The 1980s belonged to Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. The 1990s were Michael Jordan’s decade. The 2000s were dominated by Tim Duncan’s Spurs and Kobe Bryant’s Lakers. From 2011 to 2020, every NBA Finals featured either LeBron James or Stephen Curry. Are the 2020s about to be Nikola Jokic‘s?
The Serb has his fingerprints all over the first four years of the decade. In 2020, Jokic’s Nuggets made the Western Conference Finals only to lose to the eventual champion Lakers. In 2021 and 2022, Jokic won back-to-back MVP awards and carried his team to the playoffs despite playing without an injured Jamal Murray. The minute he got Murray back in 2023, Jokic won his first NBA Championship and Finals MVP. And now, he seems primed to go back-to-back.
Jokic leads the decade thus far in postseason rebounds, assists, double-doubles and triple-doubles, and is second only to the Celtics’ Jayson Tatum in points.