{"id":125659,"date":"2025-02-25T15:13:42","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T20:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=125659"},"modified":"2025-02-25T15:13:42","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T20:13:42","slug":"nuggets-michael-malone-praises-nikola-jokic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/25\/nuggets-michael-malone-praises-nikola-jokic\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets’ Michael Malone Heaps Praise On His Superstar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veteran head coach Michael Malone has never shied away from complimenting the best player in the world. It just so happens that, and to Malone’s good fortune, his team, the\u00a0<\/span>Denver Nuggets<\/span><\/a>, house superstar\u00a0<\/span>Nikola Joki\u0107<\/span><\/a>, the best player in the world. Joki\u0107 is unmatched at his position and one of the top centers in NBA history, and his career isn’t even over. Joki\u0107 did not have a good\u00a0<\/span>game against the Los Angeles Lakers over the weekend<\/span><\/a>. However, on Monday, the Serbian big man did bounce back in dominating fashion against the Indiana Pacers. Joki\u0107’s performance had many in awe, including his coach.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nuggets’ Michael Malone Heaps Praise On His Superstar<\/h2>\n

Michael Malone Isn’t Shy About Showing Love to Denver Nuggets Superstar Nikola Joki\u0107<\/h3>\n

If you are oblivious to Joki\u0107’s game and NBA career, you would look at him like the kid who never got picked for pickup basketball at the park. As\u00a0<\/span>Stephen A. Smith<\/span><\/a>\u00a0coined, ‘Joki\u0107 couldn’t jump up on a sidewalk curb.’ While I’m sure Joki\u0107 could make that small upward motion if he needed to, you don’t see much of it on the court. Joki\u0107 has no lift to his game, yet he dominates the boards and is virtually unstoppable under the basket. As his coach gushes, Joki\u0107 is an amazing player\u2014a complete basketball player, in fact. Following the Nuggets 125-116 win over the Pacers last night,\u00a0<\/span>Malone wasted no words expressing his amazement<\/span><\/a>\u00a0at Joki\u0107’s night, accumulating 19 assists and overall talent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a player that has no weakness, there is not one chink in that armor. The guy is just an amazing, a complete basketball player. And I think the most remarkable thing is not just the 19 assists, but the satisfaction and joy that Nikola gets from making his teammates better. He\u2019d be happy getting 19 assists, no points, and us winning than any other superstar that I\u2019ve ever come across. And that speaks to who he is….But he\u2019s just an incredible player. And what a luxury to have when you can just play through him down the stretch of a close game and you know something good is going to happen each and every time.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Those are glowing words from one championship coach to a championship player\u2014a future legend if not one already. Joki\u0107’s stat line against Indiana was outstanding, posting 18 points, 19 assists, and nine rebounds. The assists were a career-high, tying the second-most assists by a center in league history.<\/p>\n

Surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar<\/h3>\n

In just his tenth season, Joki\u0107 is remarkably hot on\u00a0<\/span>Kareem Abdul-Jabbar<\/span><\/a>‘s trail.\u00a0<\/span>Kareem holds the assist record<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for centers (5,660), and Joki\u0107 is not far behind (5,207). With 453 more dimes to go, Joki\u0107 will pass Kareem sometime during the 2025-26 campaign. It will be an incredible feat once the task is complete and will only add to Joki\u0107’s Hall of Fame resume. Given Kareem’s attendance when\u00a0<\/span>LeBron James<\/span><\/a>\u00a0passed him for the leader in points scored all time, it’s possible he could be there for Jokic’s milestone as well. What an incredible honor that would be.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Kyle Terada-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veteran head coach Michael Malone has never shied away from complimenting the best player in the world. It just so happens that, and to Malone’s good fortune, his team, the\u00a0Denver Nuggets, house superstar\u00a0Nikola Joki\u0107, the best player in the world. Joki\u0107 is unmatched at his position and one of the top centers in NBA history, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":125661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1608,62],"tags":[2047,38,72],"class_list":["post-125659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nuggets","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-kareem-abdul-jabbar","tag-lebron-james","tag-nikola-jokic"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125659"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125672,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125659\/revisions\/125672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}