The NBA's Best Player Is Having His Best Ever Season. How Come His Team Keeps Losing?

On Saturday night, the best basketball player alive turned in one of the finest performances of his career. Denver Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic scored 56 points, tore down 16 rebounds and dished out eight assists.

How did Jokic celebrate his big night? By suggesting that he and his teammates deserve to have their salaries slashed.

"In my country, where I’m coming from, after this kind of stretch you’re going to get a paycheck that is a little bit less,” the 29-year-old Serbian said. “So maybe that’s what we need to do.”

The problem was that despite the 6-foot-11 center’s sizable efforts, the Nuggets had just lost to the hapless Washington Wizards, the worst team in the NBA. And their issues went well beyond that. Even as Jokic is in the midst of the greatest statistical season of any player this century, his team has been thoroughly, overwhelmingly…mediocre.

To understand the context of what Jokic is doing this year, imagine the best campaigns LeBron James and Stephen Curry have ever produced. Then double them.

It’s not just that Jokic is averaging a triple-double, something James and Curry have never done. It’s not just that he’s averaging more points than he did in any of the three previous seasons in which he won the NBA’s MVP award, or that he’s taking more 3-pointers than ever and is making half of them.

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