Breaking: The NBA has made a final determination on the penalty for Denver Nuggets’ Star
Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets will be a little lighter in the wallet as a result of the NBA’s decision to penalize him for flopping.
According to the league, Jokic was fined $2,000 for a flop in Saturday’s loss to the Sacramento Kings.
Jokic was guarded by Kings center Domantas Sabonis with around three and a half minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. With around eight seconds left on the shot clock, he collected the ball at the free throw line, pump-faked once, and then fired off a disputed fadeaway.
Despite carefully defending the two-time MVP winner throughout the process, Sabonis was called for a shooting foul on Jokic’s jumper.
The issue was that once Jokic let the shot fly, he stumbled back and flailed his arms in an effort to bait the officials into awarding him two free throws.
The NBA’s decision to fine The Joker comes as part of its new anti-flopping intitiative that’s been instated for this season. Players who flop during a game are supposed to be issued a technical foul. The league can also go back after the fact and issue a fine.
For the Denver Nuggets, Nikola Jokic is having a historic season
Despite the unfortunate loss of a few dollars, Jokic has still been on quite the hot streak so far in the 2023-24 campaign.
As of Dec. 4, 2023, the big man leads the entire NBA in total points, total rebounds, and total assists.
His performance against the Kings was as on-brand as it gets. Jokic notched a triple-double at The Golden1 Center, tallying 36 points, 14 rebounds, and 14 assists.
Outings like that have become the norm for the Serbian superstar. He’s nearly averaging a triple-double this season with 29.0 points, 12.8 rebounds, and 9.8 assists per game.
He and the Nuggets will be back in action on Wednesday night when they take on the LA Clippers.
READ MORE:
Nikola Jokic Is a Walking Triple-Double
The defending champion leads the league in points, rebounds, and assists.
Though he has yet to reach true superstar status in the U.S. despite winning the NBA title and Finals MVP, Nikola Jokic is doing things on the basketball court that have rarely been seen before. Jokic, who won back-to-back MVPs before finishing as the runner-up to Joel Embiid for the award last season, notched his NBA-leading eighth triple-double of the season on Saturday night and is now leading the league in total points (579), rebounds (255) and assists (196).
Perhaps that should be no surprise as Jokic was the first player in NBA history to lead the entire postseason in total points (600), total rebounds (269) and total assists (186) when he led the Denver Nuggets to the franchise’s first-ever championship last season. The first player selected outside of the top 15 (41st overall) to win both Finals MVP and regular-season MVP, Jokic also leads the league in Efficiency, ahead of Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Doncic.
Perhaps also unsurprisingly, those four players are at the top of the list to win this season’s MVP, behind the clear favorite: Jokic.
“The reigning Finals MVP and two-time MVP might actually be better this season. He’s averaging career highs in points and rebounds, his second-highest assists mark, and still shooting 60% eFG (57% from the field, 32% from 3). The Nuggets are outscoring opponents by 11.3 points per 100 possessions with him on the court,” per The Action Network. “Jokic answered every question about him being a worthy three-time winner with a 16-4 dominant playoff run, outplaying Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, sweeping LeBron James, humiliating Anthony Davis, and outclassing Jimmy Butler. He’s widely and nearly unanimously considered the best player in the world for a team that looks like it will easy win more than 50 games.”
Through approximately a quarter of the season (20 games), Jokic is averaging 28.9 points, 12.8 rebounds and 9.8 assists per game while shooting 56.8% from the field and 30.1% from the three-point range. Through 21 games, the Nuggets have gone undefeated at home (9-0) and are 14-7 overall, putting them in third place in the Western Conference. The Nuggets have no shot at winning the NBA’s In-Season Tournament, which continues tonight, as they have already been eliminated, but Denver is one of the favorites to win the championship at +425. Only the Celtics (+370) have better odds to win it all.
What the Celtics don’t have is Jokic, who has shown no sign of slowing down this season despite Denver’s title run and all of the extra effort and time on the court that it required.
Leave a Reply