How Nikola Jokic has MASTERED the art of fooling people into believing he is an all time great playerโฆ
He is the NBAโs golden child. They switch up narratives every year to make him fit their agenda. They used advanced stats to make everyone believe that he was the MVP over Luka Doncic in 2024, but in the 2025 MVP race, they disregarded advanced stats and used raw stats such as PRA to justify him winning MVP over SGA.
Another instance of the goal posts being moved was the narrative about โdefenceโ. The MAIN reason as to why nobody vouched for Luka Doncic to be MVP this season is based off of his defensive effort and ability, labelling him a cone and a detriment to his team. Lukaโs PR got so bad, ESPN was doing whole segments highlighting how bad it was and ripping into him. But when Jokic has been horrible defensively this season, no-one has batted an eye. Interesting.
Speaking on Jokicโs defence, there has been real humans who have stated that Jokic isnโt as bad as we make him out to believe, and some have said heโs actually a โgoodโ defender - and when you ask them how have you gotten to this conclusion, they will use advanced stats such as D-LEBRON, and DBPM. Just so you know, the way DBPM is built, it values assists over blocksโฆ
Speaking of assists, this is Jokicโs greatest deceit. For many years people have marvelled over his assists numbers, and glorify them since heโs a center doing this. Let me explain to you why these numbers arenโt as impressive as you may think.
Nikola Jokic touches the ball almost EVERY possession, as Denverโs offense is ran through him. People will say โwell, heโs not even close to leading the league in time of possessionโ. This point is irrelevant as he gets 5-6 APG purely off of DHOโs. He gets an 2-3 extra assists passing to WIDE open shooters (because the defense from the other team is abysmal). He also gets 2-3 APG which are so utterly fraudulent. Somehow the teammate who he passed the ball to can hold onto it for 5 seconds, score the ball, and Jokic gets credited with the assist. But this will be oblivious to everyone as he will have one good flashy pass to sustain the narrative.
A narrative Jokic sustains is that heโs an elite all rounder offensively, and possibly the greatest offensive player ever. He fools the masses into believing this as he stat-pads for his โPRAโ. Now you must be wondering, how can you stat-pad PRA? Thatโs a great question, Iโll tell you how. How many NBA players can you count on your fingers that have had a gimmick called the non-shooting gimmick attached to them? Not many, if it all. Jokic has a habit of doing this gimmick for the first half of games. Heโd attempt 3-5 FGโs in the first half, as he prioritises getting assists and WIDE OPEN UNCONTESTED rebounds. So heโd end the half with something like 5/7/7. He would then shoot enough times in the second half to help secure his triple double. Shameless.
An all time great offensive player apparently, but the offenses (the one ran THROUGH him) always become stagnant in the playoffs. How does this make sense? Should supposed ATG offensive players have this issue year after year after year after year? The answer is unequivocally NO.
But they see his PRA at the end of games, they see his on/off numbers, and use ignorant and misleading advanced stats to make up their points for them. This is why we should abolish advanced stats/metrics when evaluating a player, and analyse them by USING OUR EYES.
Make sure you look at his tendencies tonight, because if you use your eyes, you will understand that you have been mislead, misguided, and misinformed, about the real TRUTH, about Nikola Jokic.