The genius of Nikola Jokic is not told by statistics. It lies in his mind.
As the Nuggets began the second half of their season Thursday night, it finally hit me. Jokic is an all-time great not because he operates like Larry Bird and Bill Walton, but rather Peyton Manning.
Think about the similarities.
Jokic is not an athletic marvel. His belly is a little pudgy. He labors like he is running uphill, yet he’s never out of breath. He is strong, but not sculpted. Jokic should win his fourth MVP in five years because he beats teams with brains over brawn.
This was Manning. Especially the Broncos version.
He lacked a fastball, his neck was held in place by chicken wire and duct tape and his foot made walking feel like stepping on broken glass. Yet, he remained on time and on target, his preparation and comprehension capable of exploiting defenses even when his body betrayed him.
Jokic, too, is smarter than everyone else. Not on his team. On any team. This proclamation is meant to clobber you over the head, including fans of LeBron James. And bring into a focus another connection to Manning.
Wouldn’t it be a shame if Jokic won only one championship in Denver?
At 39, Manning exited football with no regrets. At least not about his dedication to the sport. But we all know Peyton wants the Ravens playoff game back. He clearly would have beaten the 49ers in the Super Bowl.
It is a reminder that we must savor Jokic’s prime, while demanding the Nuggets don’t waste it. Manning gave us four years, reaching two Super Bowls and winning one.
Jokic turned 30 on Wednesday. Realistically, he has four MVP-caliber years left. Coach Michael Malone believes Jokic could fashion a career like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Jabbar averaged 23.4 points and finished fifth in the MVP voting at 38 years old and retired at 41. I don’t see Jokic playing that long.
It is why this window must be maximized.
First, it helps to understand Jokic’s brilliance. He will age well because his strengths are timeless. He is not playing hoops. He is giving Harvard lectures.
It is all in the geometry.
Nuggets assistant coach David Adelman has compared Jokic to Manning in how he dissects a defense. Manning had the entire play clock at his disposal to show devilish patience before calling audibles. Jokic makes adjustments in tenths of a second. He sees the floor like Will Hunting saw equations. There are answers – even if invisible to the rest of us – everywhere.
There is Christian Braun on a back cut. Michael Porter Jr. on the wing. Jamal Murray on the pocket pass. Or Aaron Gordon darting across the baseline.
“He is doubled every time he touches the ball, and he still knows where everyone on the court is going to be. I know he’s 7-foot. But the consistency and how well he handles it is so impressive,” Murray said. “He will create a certain angle to find a better one. When he has a game like that, you know they are not going to be able to stop him.”
We were offered a window into Jokic during the Netflix series “Court of Gold,” which provided behind-the-scenes access to Serbia and other teams during the Paris Olympics. At halftime of the group stage loss to the Americans, with Kevin Durant at 21 points, Jokic barked at a teammate, “If you have (Bam) Adebayo at the corner and Durant is at 45 (degree angle), don’t (bleeping) stay on Adebayo.”
There was another instance where Jokic drew up an offensive play on the whiteboard before coach Svetislav Pesic kicked the cameras out.
During pressers, Jokic offers generic statements, delivers funny quips, but avoids providing strategic insight. I believe this is because he does not want to yield a competitive advantage. He is very much like Manning in this way.
But our eyes tell us that we are watching something different, why Malone says without hesitation “that there are really good players in this league, but only one great one.”
Mike Singer, author of “Why So Serious? The untold story of NBA champion Nikola Jokic,” relayed a story about how former Nugget Juancho Hernangomez gasped at the seven-time All-Star’s recall years ago (Remember Manning had a photographic memory).
“He told me they played an opponent at the beginning of the season. And then they faced them at the end of the year, and Nikola was calling out their plays,” Singer said. “And he was looking at him, like ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’^”
This tracks with what Aaron Gordon told me about Jokic this week. He shows uncommon humility, and it overshadows his basketball IQ.
“I think he’s the MVP. Everybody’s saying, Shai (Gilgeous-Alexander). I don’t think so. I think it’s ‘Kola. It’s the way he operates, the way he controls everything. He has figured the game out,” Gordon said. “He’s not playing against other players. He’s playing against the other coach, he’s playing against other GMs, he’s playing against other organizations. His mindset is just completely different.”
And a heads up, watch how he asserts his leadership over the remainder of this season. As the stakes rise Jokic will take more ownership.
Jokic was frustrated earlier this season. His patience was tested, something Malone called “the curse of the genius” in Singer’s book.
Now this team is healthy, meshing with Jokic, processing the game closer to his wavelength.
Understand, we will never have a better Nuggets player. But we should be selfish, as we were with Manning, and demand his beautiful mind be defined by more than a single championship.
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