The Nuggets GM, coach, players all owe Nikola Jokic an apology

On November 2, 2024By Littum

The Nuggets recently posted back-to-back overtime wins, and my immediate takeaway was simple: They owe Nikola Jokic an apology.

Denver is off to a rocky start. Jokic, the reigning MVP, entered Friday night averaging a career-high 31.5 points in 39 minutes per game. match.

No one cares more about winning than Jokic. But this list makes him selfish. He has to shoot 3s because so few go in when others do. He’s forced to log a minute and a half because Dario Saric looks lost as his backup and Zeke Nnaji remains glued to the bench.

The idea is to maximize Jokic’s prime. To raise another banner. Watching this team, it seems the goal is to raise his blood pressure. In a local story that has grown national legs this week, the tension between general manager Calvin Booth and coach Michael Malone has become an open secret.

Booth is trying to win now and from now on by mixing in young players to increase athleticism and appease ownership’s desire to avoid paying luxury taxes. Malone, ever the competitor, tries to win every night and struggles to mix the micro and macro goals.

And it’s hard to trust young guys — Christian Braun deserves it — when two max-contract players, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., remain inconsistent and confusing. The Nuggets need a career year from Murray, and he’s showing his age, looking tired and hurt between star bursts. MPJ simply has too many off shooting nights. So while Russell Westbrook gets high marks as a teammate and for his energy, he doesn’t solve the team’s most glaring problems: the need for better shooting from 3s and bench players who can hold their own for 15 minutes a night.

The season is still in its infancy. But what the Nuggets are doing with Jokic is not sustainable. He requires rest. And more than anything, Jokic needs help: from his GM, from his coach, from his teammates, not a bunch of “I’m sorry”s after the end of a forgettable season.

Jet Setters: So we have to believe the Jets are headed to the playoffs after snapping their five-game losing streak Thursday night. Give me a break. They would finish the season 8-1. What about seeing the undisciplined team makes anyone think that will happen? Even with 10 wins, they would lose a head-to-head tiebreaker with the Broncos. Aaron Rodgers was acquired to be Joe Namath for the Jets. He looks more like Willie Mays with the Mets.

Taking the fifth: Every Rockies game feels like the Yankees’ fifth inning of Game 5 of the World Series. But that display in defense was historically poor. The Dodgers exposed the Yankees as a team that doesn’t do the little things well, like taking secondary leads, backing up cutoff throws and covering first base on a groundball to first.

The role of life: Broncos quarterbacks Zach Wilson, and to a lesser extent Jarrett Stidham, played Lamar Jackson on scout teams this week. There is no harder role to fill given his electrical skills. Wilson can match Jackson’s arm. But running like him? Nobody cuts like Jackson, quarterbacks admitted. It leads to the point that the Broncos’ path to an upset lies in making Jackson throw from the pocket.

MAIL TIME

Over half the league runs Mike Shanahan’s offense, so you’d think that alone would be enough to get him a spot in the (Pro Football Hall of Fame), right?

Troy Billick, Twitter

There is no logical explanation for Shanahan’s exclusion. He has the career wins, the major wins (back-to-back Super Bowls) and the most wins over a three-year span (46-10 from 1996-98). He is innovative and has left a legacy throughout his coaching career. Is he being punished for his lack of success without John Elway and his sour ending in Washington? If so, it represents a failure to contextualize his entire work.

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Originally published: 2 November 2024 at 05:45 MDT