Advertisement

Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic Rewriting Record Book in NBA Finals: Data Viz

lev akabas
·5 min read
2

Nikola Jokic put up historic numbers in his first NBA Finals, leading the Denver Nuggets to their first championship. In Game 3, he finished with 32 points, 21 rebounds and 10 assists, completing the first ever 30-20-10 game ever in the Finals, and just the fifth ever in the postseason—and Jokic has had three of those five.

Many advanced metrics have pointed to Jokic being the best player in the league for several seasons now. Just this year, he finished first in the NBA in Basketball Reference’s BPM, FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR, Taylor Snarr’s EPM and more. But don’t worry if you don’t know what any of those mean; there are plenty of other less obtuse statistics that portray how great he is.

More from Sportico.com

Here are some of his standout numbers:

1 – Players who have led the entire NBA playoffs in points, assists and rebounds, as Jokic just did.

2 – The number of MVP awards Jokic has won. Only 15 players have ever won multiple MVPs, and Jokic became just the 13th player in league history to win multiple MVPs and a championship.

5 – Players born outside of the United States to win Finals MVP. Jokic joins a list of Hakeem Olajuwon (1994, 1995), Tony Parker (2007), Dirk Nowitzki (2011) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (2021).

16 – Jokic’s career playoff triple doubles, which ranks third behind Magic Johnson (30) and LeBron James (28).

27.5 – Jokic’s career playoff points per game, which is a full four points higher than his 23.5 points per game average over the past five regular seasons. In addition to ranking ninth all-time on the playoff points per game leaderboard, Jokic ranks 19th in postseason assists per game and 16th in postseason rebounds per game. No other player in NBA history even places in the top 40 of all three lists.

30.2 – Jokic’s points per game in the 2023 NBA Finals. He became just the 10th player ever to average more than 30 points in a Finals series win.

41st – The draft pick with which the Denver Nuggets selected Jokic in 2015, which occurred during a Taco Bell commercial on ESPN’s broadcast. Jokic is the only MVP to be drafted lower than 15th, and only one other Finals MVP was selected in the second round: Dennis Johnson, who won in 1979 with the Seattle SuperSonics.

41.3% - Jokic’s career playoff 3-point percentage, which ranks fourth among the 125 players in league history who have attempted at least 250 playoff threes.

53 - Jokic’s points against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 4 of the first round—the most points any player has ever scored in a regulation playoff loss.

58.2% - Jokic’s percentage on shots between 5 and 9 feet since he entered the league in 2015. The next highest percentage among all players who have attempted at least 200 such shots over that timespan is Kevin Durant at 53.4%, and the league average is 41.0%. His deep bag of hook shots, scoops and floaters, along with his sheer size at 6-foot-11, allows him to be efficient in a zone where almost every other NBA player makes less than half of their shots.

70.1% - Jokic’s true shooting percentage this season, which was the highest in NBA history for a player with at least 1,000 shot attempts. (True shooting is essentially shooting percentage that includes the value of threes and free throws.) League-wide true shooting percentage hit a record high this year at 58.1%, but Jokic still scored at 12 percentage points above that average. Only Steph Curry in 2016, who unanimously won MVP, was more efficient relative to league average among high volume scorers since the turn of the century.

122 - Number of times Jokic has posted up in the 2023 NBA playoffs, twice as many as Anthony Davis, who has posted up the second most times with 61. Jokic also led the league in post-ups during the regular season after finishing second to Joel Embiid each of the previous three seasons.

The post-up is used less and less frequently around the NBA—in 2015-16, 19 players posted up at least 250 times, while this season just five did—but Jokic would be the last player to simply do what everyone else is doing. Posting up is an important piece of his varied offensive game, accounting for roughly a quarter of his points this season, and he is remarkably efficient at it. Among the 50 NBA players with the most post-ups, Jokic ranked second in points per possession this season and first last season.

124.2 - The Denver Nuggets’ points per 100 possessions with Jokic on the court this season. No team in NBA history has ever had a better offensive rating with one particular player in the game than the Nuggets did with Jokic this year.

147 - Number of regular-season games in which Jokic has finished with at least 10 assists, accounting for nearly 25% of his career outings. No other player in NBA history 6-foot-10 or taller has had 10+ assists in even 8% or more of his games.

2002 - The last time before Jokic that a center won NBA Finals MVP, when Shaquille O'Neal won his third straight.

0 - Jokic’s social media followers. He does not have an official Twitter or Instagram account.

1 - Jokic’s ranking among active NBA players in Wikipedia page views during the playoffs, just ahead of LeBron James. During the regular season, however, Jokic’s page was just the 10th most-visited in the league.

$2 million — Jokic’s total endorsement earnings last year—less than several players who have never made an all-NBA team, including Brandon Ingram and Jokic’s teammate Jamal Murray, who each made $3.5 million. Every other active player who had won MVP prior to this season scored at least $30 million in off-court earnings other than Derrick Rose, who still made $11 million.

$272 million — The total value of Jokic’s five-year supermax extension, the largest contract in NBA history. When it begins in the 2023-24 season, Jokic will earn an average of $54.4 million annually and pass Steph Curry as the highest-salaried player in North American sports.

(This story has been updated after Jokic and the Nuggets won the NBA Finals on Monday night.)

Best of Sportico.com

Click here to read the full article.