Elevator Doorways: As Good as It Will get
I take a look at my son and inform him with all of the sincerity I can muster: “It is going to by no means get any higher than this.”
Andrew is 9 years outdated. He’s obsessive about basketball. I handed my Denver Nuggets fandom onto him, by no means anticipating that the burly Serbian heart we drafted two months earlier than Andrew was born would lead this beforehand mediocre franchise to unimagined ranges of success. Half of Andrew’s wardrobe consists of Denver Nuggets gear. His fortunate quantity is 15, and his backup fortunate quantity is 27.
The Nuggets had simply defeated the Dallas Mavericks, 122-120. We stay in Arizona and don’t have League Move, so we adopted the final couple minutes on ESPN’s stay tracker. We had no concept how Nikola Jokic was doing it, simply that he was doing every thing he all the time does – scoring from each spot on the ground, making excellent passes, getting the sport’s largest rebounds with out leaping.
On the time of this writing, the Nuggets have performed 10 video games. Jokic has posted a triple double in six of them. His stat line in opposition to Dallas – 37 factors, 18 rebounds, 15 assists, taking pictures splits of 62/100/100 – is the equal of two high 10 fantasy basketball performances smashed into one man. He’s fourth within the NBA in scoring, and he leads the complete league in rebounds AND assists. Jokic is in an eight-way tie for fourth in complete steals at 17. He has received three of the final 4 MVP awards and he’s nonetheless one way or the other getting higher.
The Nuggets started the season with an uninspiring 2-3 file by way of the primary 5 video games, with the squad needing additional time in opposition to two of the NBA’s most miserable franchises – Brooklyn and Toronto – to keep away from beginning 0-5. Jokic was nonetheless each bit pretty much as good as he all the time is, however the roster Calvin Sales space and the Nuggets’ entrance workplace assembled round him is, properly, missing (to place it politely). Key championship cogs Bruce Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope left in trade for nothing attributable to Denver’s crowded cap sheet mismanagement (hey, Zeke Nnaji). The one dependable rotation gamers this workforce has added by way of the draft are Christian Braun, sometimes Peyton Watson and even much less sometimes Julian Strawther. Russell Westbrook is doing, properly, no matter it’s he does at this stage of his profession.
Jamal Murray has not been the identical playoff flame-thrower since he struggled to convey the ball throughout half court docket in opposition to Minnesota’s swarming protection in final 12 months’s playoffs. His Olympic struggles solely added to the issues. He has began to look a bit extra like Jamal Murray these days, however he’s nonetheless a full stage beneath the opposite All-Star stage guards within the West. Aaron Gordon – the best, do-everything lob smasher to fit alongside Jokic – is out for some time with a strained calf.
Nikola Jokic stays one of many solely Corridor-of-Fame stage gamers to by no means play alongside a teammate who made an All-Star Recreation, which is really insane to consider given how a lot better he makes everybody round him. Exchange Jokic with one other high 5 heart (Karl Anthony-Cities?) and Denver Nuggets roster could be tanking for Cooper Flagg or Ace Bailey – and never on goal.
Another famous person on this scenario does one in every of two issues: 1) calls for a commerce, or 2) calls for the entrance workplace trades 2-3 of his teammates for an All-Star working mate. Both the commerce demand occurs publicly, or it’s backchanneled to a pleasant reporter or by way of an middleman. Everyone seems to be on edge and all the time at fault – besides the famous person.
Nikola Jokic is the one fashionable NBA famous person to discover a third path: Win 5 in a row and shut down any inkling of a rumor, a leak, or a sideways remark.
Jokic doesn’t interact on social media – if he’s, it’s seemingly with a burner account that simply follows horse racing. He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t demand. He simply performs precisely the type of basketball that will get a 9-year-old obsessive about how stunning this recreation may be.
A pair weeks in the past, our household ran right into a younger man named Quintyn at a neighborhood pizza spot known as No Anchovies. He noticed Andrew dressed head to toe in Nuggets gear – shorts, Jokic jersey, basic skyline hat – and requested my spouse if we’re from Denver. “We aren’t, however my husband is from Wyoming, and he has rooted for the Nuggets all his life.”
“Wow,” Quintyn stated. “My brother was simply drafted by them.” His brother is DaRon Holmes II, the extremely versatile, sweet-shooting large man from Dayton who would completely be taking part in 20-25 minutes per recreation proper now had he not sadly torn his Achilles tendon in Denver’s summer season league opener.
Andrew’s eyes lit up, as did Quintyn’s. Andrew didn’t anticipate to get a behind-the-scenes breakdown of his favourite basketball workforce, and Quintyn didn’t anticipate Andrew and I to know every thing about his brother’s recreation. In my 2024 NBA Draft Instantaneous Evaluation, I wrote that Holmes reveals ” flashes of Naz Reid’s recreation” and that he “could possibly be the uncommon type of large man who can thrive in both a five-out lineup or as the ability ahead alongside a extra conventional heart.” Denver promised to draft him early within the course of and by no means wavered.
Quintyn advised us that his brother’s rehab goes properly and that he’s itching to get again on the court docket. He additionally advised us that the workforce flew his household out to Denver to satisfy his new workforce and that Jokic was “the best man ever – tremendous humorous, tremendous welcoming, simply the perfect.”
Andrew was beaming. He has solely identified what it’s prefer to root for an NBA workforce with Nikola Jokic on it. Are you able to think about?
It’s my job to verify Andrew realizes that is particular. This isn’t what it’s normally prefer to root for any workforce – notably a mid-market franchise just like the Nuggets who’re, at greatest, second within the metropolis’s energy rankings completely behind the Broncos.
I feel he will get it.
And 1’s:
Welcome to “Elevator Doorways,” a brand new weekly column the place I write about basketball – the entire sport from each angle that issues to me. The 2025 NBA Draft seems to be prefer it’s going to be particular – not simply on the high, however with loads of prospects that seem like they are going to ultimately develop into rotation gamers. If final week’s Kansas/UNC recreation is any indication, we’re in for an superior school basketball season. We’ll spend our time digging into final 12 months’s draft class and the way they’re adjusting to life within the NBA, in addition to wanting on the sport from a big-picture view – what’s working, what isn’t, and what we speak about after we’re speaking about basketball. I really like this recreation greater than absolutely anything.My son, Andrew, goes to be a recurring character on this column. He is aware of extra about basketball than most adults who receives a commission to speak about it for a dwelling, and his insights into the game give me a useful sense of how the following technology is approaching the sport. He’s additionally a heck of a participant in his personal proper. Despite the fact that he’s the shortest child on his membership workforce, he began the final two video games at heart as a result of the workforce wanted his “hardest, power, protection, and rebounding.” He says he fashions his recreation after Josh Hart. I’m so proud.Stat of the week: We’ve all seen what Creighton’s burly heart Ryan Kalkbrenner has been doing to start out the season. It hasn’t been the stiffest competitors, however Kalkbrenner has 73 complete factors on NINETY-ONE-PERCENT taking pictures in two video games. Go all the way down to your native fitness center proper now and take 32 photographs with no person guarding you. Would you make 29 of them, like Kalkbrenner did in these two video games? I doubt it. 
