This trend has Nuggets fans very concerned...

There is only one NBA player in the entire league who has finished first or second in MVP voting six years in a row. He led the NBA in player efficiency rating every one of those six years, and right now through seven games, he ranks sixth. And this being Nuggets Digest and you seeing the logo, you likely know that I'm talking about Nikola Jokic, who's still averaging 23 points, nine rebounds, and nine assists per game. The only player in the league who's putting up those numbers, and Nuggets fans are worried anyway, because the numbers are underneath Beneath that line, the that are the worst of his career. Now, he's shooting 50% from the field, his lowest since 2017-2018. He's shooting 21.9% from three, a career low. And the Nuggets are 4-3, with an 0-3 record against teams with winning records. So is this just a slow start, or is this something bigger? I'll show you what the numbers say, what Jokic and his coach are saying, and one thing that should worry Denver a lot more than seven games, and yes, this does come after Jokic had his best game of the season. I'm well aware of that, but the Toronto Raptors don't have very good big man defense, and I do think Jokic is going to bounce back, so we're going to dive in to all the metrics on that right now, because Jokic, he needs to be the best player in the NBA for the Denver Nuggets to win the NBA Finals. Right now, they have a 3% chance to do so on Kalshi, and I do think that that is a fair trade to make, because on Kalshi, you're trading directly against other users who are sleeping on the Nuggets right now, not the house like traditional sportsbooks. You're buying yes or no contracts on the outcomes of events across sports. politics, and even the weather. For example, the Nuggets winning the NBA championship despite just having a 3% chance to do so. If you are to trade $25 on that, you will make over $750 if you are correct on the Nuggets winning the NBA finals. And guys, if you do want to try out Kalshi, make sure to click the link in our description down below. It's also in our pinned comment and sign up for Kalshi using code digest NBA. You can get $55 when you trade your first 25. It's a great deal for you. It helps the channel out a ton. And now let's dive into the numbers that we really are seeing with Jokic right now. Here's what's changed more than anything. Jokic's whole game is built on getting to the rim and reading the defense. This season, only 16% of his shots are at the basket. That's a career low. And his average shot is 12 feet from the rim, which ties a career high. 25% of his shots are threes, nearly a career high, and he's making 21.9% of them, his career low. His free throw rate and his offensive rate, rebounding, are both down sharply, too. He has made seven threes in seven games. In three of those games, he has made none. So. 23-9-9 looks fine on the surface, but underneath, it is a different story. His player efficiency rating is a 26.1, the lowest since his rookie season in 2015-2016. He's 6th in the NBA in it and finished 1st last season. In win shares, he's 15th. Last season, he was 2nd. Even his scoring is down. 23.4 points per game is his lowest since 2019-2020. And look at those three losses. In the season opener in Oklahoma City, he scored 13 points on 26.3% shooting and was a minus 20. Against Golden State, he had 19 points, 11 assists, and the Nuggets still lost at home. Against Portland, he had 26 points and four steals, and they lost again. The turnovers are part of it too. He's turned it over 25 times in seven games. That includes six against New Orleans at home and seven in the rematch on the road. And Nikola Vucevic, 4'6", 5'5", saw the rebounding drop coming. He wrote that the Nuggets need offensive rebounds and that they'd be better with two big men on the floor together. And honestly, I do think that is a good idea for a fix. And overall, you saw Robert Portman say right here that it's just three games, and you're right, it is early. But Coach David Adleman says the Jokic shots that he usually makes, the jump hook and the 15-footer quote are coming. He even said he would die on that sword, but missed shots are one thing. What's happening to the team around him is a completely different thing that's hurting him just as much. Because the real problem here, the one that we have to look at, might not be Jokic's jumper at all. In three losses, Jokic is a combined minus 39. In four wins, he's a plus 59. Denver's offense is still 11th in the league, and it hasn't ranked outside the top 10 since Jokic's rookie year. But they're 26th in points in the paint and 28th in three-point attempts per game. The bench is 28th in scoring and 23rd in net rating. The problem with building around a center is overall when he's not an MVP-level machine, there's nothing else to fall back on it. Adelman said it on Monday. It's too much responsibility for Jokic and Jamal Murray, and he's making a concerted effort to get Jokic into the post, He wants his role players getting more threes up. And Jokic has a theory about the post. He said the officials are allowing defenders to do too much down there. And that's why, in his words, players are not willing to play in the low post anymore. So the guy who should live there, the most efficient post scorer the NBA's seen over the last seven years, is being pushed out of it. And we saw right here, Marsh Bahalo wrote, Time to replace Jamal Murray. I'd pump the brakes on that. He is signed through 2028-29, and he's playing really well. So I don't think that's going to be a move that happens anytime soon unless the Nuggets do hit the panic button. And even so, does that mean that Murray's the one to get traded? Because look at who was supposed to help. Aaron Gordon missed more than half of last season with an injury. DeMar DeRozan's 