OFFICIAL NIKOLA JOKIC DUNK POWER RANKINGS [EXTRA-POWERFUL 2018-19 EDITION]
1 – 0:41 Jokic posts up Blake Griffin, then goes around him (maybe with the aid of some chicken wingage, all though I don’t see any from the broadcast angle) and hammers it while Andre Drummond furiously tries to contest but only succeeds in signing up for the poster party. I think this dunk is better than any dunk that Blake Griffin had last season. Also, I still don’t know what “dilly dilly” means, but Jokic totally gave Drummond his “dilly dilly”.
2 – 0:00 Brutal spin-move by the Joker where his loose-looking handles completely bait Isaiah Canaan into lunging for the steal. The power on this dunk was pretty good as well. Honestly, having this dunk at the beginning of the video really sucks because it sets the viewer’s expectations way too high.
3 – 0:16 Point Jokic makes an appearance, except the true Point Jokic would dish it off to a teammate for the easy score. So this is more like Point LeBron in a flabby white Serbian body. A miscommunication between Buddy Hield and Bogdan Bogdanovic means that nobody picks up the dude rumbling into the paint. Scott Hasting’s “OWWWWWW” really sells it and makes the finish seem more powerful than it actually is, while Chris Marlowe’s “put him in the dunk contest folks” adds irony to the scene.
4 – 0:56 Yeah, I’m including playoff dunks in here to pad the length of the video. Jokic takes the pick-and-roll feed and jumps from way out there for the power pump on Jakob Poeltl. This is like the Jokic equivalent of a free-throw line dunk.
[POWER GAP]
5 – 0:47 Nice pump-fake which Clint Capela sort of falls for, but then sort of recovers from, and then he sort of gets dunked on. Actually he’s just watching from behind with a blank look on his face. Thomas Welsh flexes from the bench even though he should be reenacting the pump-fake.
6 – 0:52 Nifty give-and-go passing sets up the Joker’s second dunk of the game. At the next time out, Clint Capela left the court and walked back to the locker room to reconsidered his choice of careers.
7 – 0:21 Sort of a wimpy dunk at the end, but a steal leading to a one-man fast break is always entertaining. Marlowe states his opinion that nobody can possibly catch up with the speed of the Joker, but I’m pretty sure Kemba could have caught up easily if he wanted to make a futile attempt to challenge the shot. After the carnage is finally over, Willy Hernangomez makes a subtle gesture like “how did we allow this to happen?” while his teammates sit there stoically wondering if they can get traded to anywhere other than the Hornets.
8 – 0:25 An expert pocket pass from Gary Harris hits Jokic right on the hands and Jokic pays it off with a two-handed hammer-job where he hangs on the rim for a fraction of a second, long enough to lend the dunk some power. In fact, calling it a “Slammarama” is 100% on point.
9 – 1:06 The play setting up this dunk is cool. The dunk itself is totally not cool. Playoff intensity can only go so far in moving a dunk up in the power rankings.
10 – 0:31 Another run-out after a steal, and another situation where Jokic’s sloppy-but-under-control handles cause a defender (in this case, Bruno Caboclo) to take themselves out of the play. Marlowe reiterates Jokic’s dunk contest candidacy, and now you as the viewer should start getting worried that that line will be played out and unfunny by video’s end.
11 – 0:05 Marlowe alleged that this dunk was “thunderous”, but that’s only because they had a microphone on the rim which caused the sound of it to echo around the arena like thunder. Also, this dunk would have been better if DeMarre Carroll hadn’t been trying to reenact the famous Amare Stoudemire-Andrew Bogut incident and make Jokic fall off the rim.
12 – 0:35 Somewhat lame dunk from under the basket, only made watchable by two things. Thing one: Jokic just totally pushed KAT to the floor to get open. Thing two: Jokic did a pull-up on the rim. Not enough to get T’ed up, and not enough for it to be a real pull-up, but he didn’t just let go of the rim right away.
13 – 0:11 Pick and roll leads to an easy Jokic dunk where nobody’s even close to contesting. The trainer dude behind the bench flexes after this one, but I think he just wanted an excuse to show off his muscles, because this dunk was absolutely not worth a flex from anybody. Although, I have to say, if Jokic had flexed after it, that would have been hilarious and moved it up a few spots in the OFFICIAL NIKOLA JOKIC DUNK POWER RANKINGS. (Ed. Note: Muscly trainer dude makes multiple appearances in this video, I just wrote this paragraph first)
14 – 1:01 Another pick and roll leads to another easy Jokic dunk. Patty Mills getting destroyed on the screen and LaMarcus Aldridge committing fully to Jamal Murray meant this play was always going to work.