Most Irreplaceable Player – Nikola Jokic makes his case

When Wilt Chamberlain was in his sixth season with the Warriors, he was still very much at the height of his super powers. However, the Warriors had not exactly surrounded Superman with super friends, and the team found itself mired in an 12-28 first half of their season. Only one player on the team had more experience than Wilt, and none of the youngsters showed sidekick stuff. While the Stilt’s stats were still scintillating, San Fran was struggling strongly.

Alliteration aside, the club that moved into Philadelphia behind the Warriors departure was an upstart called the 76ers. Sixers ownership realized just how much brotherly love Chamberlain had fostered in terms of tickets sales and wins. With the Warriors mired in an extended losing streak, Philly made a move to bring Wilt back. With Chamberlain backstopping the back half of the year, the Sixers went on a series of streaks to end the season at 40-40, and steal into the playoffs. Even without homecourt advantage, they’d go on to dispatch Cincinnati in four games, and took the mighty Celtics to a one-point loss in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals that still echoes through Boston with “Havlicek stole the ball!“

That Warriors team that Wilt had departed? They’d go on to win five more games the rest of that season. That losing streak that had started with Wilt in town ended up stretching to 17, including one to the Sixers with Chamberlain thumping them from the far bench. Whatever “system” the Warriors had been running with Wilt didn’t just slow or change with his departure, it flat-out disappeared. Chamberlain hadn’t been the biggest part of the system, he’d been the system itself. He’d proven to be irreplaceable for San Francisco, and understandably so. From a sheer dominance perspective, no one played basketball like Wilt.

A few days back, the stellar DNVR Nuggets writing trio of Mares, Wind, and Vogt were discussing how dire things might be for the Denver Nuggets while Nikola Jokic is away for personal matters. The way the rest of the squad had played his first two games away, it was reasonable to wonder if Jokic simply is the system, not a part of it. In the midst of that chat, the following stat was posted:

Can’t put it much more simply than that; basically the best offense in the league with Joker on the floor, and the worst one in the league with him off it. And while that math brings with it many of the unfortunate questions the boys thoughtfully debated on Tuesday, it happily didn’t end in a 17-game skid like Wilt’s departure from the Warriors, as the remainder of Denver’s squad is not quite the mess they were often seeming to be during those first two games, beating Memphis Wednesday night via Russell Westbrook’s 200th career triple double, and the reappearance of Jamal and Mike.

Even so, the broader numbers shown above have borne out Jokic’s value this way over (nearly) every season he’s played, with the team struggling to find ways to fill the minutes that Nikola will inevitably be off the floor. His impact to the game and ability to lift the play of others has had very few peers. Not just today, over history.

That’s how the “Not Since Wilt” phrase came to stick with Jokic, as impossible stat upon impossible stat continue to compound in whenever and however this once-in-a-lifetime career ends. While he’s out to something of a runaway start towards his fourth MVP this season, you know that accolade is of no interest. The only stat that matters to Joker is enough W’s to get back to another ring. Most of the comparisons for Jokic over time have been to Chamberlain, due to the spectacular statistical nature of how each player bent the game to his will. But Jokic might prefer a comparison to a contemporary of Wilt’s, Bill Russell, who has one more MVP than Wilt, and a whopping nine more rings. While Russell’s Celtics were much more a machine than any of Chamberlain’s teams, even mighty Boston went from 48-34 to 34-48 the year after Bill the Hill finally stepped down.

While each of the centers has been valuable – between them all MOST valuable a dozen times – Jokic has joined their pantheon by being able to influence most every aspect of the game and his team on both ends of the floor. With super powers of his own, there’s a shared adjective amongst the three giants that doesn’t seem to be a part of basketball’s lexicon just yet.

Irreplaceable.