Nikola Jokic's loyalty doesn't have to be a curse

The Joker verbally recommitted to the Nuggets last week, saying he'll re-sign next summer. That allows Denver to operate without fear but also takes his leverage off the table, which may result in that single championship he's already won. That's okay.

The Golden Stairs; Edward Burne-Jones; 1876

Good morning. It's Free Newsletter Wednesday. Let's basketball.

Last week addressing the media, Nikola Jokic said he will sign an extension with the Denver Nuggets next summer, provided they want to retain him, which of course they do. This is refreshing after a year spent reading Giannis Antetokounmpo's tea leaves. Speaking in general terms, the sports media has an odd relationship with star players expressing wanderlust. The media (again, using broad definitions and generalizations here) tends to stoke the flames of intrigue – less "for clicks" than "for something to write or talk about" or "for something that makes one seem smart and forward-thinking." It happened with Giannis before he really leaned into the rumors. It has been happening with Jokic for the past year or six months. It will happen with Victor Wembanyama, it will happen with Anthony Edwards, it will happen with Cooper Flagg eventually. It comes for every star, even those stars who do remain with a single franchise all their careers and win titles. Ask Kobe Bryant, ask Dirk Nowitzki. The rumors swirl unless and until you put them down.

Stephen Curry has effectively put them down through his career, and has won four championships to boot. Jokic has one championship and a team that has gotten progressively worse since raising the O'Brien. His team's owner is seen as cheap – that is debatable at best, the Nuggets spend a normal amount of luxury tax for a mid-market NBA team – and his supporting cast is seen as insufficient. The biggest issue since the Nuggets' title has been injury-related, specifically as it regards Aaron Gordon, a perfect Jokic running mate. It would be as if Draymond Green was never healthy through a postseason after 2015 (and as if Kevin Durant did not sign with the Warriors in 2016). It's a bad break, but the injuries are not of the nature where it is obvious every October that Gordon will be hobbled and thus hobble the Nuggets. Jamal Murray's general inconsistency is also a minor problem for the Nuggets, though he was only a key detriment to the Nuggets in their epic 2024 playoff series against the Timberwolves, and Murray certainly wasn't the only problem.

Other than Gordon's health, Jokic and the Nuggets' post-title run of misfortune can be most attributed to the tumult in the front office. Calvin Booth had taken over the front office in time to claim the title, though his predecessor Tim Connelly almost entirely built the roster to that point. As was evident in the media, Booth believed his own self-narrative, and made some roster choices that raised eyebrows. He also apparently pushed Michael Malone too far on rotations and tactics, leading to a feud, a rift and a mutual dismissal in 2025, just before the playoffs. Booth's replacements have done fine in trying to get Denver back to the Finals, but all that uncertainty is a recipe for losing the faith of the only real person who matters here, who is Jokic.

Jokic has seemed nonplussed by all the drama. He appears to have liked Malone but also likes David Adelman. He had an interesting relationship and chemistry with Michael Porter Jr., but didn't complain when he made way for Cam Johnson. He embraced late-career Russell Westbrook. He is embracing late-career DeMar DeRozan. He genuinely seems to be low drama and low maintenance. A modern Tim Duncan. A big Steph Curry. An absolute dream.

As mentioned, Curry won four titles in that role. Duncan won five, the last as a supplement piece instead of a centerpiece. Jokic is certainly not on a path to claim that many, and very well could end up stuck at one championship.

That's fine. We, the media and the fandom, write the legacies of these players. We don't have to diminish Jokic's greatness because he chose to remain low drama and low maintenance in lieu of agitating for roster changes or changing rosters himself by pressuring the Nuggets. His case for historic greatness would be bolstered by another championship or three; the same can be said for Nowitzki (who has one), for Charles Barkley (zero), for Hakeem Olajuwon (two), for Jerry West (one), for Wilt Chamberlain (two), for Kevin Durant (two). Some of the greatest players ever won zero, one or two titles. It's fine! We write the legacies. We can respect and credit those who won a fistful of rings, like Jordan (six), LeBron (four), Steph (four), Kareem (six), Magic (five), Bird (three) and most of all Bill Russell (11). We can put those in context to the careers those legends played, and the times they played in, and the contemporaries they faced in the playoffs. Legacy assessment is not a counting exercise. It's a lot more.

