At this stage of the season, Warriors star Stephen Curry undoubtedly won the biggest hit of the regular season MVP, and after Curry, nets superstar Kevin Durant and Bulls obvious forward DeMar DeRozan also have high calls for regular season MVP. Affected by the team's early record downturn, bucks star Alphabet Brother initially did not get much favor from the media and fans, but after the Bucks' recent wave of momentum, some people also listed him among the MVP candidates this season.
All of these star players mentioned above have the potential to end up winning the MVP award, but what about the guy who won the award last season? Nuggets star Nikola Jokic has actually been as good this season as he was when he won the MVP last season, yet he hasn't received as much attention as the players mentioned above.
In the case of Sunday, Dec. 12, all eyes are on Curry, and even though he's still some way from breaking ray Allen's NBA all-time record for three-point shooting, there's still a lot of talk about it, hoping he'll set a record in one game. On the same day, Jokic scored 35 points, 17 rebounds and eight assists to lead the Nuggets, who were missing major generals, to beat the Spurs, but we hardly heard anyone talking about it.
This is the embarrassing dilemma that Jokic faces, if Curry, Durant or James play such data, then the editor can be sure that there is news about them leading the team to win for several days, but if it is Jokic, his crazy personal performances will be habitually tossed aside by the media and fans. It's time to stop ignoring Jokic, and we have to realize that he's trying to be the 13th player in NBA history to win a regular-season MVP in a row.
Jokic and the Nuggets had a head start to the season as their team's second-best player, Jamal Murray, remained sidelined by an ACL injury suffered last April. And the Nuggets' doom isn't over yet, as after just nine games of the season, Michael Porter, a small forward who has just signed the team to the top, also collapsed due to a back injury and is expected to miss all games for the rest of the season after undergoing surgery. Normally, a team would easily go down a dangerous path without two of their three best players, and they should consider forgoing the season in favor of properly giving jokic a break for the season with the aim of developing young players. But the Nuggets and Jokic took a completely different path, and Jokic took his game to another level, allowing the Nuggets to continue to be quite competitive in the West.
So far this season, Jokic has averaged 26.5 points, 13.5 rebounds and 7.2 assists per game, and only two players in the league this season have averaged 25 points, 10 rebounds and more than 5 assists per game. If that's not enough proof of Jokic's greatness, then we need to mention his all-time performance at the beginning of the season, as he's played in the first two dozen games and has only been seen once in NBA history. Jokic has averaged 521 points, 267 rebounds and 144 assists in the first 20 games of the season, and according to official NBA statistics, he became the second player in NBA history to score more than 500 points, 250 rebounds and 125 assists in the first 20 games of the season, after the "big O" Oscar Robertson in the 1961-62 season. In the 12 games since Porter's absence, Jokic has improved his performance even higher. In those 12 games, Jokic had 327 points, 163 rebounds and 105 assists, becoming the first player to have 300 points, 150 rebounds and 100 assists in 12 games since Larry Bird and Russell Westbrook.
Not only is Jokic statistically good, but the challenges he has faced this season are more intense than any player in the NBA, and the fact that he has to lead the team forward alone without two key assistants is further proof of his worth to the team. According to NBA statistics, when Jokic is on the floor, the Nuggets have a net rating of +13.4 (13.4 points to win over opponents in 100 rounds), and when he's not on the floor, the Nuggets' net rating plummets to -15.7, which means that Jokic's presence alone can reverse the Nuggets' 29.1-point gap in 100 rounds, which is the largest gap of all players in the league (Alphabet Brother ranks second with 22.5).
Offensively and defensively, when Jokic was on the court, the Nuggets ranked second in both offense and defense in the league, and when he wasn't on the floor, the Nuggets were all the league's bottom number one offense and defense. If these data can't prove Jokic's greatness, I don't know what other players can be called great. It's not about discrediting the achievements of players like Curry, Durant and Alphabet Brother, it's important to give a player who deserves more attention the recognition he deserves, and Jokic's name should definitely be on the agenda of this season's MVP.