37 years old, and Bagley, Hopkins, Diallo, and Whitmore have a handful of playoff appearances between them, and Hopkins and Diallo have played a couple NBA games in a general sense. Rookie Trayvon Brazil has been a pleasant surprise, That's not the full rotation right there. And Denver's been trying to patch this for years. Russell Westbrook, Tim Hardaway Jr., Jonas Valanciunas, DeAndre Jordan, and Reggie Jackson have all passed through. And outside of Tim Hardaway Jr. nearly being sixth man of the year and Russell Westbrook playing great, there was not a lot of help on that side of things. And only five players left from the championship team. Jokic, Murray, Gordon, Brown, and Zeke Nagy, who doesn't play, Bruce Brown, Michael Porter Jr., and Peyton Watson, all guys who had effects, are all gone as well. Jeff Green is gone. And Denver fired its GM and coach less than two years after that title, after things had a sharp decline. And now before we panic, as I mentioned earlier, Jokic just had the best game of his season. On Wednesday night against the Raptors, he showed up. 32 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists against Toronto. 68.4% shooting in 30 minutes of action. The Nuggets were plus 25 with him on the floor, and they outscored Toronto 41-15 in the third quarter. And it's not just one game. He's shot better than 60% in three of his last five. His shot is coming back. The post-up and 15-footers Adelman promised just have not shown up. Yeah, and John Huston did comment, Nicola doesn't care anymore. I'd say the opposite though. After the home opener against New Orleans, he told fans who booed the team that they were quote, not welcome anymore. That's a guy who cares a lot. It just shows how tense things have gotten since the fall from grace of them winning a title a couple of years back. And Adelman has quote, extreme trust in the others and that the role players have to have trust in themselves. That's the real test over the next few weeks. How do they perform? So one big game doesn't fix it, but it does tell you the player is fine. the rest of the roster, which has been a question for like two years now and has not had a good answer. Because let's be serious, even if Jokic does bounce all the way back and be back to MVP form, which I expect he will, how does Denver get better around him? Well, ESPN's Ben Goliver laid it all out. Jokic plans to sign an extension next summer. Worth up to $360 million over five years. A record average of $72 million a year. It runs through his age 36 season. Murray and Aaron Gordon are signed through 2028-2029. And Christian Brown's on a five-year, $125 million extension that kicked in this year. All their picks are gone. Denver's traded its first-round picks in 2027, 2029, and 2032. Add it up. Since winning the title in 2023, the Nuggets have gotten three straight seasons without reaching the conference finals. Last April, they lost in the first round to Minnesota, an injured Minnesota team, because Denver was also dealing with injuries, unable to perform, and the rest of the league is watching. Howard Beck reported that rival executives are monitoring the Nuggets' struggles. To be clear, ESPN says that Jokic hasn't shown any desire to leave the Denver Nuggets, but it also points to how Milwaukee traded Giannis to Miami last summer. The other model is Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk won the 2011 title in Dallas, stayed loyal, and spent eight more seasons there without winning another playoff series. That's the version of the Nuggets story that fans are afraid of. They're afraid of this becoming what happened with Dirk in Dallas. And ESPN's comparison is Tim Duncan, who won a title in 2014 at age 37 and retired two years later, but he did it on a discount, making $10.4 million. Jokic's extension will average $72 million, the highest a contract has ever averaged in NBA history. That's obviously causing some concern when it comes to a team that's already in the second apron. So, should Nuggets fans be worried? Well, about seven games in, no. Seven games is a small sample size, and Wednesday looked like the start of a bounce back. But the worry isn't seven games. It's a capped-out roster. Three first-round picks are gone, and a team that has to be built around Jokic winning MVP every single night. He can't let them down even a little bit. He has to be perfect, and that's not fair to do, even to the NBA's best player. And here's what I'm watching for. Does Jokic's shot profile get closer to the rim where he's at his most successful? Do the role players take Edelman's plan and shoot more threes? And does the bench climb out of a bottom five in scoring? If those three things move, then this was a slow start. If they don't, the shot chart isn't the story, the roster's the story, and it's not gonna be fixed. And guys, if you want more Nuggets coverage like this, we're at 4,094 subscribers right now, and we wanna get to 4.5K before November ends. So make sure to hit subscribe, and guys, Comment of the day goes to Jack ZGB1232. He's been commenting on a lot of videos recently. Shout out to him and John Houston, who are coming through on every video. And he wrote, The only club in the second apron, and they have such a shallow and crappy roster. I can't speak to the apron part, but the shallow roster at the bench, it's 28th in scoring, and the second apron, I mean, I get why they're in it, but still, it sucks right now. And the last question is, Who needs to step up most? Jokic, Jamal Murray, the rest of the starters, or that bench unit? I think we all know the answer, so let's just keep it to Jokic, Murray, or the rest of the starters, because that bench needs to get it going, and we're looking at you, DeMar. Like this video, subscribe, turn on post notifications. Have a great day. We'll catch y'all later.