So far in the 2020s, the NBA has followed a particular cycle.
The defending champion will look utterly unstoppable in the regular season, setting fire to the narrative that they will be the league’s next dynasty. Then, that team will lose before even reaching a second straight NBA Finals and fall back into the fray with all the other mere contenders.
The Oklahoma City Thunder are currently trying to snap it to become the NBA’s first back-to-back champions since the Golden State Warriors in 2018, and they very well might. But we thought that about the Boston Celtics last year, and then the New York Knicks pummeled them in the Eastern Conference semifinals, with Jayson Tatum tearing his Achilles to make it all the worse.
This streak of one-and-done champions technically started with LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers in the Bubble.
But it started in earnest with Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks. Antetokounmpo was the back-to-back reigning NBA MVP, leading the Bucks to their first title in 50 years. The following year, the Bucks lost in the Eastern Conference semifinals. They failed to escape the first round for the next three years and missed the playoffs outright this year.
The Warriors snuck in one more ring to close their dynastic run in 2022, only to be Play-In Tournament regulars ever since. Then came Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets in 2023.
Jokic, like Antetokounmpo, had just won back-to-back MVPs and was jostling for the best player in the world belt when the Nuggets pulled off a gentlemen’s sweep of the Miami Heat for the franchise’s first title in history. And like the four other teams listed above, it felt like more rings would fill Jokic’s fingers in quick succession. He won one more MVP in 2024, but he has stalled at one ring.
Jokic and the Nuggets lost in the Western Conference semfinals twice — to Minnesota in 2024 and to Oklahoma City last year — before the most damning series loss in Jokic’s career. Thursday night, the injury-ravaged Timberwolves beat the Nuggets 110-98 to eliminate Denver in the first round in six games.
The Timberwolves have become the Nuggets’ nemesis, so it’s possible this was just a nightmare matchup for Denver. Jokic, the league’s preeminent triple-double king, still filled his stat sheet, but four-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert mitigated Jokic as much as anyone could.
It’s also increasingly possible that Jokic is suddenly at the same crossroads as Antetokounmpo.
After the loss, Jokic was asked “how far away or not far away” the Nuggets were from contending for another championship. Jokic deadpanned, “I mean, we just lost in the first round, so I think we are far away.” He declined to comment on what changes may be coming in Denver, but joked that, in his native Serbia, “we would all be fired.”
Jokic told reporters, “I still want to be a Nugget forever.”
When asked in a follow-up whether he plans to sign his extension this summer, Jokic became visibly peeved and repeated, “I still want to be a Nugget forever.”
This cycle of one-and-done champions isn’t necessarily any one star or team’s fault. The NBA’s new second apron created an ecosystem that effectively killed free agency, made roster-building more tedious, and turned superteams into relics. Dynasties as we knew them might simply be dead.
Be that as it may, Jokic doesn’t need to look further than Milwaukee to know that line of questioning will avalanche until he and the Nuggets at least reach another NBA Finals.
Antetokounmpo has never publicly demanded a trade, but rumblings have bubbled for at least a year that he privately wants out of Milwaukee. By all accounts, he’s torn: He loves Milwaukee and wants to be a Buck forever, but Milwaukee is far away from contending for another title. After Denver’s loss to Minnesota, you can copy-and-paste all of those Antetokounmpo-Bucks talking points onto Jokic and the Nuggets.
You could argue the stakes are higher for Jokic than Antetokounmpo, too. While Antetokounmpo held the title of best player alive, Jokic is in the discussion for one of the best players to ever live. His individual greatness is all-time, but to truly endure in that pantheon, one championship won’t cut it. Jokic probably cares more about his horses than G.O.A.T. debates, however.
Nobody can or should tell Jokic — or Antetokounmpo — what’s best for him. If he loves Denver and wants to be a Nugget for life, that’s his prerogative. He is cemented as a Mile High legend, and his statue should already be in production. But if Jokic wants to fill his trophy case like his stat sheet, he may need to play elsewhere.
Read the full article here