And those of us watching Jokic through his career, and understanding the context of Murray's injury days after the Gordon trade, and Gordon's injuries later on, and the management tumult, and the apron era putting the squeeze on high-salary teams, and Christian Braun's regression and Cam Johnson's adjustment period, and Porter's injury history and bizarre personality risk, and the rise of the Thunder and the Spurs, and the particular trouble the Nuggets have with the Wolves, and Rudy Gobert's somehow underrated defensive genius and how Jokic has continued to beat the world most but not all of the time through all of this – we write the legacy.

We don't have to total up Jokic's titles and MVPs and counting stats and shrug and ponder what might have been. We have agency here. We can properly assess the greatness of Jokic's career in spite of, if it stays like this, a single championship. Our failures to contextualize the individual greatness of players in a team sport in the past does not stop us from doing better work in the future. The YouTube and League Pass era gives us access to all of Jokic's work on a nightly basis. We can see for ourselves the genius and the extraordinary quality. We don't have to buy the false narrative that winning just a single championship is a failure of Jokic, and that to avoid locking in that failure he should press for change or agitate for a trade to a higher-level contender. We, humankind, are an advanced species. We can contextualize reality and judge for ourselves what this man's basketball legacy will be.

That Column, But Shorter

Because Ringz Culture remains pervasive in a fandom that lionizes Kobe Bryant's maniacal Jordan cosplay, Nikola Jokic's historical legacy will be questioned if he doesn't bully the Nuggets into adding talent or he doesn't demand a trade. F--K THAT. Whether he wins one or 20, he is an all-time great who has changed what we thought possible from a center in this sport.

Post Script

This is not a knock on Giannis or LeBron or Durant. The heart wants what it wants, you only get one chance at living this particular life on this rock, and changing teams for any reason is not worth critique on its face. How annoying you are about changing teams does matter, of course.

Random Preseason Notes

The Michael Porter Jr. + Julius Randle fit might ... kind of work? Keon Ellis got the start with Mikel Brown Jr. out. It'll be interesting to see whether Brown comes off the bench to start the season or Jordi Fernandez throws him straight into the flames.

New Orleans had everyone available and chose to start Yves Missi with Zion Williamson, bringing Derik Queen off the bench, and starting Herb Jones with Dejounte Murray, bringing Jeremiah Fears off the bench. The trade market thirsts for this team!

Aday Mara had a very rough Summer League but is off to a nice preseason start.

Utah sat some key players in their second preseason game, but Darryn Peterson took advantage of the opportunity. He was getting exactly where he wanted on the floor. If he can shoot efficiently and take the right shots, he's going to have a strong offensive season.

The Warriors are home from Hawai'i but still haven't seen Kristaps Porzingis.

Links

Ariel Hukporti is indeed out for the season with a torn Achilles.

The other night on the Knicks-Sixers broadcast, Mike Breen shared a story he'd heard from Sixers training camp: Joel Embiid was a couple minutes late to practice, and LeBron scolded him. The clip and story traveled around the internet, and LeBron said it's false, and that Embiid hasn't been late at all. Is Mike Breen lying? Is someone lying to Mike Breen? Is ... [gasp] ... LeBron lying to us?

Chris Thompson in Defector on LeBron commuting via Fanatics' 'copter.

Alright, one more LeBron-Sixers link: Dave McMenamin with a behind-the-scenes look at Philly's training camp with a new-look team.

ProPublica is one of the nation's most valuable media enterprises. In this piece, writer Jake Pearson signed onto DraftKings and deliberately bet in the model of a problem gambler. The platform made him a VIP.

Matt Levine's Money Stuff newsletter has a great blurb on the growing and pervasive concept of sports betting as an investing strategy. It's obviously dumb! Don't do it to yourself!

Ben Horney at Front Office Sports has more on the Euroleague's rejection of the NBA's offer to essentially buy it out to form the core of NBA Europe.

Shocking headline of the day: "The Tech Industry's Aggressive Push to Integrate AI Into Schools Is Turning Into a Disaster."