Nikola Jokić’s case to win the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award for a second-straight season is quite compelling. The Joker finished in the top 10 in points (27.1), assists (7.9) and rebounds (13.8) per game while shooting an astonishing 58.3 percent from the field. As FiveThirtyEight’s Robert O’Connell wrote recently, no high-scoring big man has […]
Here is as satisfying a highlight as this NBA season will produce: That’s reigning MVP Nikola Jokić of the Denver Nuggets giving the business to Sacramento’s Damian Jones earlier this month. Like most of the Serbian center’s best plays, it begs for metaphor — a boulder running a slalom course, maybe — but the bare-bones […]
The Portland Trail Blazers finished the regular season ranked sixth place in the Western Conference, escaping the play-in tournament for their eighth-straight playoff appearance. Much of the team’s success remains centered on its high-powered offense: The Blazers’ offensive efficiency of 117.1, per NBA.com, trailed only the Nets’ 117.3, marking their third-straight season in the top […]
When star guard Jamal Murray went down with a torn ACL in mid-April, it was easy to assume that the Denver Nuggets would fall back from the pack of contenders atop the Western Conference. When both Murray’s backup, Monte Morris, and starting wing Will Barton joined Murray on the sideline with matching hamstring injuries soon […]
After their surprise playoff run in 2020 and a solid start to this season, the Denver Nuggets were looking for the final piece of their championship puzzle — and they seemed to find it at the trade deadline in Aaron Gordon. With Gordon in the fold, the Nuggets immediately won eight straight games, marking their […]