It is NBA All-Star weekend, and the Denver Nuggets will be well represented at the main event, with Nikola Jokic being selected as Denver’s first All-Star since Carmelo Anthony in 2011, and head coach Michael Malone coaching Team LeBron due to the Nuggets holding the best record in the Western Conference at the February 3 cutoff.
As envoys for the Nuggets on the All-Star stage in Charlotte, Jokic and Malone are emblematic of the team’s salient success this season. While Las Vegas win total projections last offseason had Denver winning 47.5 games and landing at sixth in the Western Conference, the Nuggets’ current 39-18 (.684) record has them at second in the West and on track to win 56 games, which would be a significant leap of ten more than last season.
Jokic earned his All-Star selection with play this season which has seemed to improve at a pace commensurate with the Nuggets’ need to compensate for the many injuries suffered by all four of the team’s other starters, who have missed a combined total of 81 games, or a full 36% of possible games they would have otherwise played.
With Will Barton going down in just the second game of the season, Gary Harris and Paul Millsap missing extended time starting in December, and Jamal Murray joining the injured ranks late January just as it seemed a return of the team to full health seemed within reach, Jokic rose to the occasion every step of the way, as evidenced by a relatively steady trajectory of increased production from the start of the season through to the current All-Star break:
With 24.1 points, 12.0 rebounds and 8.2 assists in 2019, Nikola Jokic is 1.8 assists shy of averaging a triple-double this calendar year , and looks like a lock to join Wilt Chamberlain as only the second center in NBA history to average over seven assists. Jokic now has 12 triple-doubles on the season, which include historic achievements too numerous to list here. And in addition to leading the Nuggets this season in points, rebounds and assists, Jokic also has the most steals per game.
In fact, perhaps even more notable than his offensive prowess – which jaw-dropping as it can be was a known quantity entering the season – is the improvement Jokic has made on defense. While Millsap remains Denver’s defensive captain and best player on that end of the court, Jokic has found his way to becoming more effective in his own right. In part this is due to improved effort, but the Nuggets also shifted this season to bringing Jokic up to hedge instead of having him drop back. This has led to a more disruptive style of defense which plays to his strengths (as well as those of Harris and Millsap) in forcing turnovers and contesting shots using good positioning more than raw athleticism or length. According to NBA.com/stats, Jokic’s 2.4 deflections per game are third, and his 1.4 steals fourth among centers this season, despite his lack of athleticism and quickness.
For his part, Michael Malone is among frontrunners for Coach of the Year after ushering the Nuggets to their best season start in their NBA franchise history. (Two ABA Nuggets teams reached 39 wins more quickly.) This jump in wins continues a trend of Denver consecutively improving their record every year with Malone at the helm:
Denver stood atop the Western Conference as NBA games drew to a close on February 3, the cutoff for determining All-Star team coaches, and as such head coach Michael Malone and his staff are coaching Team LeBron in the All-Star Game. What Malone has accomplished as a coach this season and over his four-year tenure in Denver, however, goes well beyond their simple win-loss record.
Navigating the minefield of the aforementioned injuries, as well as the challenge of juggling minutes allocations with a roster too deep to give all the players the degree of playing time they ostensibly deserve, Malone has successfully gotten his entire crew to buy in, play hard and, in most cases, continue a healthy pace of development and chemistry-building despite adjusting to a rapidly-changing series of different rotations resulting from injury absences – all without household name marquee stars the likes of James Harden or Russell Westbrook (though Denver’s success may be rapidly changing that).
Extensions for Jokic and Malone a Gold Star for the Nuggets Front Office
On top of both Jokic and Malone making the All-Star game, another common thread connects them: Both signed multi-year contract extensions in the 2018 offseason.
Jokic’s status as franchise cornerstone was officially consecrated in the form of his five-year, $148 million maximum deal he inked at the opening of free agency last summer. While the Nuggets could have exercised his fourth-year team option and paid him considerably less this season, that would have been a gamble as it could risk alienating Jokic prior to his becoming an unrestricted free agent in 2019. (That is the blueprint that cost the Utah Jazz Gordon Hayward, a misstep which Denver surely took into consideration).
Instead Denver soundly reached an agreement to decline the option and extend Jokic on the max deal that will guarantee his contract through the 2022-23 season. While those who considered the move an overpay due to Jokic’s reputation as a poor defender who wasn’t an “alpha dog” go-to player in clutch situations, his performance this season has pointedly put to rest most, if not all of the doubt as to whether the Nuggets made the right move.
Malone’s extension was not to come until the 11th hour. Mere months after he had to field questions regarding his job security following the team’s loss in their regular season finale which caused Denver to miss the playoffs by a single game, Malone reached an agreement with the Nuggets’ brass on a multi-year deal just the day before their season opener.
It was a massive vote of confidence by president of basketball operations Tim Connelly (who, along with his entire front office staff, was likewise extended just this weekend) and team president and governor Josh Kroenke. As much as they believed in Malone and the promising future of the Nuggets, they could not have foreseen the extent to which expectations would be blown away by the team’s runaway success. But the players love their head coach, and extending him was clearly the correct call not only in terms of their performance on the court but also their morale in the locker room.
So while the “casual” NBA fans will likely become aware of Jokic and Malone reflecting well upon the Nuggets organization for the fact that they both earned their berths in the All-Star game, those who follow player movement and front office maneuvering more closely will also know that their selection resonates on the deeper level of the astute decision and deal making by Connelly, Kroenke and their operations staff to strike while the iron was hot and secure a quality future for the Nuggets for years to come.
