Early in Wednesday night’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Nikola Jokic caught a pass from his teammate, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Or, rather, Jokic touched the ball for a moment, hardly letting it come to rest before flipping it back again.
A Minnesota defender had turned his head as Caldwell-Pope snuck to the rim; Jokic’s return-to-sender package met him there, and Caldwell-Pope laid it in., but it has reached another level this season as he mounts a campaign for a third consecutive Most Valuable Player Award. Alongside a retooled supporting cast, Jokic has averaged a career-high 9.9 assists per game. His distribution animates basketball’s second-best offense, an attack that has the Nuggets at the top of the Western Conference.
TRANSLATION: He is a talented team player.