making impossible boring doesn't prevent timing from being cruel

jokić carried denver alone for a decade, got help in one offseason, and spencer jones stepped on his foot

spencer jones backpedals, foot hunting for balance. finds nikola jokić’s left foot instead. 2.7 seconds left in the half, miami’s jaime jaquez jr. driving baseline, and jones is trying to help but his weight lands wrong. jokić’s knee bends the way knees are not supposed to bend. he collapses, grabs at it, writhes. the arena goes quiet in that specific way arenas go quiet when everyone watching knows they just watched something break.

it turned out to be a hyperextension. no ligament damage. the best-case scenario given what the replays suggested. four weeks minimum, reevaluation after that. jokić will miss january. maybe more. the denver nuggets, who entered the night third in the western conference at 22-10, are now missing their three-time mvp, their starting power forward, their starting shooting guard, their starting small forward, and as of wednesday in toronto, their backup center. jamal murray is the last starter standing.

the injury is not catastrophic. the timing is.

jokić entered monday night in miami averaging 29.6 points, 12.2 rebounds and 11.0 assists per game. he is the first player in nba history to lead the league in both rebounds and assists. he is shooting 60 percent from the field, 43.5 percent from three, 84 percent from the line. his player efficiency rating of 35.5 would shatter his own single-season record of 32.8. shai gilgeous-alexander is posting the third-highest PER of all time at 32.4 and is still eating jokić’s dust. half of jokić’s 32 games this season were triple-doubles. on christmas, against minnesota, he dropped 56 points, 16 rebounds and 15 assists, including 18 points in overtime alone. that is an nba record for overtime scoring. the highest by any player in a regular-season or playoff game ever.

charles barkley said at halftime, “it’s an honor to watch him play basketball.”

that is exactly what it feels like. watching jokić play has become an exercise in recalibrating what constitutes excellence. other players post triple-doubles and we call it historic. jokić posts them and we call it tuesday. he makes impossible look boring. he turns geometry into destiny with passes that should not exist and shots that should not fall but do anyway, over and over, until the absurdity becomes routine.

and now he is out for at least a month. which means the man who spent a decade carrying the denver nuggets on his own is sitting exactly when he finally does not have to.

nikola jokić has played 10 seasons in the nba. in those 10 seasons, he has never played alongside a single all-star teammate. not one. zero all-star appearances by a jokić teammate while wearing a nuggets jersey. zero all-nba selections. zero all-defense honors. tom haberstroh did the research last april. he looked at the 24 mvps dating back to 1984 and found that jokić is the only mvp winner to have never played with an all-star, all-nba or all-defense member in their first 10 seasons in the league.

magic johnson had 35 all-league honors by teammates in his first 10 years. larry bird had 32. stephen curry had 27. lebron james, in his first cleveland stint, the one everyone remembers as barren, had 12 all-league teammates in his first 10 seasons. the average for mvps is 16 total all-league honors by teammates, or about 1.6 per season. jokić has zero.

the closest comparison is kevin garnett, who went 12 seasons in minnesota with a supporting cast wholly unfit for a player of his caliber. garnett saw an all-league award for a teammate only four times. tom gugliotta made the 1997 all-star game. wally szczerbiak in 2002. sam cassell in 2004, when he also made second team all-nba. garnett eventually left minnesota after 12 years and won a championship in boston next to paul pierce, ray allen and rajon rondo. commensurate talent for an all-time great.

jokić won his championship in 2023 despite the lack of starpower. he became the first player in nba history to lead all postseason players in points, rebounds and assists. herculean does not quite cover it. jamal murray has never finished higher than 10th in west backcourt all-star voting. aaron gordon has never made an all-star team. michael porter jr. has never received a single vote for all-nba first, second or third team. not named on a single ballot. that is how far from star status they are.

the nuggets front office spent a decade failing to surround jokić with talent that matched his genius. calvin booth, in his three years as general manager, never made an in-season trade. he let kentavious caldwell-pope and bruce brown walk in free agency. he signed murray to a four-year, $208 million extension that has yet to kick in. when the nuggets fired booth and head coach michael malone three games before the 2025 playoffs, it felt less like a reset and more like an admission that the previous regime had wasted years of jokić’s prime.

ben tenzer and jon wallace, the rookie co-general managers who inherited the mess, spent the summer fixing it. they traded porter’s $35 million per year contract to brooklyn and used the freed cap space to build actual depth. jonas valančiūnas became the first legitimate backup center jokić has had in his career. cam johnson, tim hardaway jr. and bruce brown returned to add shooting and versatility. the result was immediate. denver’s net rating in non-jokić minutes improved from negative-9.3 last season to negative-1.1 this year. the nuggets entered the season with the best offensive rating in league history and the second-best defense in the league.

murray, for his part, finally got the offseason he needed. no olympic duty. no ankle injuries. no achilles issues. he spent time in japan and the cayman islands, did ufc training, took care of his family. “my body was already good,” murray told sam amick in october. “i already felt refreshed. i got the chance to decompress and fully go back with a good spirit, instead of having to be like, oh damn, i only have two weeks.”

the preparation showed. murray is averaging 25.7 points, 7.4 assists and 4.2 rebounds this season while shooting 45.4 percent from three-point range. those are career-best numbers across the board. for the first time in a decade, the infrastructure was in place. jokić had a roster built to contend without requiring superhuman effort.

and then spencer jones stepped on his foot.

the surface story is about an mvp race and a 65-game rule. the real story is about a decade of structural neglect finally corrected, and a freak injury arriving exactly when the correction was supposed to matter.