The big man is fashionable again.
Many years ago, supremacy came in the form of players like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kevin Garnett, and Shaquille O’Neal. These behemoths would all challenge convention in each of their respective eras and even force rule adjustments from the league to cope with their ability to dominate on the hardwood.
The league has since changed, in style of play and in its culture. Today, despite being in an era where NBA teams are periodically downsizing and nearly every position is interchangeable, generational big man talents are beginning to emerge from the ashes again.
Only this time, things are a little different. This new breed of big man is almost required to be extremely versatile, able to score in the post with a variety of moves and countermoves, pass the ball adaquately, step outside to shoot the jumper, and be able to defend inside and out.
There’s no doubt multi-positional stars like Draymond Green or LeBron James have redefined the game. But we’re not talking about them. We’re talking about the seven-footers and the near seven-footers. Names like Myles Turner, Anthony Davis, Joel Embiid, Karl-Anthony Towns, and yes, Nikola Jokic.
Nikola Jokic can do most of the things mentioned above at a high level, but he has one ability that’s elite: his passing. There aren’t many guards, much less bigs in the NBA, that have the vision and the delivery that Jokic has.
Despite being just 21 years old and in the midst of his sophomore campaign, Jokic already has YouTube highlight videos dedicated to his incredible passes, something some point guards in the league don’t even have. These certainly aren’t your standard bounce or chest passes (although he does use these as well to great effect) that you learned in your high school gym class, however. These are difficult, pro-level passes that are executed on the move, on the block, from every conceivable angle, and include no-looks, and big-to-big alley-oops.
This play unfolds as Jokic receives the ball in the high post area after a switch on a pick-and-roll action with Gary Harris. This allows Jokic to get on Gordon Hayward, a smaller defender, which gives him more options on what to do next. He can either take the Hayward into the post or survey the floor for potential cutters or off-ball action. The high post is an area where many of the league’s best passing bigs like to operate.
This allows him to survey the action unfolding on his side with the knowledge that a sharpshooter like Danilo Gallinari is on the wing ready to catch-and-shoot if Gallinari’s defender helps on any drive to the rim. After Gary Harris throws the entry pass in to Jokic, he sets a screen on Jameer Nelson’s defender, who gets caught and allows Nelson to get free. Jokic then throws a pinpoint pass for the layup. The entire time, Jokic keeps his eyes peeled and his teammates know he is a willing passer who will find them when they move without the ball. Passing to the cutter is one of the most frequent plays Jokic makes.
Getting out of double-teams is a skill any player who handles the ball a lot needs to be able to do. Jokic begins in his standard high-post action and decides to take Karl-Anthony Towns one-on-one into the post. A help defender then comes to double-team; in many cases, this would cause a turnover, but Jokic keeps his composure, avoids getting the ball stolen and throws a one-handed beauty right through the middle of the two Timberwolves defenders to a cutting Wilson Chandler for the dunk. Jokic also uses a misdirection with his eyes, which fools the defender (Chandler’s original defender) nearest to Jameer Nelson into thinking it’s coming to the point guard. That causes him to be out of position and a step too late to stop Chandler.
If you’ve watched Jokic for any period of time this year, you’ll notice he hits his targets with incredible accuracy. One split second too early or one second too late, it’s a turnover or bobbled pass and certainly would yield no basket. Too far in front of the target or too hard of a pass? Also a turnover. Here are a few different examples of how Jokic uses different types of passes for different situations.
Here Jokic threads the needle with a bounce pass right by the fingertips of both LaMarcus Aldridge and Dejounte Murray. The defense recovers but because of the initial pass, it forces San Antonio to adjust and Will Barton still scores.
This play starts off a defensive rebound. The luxury that the Nuggets have with Jokic is that he is also capable of throwing long, football-style passes with accuracy. Most big men will corral the board and immediately look for a guard to bring the ball up the floor. Denver trusts Jokic to handle the ball after the rebound and in this case, he slings a one-handed pass to Nelson who shoots in stride and knocks down the three.
This is just pure court vision and awareness and because it looks cool in slow-mo.
The Nuggets game in London for the NBA Global Games was an offensive showcase, with Denver scoring 140 points in the victory. In this play, Nelson starts out with the ball, immediately goes into a pick-and-roll with Gallinari who immediately sprints to the rim. Meanwhile, Nelson throws a quick bounce pass to Jokic while the Indiana defense is recovering. By this time, Gallinari is basically at the rim and Nikola throws a lob to him and he completes the alley-oop with a nice slam.
London was home to a lot of sweet plays and this one is no different. After the Pacers score, Jokic knows that there’s only a few seconds left on the clock. So, as soon as he gets into inbounding position, he looks up the floor to see if there’s any opportunities there. What did he see? Oh, just Gary Harris streaking out and basically at the rim. But the pass has to be thrown far and accurately. This is no problem for Jokic as he throws a 94 foot-ish pass from out of bounds and hits Harris right in his hands for the layup. Unfortunately, the statistician in this game made a mistake and the official assist was accidentally credited to Wilson Chandler instead.
This is really just a taste of what Jokic has done all year long. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter how pretty a pass is if it doesn’t ultimately help you win the game. However, this just isn’t the case with Jokic. The top two five-man lineups the Nuggets play that yielded the most wins both include Jokic in them, per NBA.com.
This really isn’t any surprise as Jokic is a threat to score from the post with hook shots with either hand, a soft floater, a 15 footer, or step outside and hit the three-pointer as well. The threat to score is partially what makes Jokic deadly. You can be a phenomenal passer but if you aren’t looked at as being able to score, it significantly dampers your ability to get your teammates involved.
In the 2016-17 season, Jokic’s assist percentage is 23.3%, per NBA.com. Assist percentage is a metric that measures the percentage of teammate field goals a player assisted while he was on the floor. This is an exact percentage, NBA.com says, because it is calculated only when the player is on the floor. What this means is that Jokic is assisting on almost a quarter of the Nuggets’ field goals. This is incredible and his teammates recognize it.
Kenneth Faried, who’s been on the receiving end of many of Jokic’s passes is certainly enjoying it.
“It’s fun to play with him. He’s a willing passer, he doesn’t care who scores the points,” Faried said. “That’s a great player to play with.”
Gary Harris was a little more concise in his assessment.
“That man can pass,” Harris said with a smile.
Jokic certainly isn’t complete as a player yet, but his contributions to the Nuggets are finally being recognized on a national and even international scale. As the Nuggets continue to battle in the Western Conference playoff hunt, they will need Jokic to continue to elevate his game at both ends of the floor.
But for now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re just going to go back to watching some Nikola Jokic highlights.
