Denver Nuggets rookie Nikola Jokic was the Most Valuable Player in the Adriatic League in 2014-15 and he’s showing flashes of that form in the early going for the Nuggets.
NBA rookies have been all the rage in the first month of the season, with Karl-Anthony Towns averaging a double-double, Jahlil Okafor scoring nearly 18 points a game and Kristaps Porzingis ready to take over Manhattan and the world.
Throw in a rookie averaging 30 minutes a game for his own team (Emmanuel Mudiay) and it’s easy to see where Bosnian center Nikola Jokic could get lost in the shuffle when discussing the 2015-16 rookie class.
Jokic, a 6-foot-10, 250-pounder from Serbia, wasn’t selected in the 2015 NBA Draft. Instead, the Denver Nuggets rolled the dice on selecting Jokic with the 41st overall pick in 2014, even though he had a year remaining on his contract with Mega Leks in the Serbian League.
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He’s shown signs of being well worth the wait, culminating earlier this week when he posted his first career double-double in a 109-98 loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday.
Jokic posted career-highs in just about everything, playing 32 minutes and scoring 23 points with 12 rebounds, three blocks and two steals.
He also drained his first NBA 3-pointer late in the loss, looking smooth and confident on the catch-and-shoot:
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It was just the third time Jokic had scored in double-figures and was his first double-digit rebounding effort.
His playing time has been sporadic—he made his first career start Friday night against the Phoenix Suns, but played just 18 minutes and finished with six points and four rebounds on 2-of-6 shooting.
He has played in 12 of Denver’s 13 games thus far, sitting out Denver’s 120-109 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Nov. 3 with a lower back strain.
His Wednesday explosion came a night after he played only 40 seconds in Denver’s win at New Orleans, a game in which coach Mike Malone opted to go small to better match up with the Pelicans.
“His feel for the game, his skill level, he’s got great hands, he’s so good at getting deflections and steals,” Malone told The Denver Post. “We’re so excited about his progress and his potential because we think in Emmanuel and Nikola we have two great young players.”
Jokic averaged a double-double last season in Serbian KLS play, putting up 18.4 points and 10.4 rebounds a night in 27.8 minutes a game. He shot .670/.275/.708 in those 14 games, while also averaging 15.4 points and 9.3 boards on 59.3 percent shooting in 24 games in the larger Adriatic League, earning MVP honors.
Denver selected Jokic in 2014 even though he had withdrawn from the draft 10 days prior to selection night.
Nikola Jokic, 95, withdraw his name from the draft. He will play next year for Mega Vizura!
— Misko4Raznatovic (@MiskoRaznatovic) June 16, 2014
Jokic got rave reviews during Summer League play for the Nuggets, arriving in Las Vegas shortly before agreeing to a four-year, $5.5 million contract and averaging eight points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 21 minutes per game.
Joffrey Lauvergne got the first chance at starter’s minutes in the middle for Denver this season as Jusuf Nurkic continues to work his way back from knee surgery, with Nurkic telling The Denver Post last weekend that he would be back “next month.”
Lauvergne has been out with a lower back strain and hasn’t played since Nov. 1. He was averaging 10.7 points and 6.3 rebounds in 19 minutes a game prior to his injury.
So instead, forgotten man J.J. Hickson has started eight games at center and has been splitting most of the time with Jokic.
It’s not the first time Jokic and Mudiay have been paired—the played together at the Nike Hoop Summit in April 2014.
He’s gotten the attention of teammates as well.
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“He’s been great,” second-year guard Gary Harris said. “He’s tall, he’s great at getting rebounds because he’s so long. He doesn’t even jump for half the rebounds he gets. His touch is great. He works hard. I see all the work he puts in.”
But Jokic also impressed with an all-business attitude. After his big game against the Spurs, he accepted the congratulations with a shrug.
“The offense will come because we have good players,” Jokic said. “We have to get better on defense.”
Denver is 6-7 in its first month or so under Malone and ranks 24th in the league with a defensive rating of 107.6 (points per 100 possessions), so Jokic isn’t wrong when he said that’s where the improvement will have to begin.
Among regulars in the rotation, Jokic (98.9) has the only D-rating less than 100 on the team, so he’s doing his part (even with the obligatory “beware of small sample sizes” warning applied).
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The question will be what will happen to Jokic’s minutes once Nurkic and Lauvergne are back but, if nothing else, he’s given Denver general manager Tim Connolly something of a trade chip in Hickson, who would appear from the outside to be the odd man out once the frontcourt rotation is fully healthy.