscored the opposition 168-146, a +22 margin and have clocked a 7.2 NetRtg, the highest of Denver’s three-man combinations, per NBA.com.
The Nuggets sit at just 4-8, two games into an important four-game homestand. They’ll take on Utah Sunday and Chicago Tuesday, as Malone and the Nuggets continue to try and get Jokic back on track.
