{"id":77009,"date":"2024-05-11T10:31:06","date_gmt":"2024-05-11T14:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=77009"},"modified":"2024-05-11T10:31:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-11T14:31:06","slug":"gilbert-arenas-rips-nikola-jokic-yet-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/11\/gilbert-arenas-rips-nikola-jokic-yet-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Gilbert Arenas Rips Nikola Jokic Yet Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/arenagi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gilbert Arenas<\/a> doesn&#8217;t think <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jokicni01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikola Jokic<\/a> should&#8217;ve won the 2024 NBA MVP award. In fact, Arenas doesn&#8217;t even consider the Joker a first option, which, by his assessment, should disqualify someone from winning the award.<\/p>\n<p>Arenas has a history of controversial basketball takes. Being in the media as often as he is, Agent 0 doesn&#8217;t hesitate to speak his mind about the game&#8217;s top players.<\/p>\n<p>His recent take on Nikola Jokic garnered massive attention.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201c<em>Are we going to ignore the fact that he is not the go-to guy when it counts? [Murray] is the guy who Jokic relies on to hit those buckets,<\/em>\u201d Arenas said on <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/bn3vadRS7K0\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">an episode of the Nightcap show<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>Gilbert Arenas Rips Nikola Jokic Yet Again<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Gilbert Arenas says Nikola Jokic is not the go-to guy for the Nuggets when it counts <\/p>\n<p>(\ud83c\udfa5 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GilsArenaShow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@GilsArenaShow<\/a> \/ h\/t <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SwipaCam?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@SwipaCam<\/a> ) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/F3H5tg9Wle\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/F3H5tg9Wle<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheDunkCentral\/status\/1788700401388188135?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 9, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Despite cashing one of the farthest game-winners during the 2023-24 season, Gilbert Arenas says Jokic is not a go-to guy with the game on the line.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201c<em>[Murray] becomes the number-one option when the game is on the line, so you\u2019re giving the MVP to a guy who, when it counts, has to give it to another guy.<\/em>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>While it&#8217;s true that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/murraja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jamal Murray<\/a> is a proven <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/09\/23\/top-25-nba-players-2023-24-no-19-jamal-murray\/\" target=\"_self\">clutch<\/a> player, the same can be said about Nikola Jokic whose presence alone makes the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/10\/3-keys-to-a-nuggets-game-three-victory\/\" target=\"_self\">Denver Nuggets<\/a> a nightmare to defend down the stretch.<\/p>\n<p>During the 2023-24 regular season, not only was Nikola Jokic one of the finest performers down the stretch of games &#8212; he was often the featured player on his team. In clutch time play, Jokic shot 55 percent from the floor, 39 percent from the 3-point line, and 82 percent from the stripe while ranking top five for total <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/players\/clutch-traditional?PerMode=Totals&amp;Season=2023-24&amp;SeasonType=Regular%20Season&amp;dir=A&amp;sort=PTS\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">clutch points<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Not bad for a guy who isn&#8217;t very clutch.<\/p>\n<p>As for Arenas&#8217; contention that Jokic isn&#8217;t the go-to guy &#8212; Jokic more than doubled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/players\/clutch-traditional?CF=PLAYER_NAME*E*Jamal%20Murray&amp;PerMode=Totals&amp;Season=2023-24&amp;SeasonType=Regular%20Season&amp;dir=A&amp;sort=PTS\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jamal Murray<\/a> in points (129 to 60) and shot attempts (76 to 35) during crunch time this past season.<\/p>\n<h3>Gilbert Arenas History of Controversial Jokic Takes<\/h3>\n<h4>Arenas Said in April That Jokic Was the &#8216;Worst&#8217; MVP in 40 Years<\/h4>\n<p>The definition of &#8216;MVP&#8217; has changed drastically over time. Traditionally speaking, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/09\/nikola-jokic-and-the-8-others-to-win-at-least-3-mvps\/\" target=\"_self\">the NBA MVP award<\/a> is awarded to the player who puts up mind-boggling individual numbers as the top seed in his conference. However, since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/westbru01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Russell Westbrook<\/a> won the MVP award with his team finishing the season as a sixth seed in 2017, the voters have relaxed some criteria.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, Nikola Jokic earned his first NBA MVP award with his team finishing third in the Western Conference. But unlike Westbrook&#8217;s MVP in 2017, Gilbert Arenas questioned the historical significance of Jokic&#8217;s season.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There was no historical \u2014 \u2018Oh, the big almost had a triple-double! Let\u2019s give it to him.\u2019 That\u2019s what the narrative was. A big man almost \u2014 not did \u2014 almost [averaged] a triple-double and gave it to him when his team record was like that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Despite running away with the lead in many advanced categories like P.E.R. and box plus-minus, to name a couple, \u00a0Arenas didn&#8217;t think Jokic&#8217;s 2021 season was justifiable enough to win MVP. That&#8217;s not to mention that Jokic led the Nuggets to 47 wins in a shortened season despite losing Jamal Murray to an ACL tear.<\/p>\n<p>Sure enough, the voters sided with Jokic that season, registering 91 first-place votes for the future Hall of Famer.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gilbert Arenas doesn&#8217;t think Nikola Jokic should&#8217;ve won the 2024 NBA MVP award. In fact, Arenas doesn&#8217;t even consider the Joker a first option, which, by his assessment, should disqualify someone from winning the award. Arenas has a history of controversial basketball takes. Being in the media as often as he is, Agent 0 doesn&#8217;t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5146,"featured_media":77043,"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":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,20,62],"tags":[1944,564,72],"class_list":["post-77009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nuggets","category-nba","tag-gilbert-arenas","tag-nba-mvp","tag-nikola-jokic"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77009","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\/5146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}