Back in the day when Alex English retired from basketball, he left the Nuggets’ record books filled up with his name and stats. The player stood at the top of the franchise’s all-time scoring list with 21,645, plus the peak spot in assists with 3,679 dimes, games played, field goals made, and more.
Anyone around would tell you that Alex’s marks looked unbreakable, until Nikola Jokic arrived in Denver. Now, the Serbian is set to rewrite the club’s history, first by beating English’s assists record two years ago, and now getting close to the scoring title with 16,589 to his name.
“I did not. It won’t survive much longer with The Joker,” the Hall of Famer said when asked about his Nuggets scoring record. “He’s got my All-Time assist record and he’s slowly getting, he will be the All-Time leading scorer no doubt about it.”
“He is retro, but he is also forging his own style and his own game. When Michael was playing, guys wanted to be like Mike. They wanted to dunk, shoot jump shots… There are probably guys that aren’t as agile, as quick, they see the Joker and say ‘I want to be like Joker,'” English added.
As Nikola is enjoying the best regular season stats by a single player in all of the league’s history, he’s on pace to become the first center to average a triple-double. Also, he’s the first athlete to ever rank top 10 in points, rebounds, assists and steals per contest in the same campaign.
“Obviously,” Jokić said back in March. “I think I’m playing the best basketball of my life.” It would seem obvious that the big man should win his fourth-MVP award, but Shai Gilgeous-Alexander continues to put up a fight as his 32.7 points per game lead the league.
Nevertheless, the Denver star is more efficient, as his 29.8 points and 10.2 assists have produced 53.7 points per match for the Nuggets. Just two years ago, for example, Joel Embiid conquered the MVP award with 33.1 points and 4.2 assists, which only yielded 43.7 points per game.
