Nikola Jokic has moved into the stage of his career where he starts receiving assists for not even really doing anything. Most All-Star caliber players reach this stage early on; scorekeepers realize that, for the good of the league, these players’ numbers have to be inflated a bit. Points and rebounds are hard to fudge, but the other three things are eminently manipulable.
The two non-assists Jokic was awarded tonight represent the difference between 3 assists, which falls into the “achievable for everyone but Yinka Dare” category, and 5 assists, which is in the “an amount that good point guards sometimes get” category. Big difference, right? It is in the interest of the NBA that Jokic get as many assists as possible, to promote him as this generation’s premiere passing bigman.
But what am I doing talking about dimes when he just went out and scored more points than he ever had before? Here’s my take on his scoring tonight: he had some nice jumpers, a nice sidearm hook around Nikola Vucevic, and a whole bunch of easy stuff at the rim. This video shows why the Magic don’t want to start Vucevic anymore; he can’t defend for crap. Good on the superior Nikola to figure that out and take advantage.
Despite his amazing play of late, Magic Jokson is not going to be an All-Star this year, which is probably for the best. It does no good to knee-jerkingly get players like him in the game. Let him keep it up for the whole season, then reward him next year. That goes for Joel Embiid as well.