If Nikola Jokic is going to win a historic fourth MVP trophy this season, his competition won’t make it easy.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is spearheading the NBA’s newest superteam and rarely playing in the fourth quarter because his work is done by the end of the third. Luka Doncic is averaging more than 35 points under the bright lights of Hollywood. Both point guards are running amok in the West with less hardware to their names.
Yet the Nuggets center still stood tall in November, earning Western Conference Player of the Month honors, the league announced Tuesday. Detroit’s Cade Cunningham was named Eastern Conference Player of the Month. The accolades for November also account for the last week of October, when the NBA season begins.
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Jokic averaged 28.9 points, 12.4 rebounds and 10.9 assists in 19 games, shooting 64% from the field and 45% from 3-point range. After becoming the first center in league history to average a triple-double last season, he’s on track to do it again. The Nuggets were 14-5 entering December. (They lost their first game of the new month Monday to Dallas.)
Jokic was named the Western Conference Player of the Week twice during November en route to his latest distinction. He leads the league with 11 triple-doubles, seven more than the player with the second-most, Chicago’s Josh Giddey.
The NBA single-season record belongs to Russell Westbrook, who had 42 in 2016-17. Jokic set a personal career-high with 34 last season, when he believed he was playing the best basketball of his life but finished as runner-up to Gilgeous-Alexander in MVP voting.
Jokic is already one of nine players in NBA history to be named MVP in three seasons.
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