Fact or Fiction: Is Nikola Jokić enjoying the greatest statistical regular season ever?

[ad_1]

Each week during the 2024-25 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into some of the league’s biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.

[Last time: Domantas Sabonis is The Biggest Snub of the 2025 NBA All-Star Game]

Fact or Fiction: Nikola Jokić is enjoying the greatest statistical regular season ever

Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokić, who has won three of the NBA’s past four MVP awards, is enjoying the best statistical season of his career. He is on pace to become the first center to average a triple-double.

It is the sort of season that will force the MVP voting panel to reckon with their fatigue. Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the biggest threat to Jokić joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James as the sixth player ever to win four MVPs.

There is no statistical argument for Gilgeous-Alexander, whose 32.6 points per game are leading the league but who is scoring less efficiently than Jokić and averaging significantly fewer assists and rebounds.

It is wild that Gilgeous-Alexander’s season, which marks the 15th-best Player Efficiency Rating in NBA history (31.2), according to Basketball Reference, pales in comparison. But Jokić’s PER (33.4) is the highest ever. Which begs the question: Is Nikola Jokić really enjoying the greatest statistical regular season in history?

We searched far and wide, sorting through the most impressive advanced statistical campaigns of the best players in NBA history, for the rest of the greatest statistical regular seasons ever and narrowed the list down to six: Chamberlain’s 1961-62 season, Jordan’s 1987-88 season, James’ 2008-09 season, Stephen Curry’s 2015-16 season, Giannis Antetokounmpo’s 2021-22 season and Joel Embiid’s 2022-23 season.

That list covers a lot of ground. It crosses every positional group (guards, swings and bigs) twice. It is, perhaps, overrepresented by the modern era, though the current style of play in the 3-point era — high usage, high efficiency and fast pace — is a breeding ground for incredibly productive…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/fact-or-fiction-is-nikola-jokic-enjoying-the-greatest-statistical-regular-season-ever-160810426.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2025-02-14 16:08:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.