Yahoo Sports AM: Is Nikola Jokić having the best season ever?

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🚨 Headlines

🏈 Major salary cap increase: Next season’s NFL salary cap will be between $277.5 million and $281.5 million. That’s up from $255.4 million last year, and represents a far greater increase than expected.

⚽️ Champions League playoffs: Real Madrid (Spain), PSG (France), Dortmund (Germany) and PSV (Netherlands) advanced to the knockouts, and the draw for the Round of 16 is tomorrow.

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⚾️ The robots are coming: The automated ball-strike system (robo umps) will be tested in spring training games this year. Teams are given two ball-strike challenges per game, which they retain if successful.

🏀 Ratings way down: The NBA’s new-look All-Star Game drew just 4.7 million viewers, which is down 13% from last year and marks the second-lowest figure in the last 25 years (4.6 million in 2023).

🏈 Champs get new OC: The Eagles are turning inward to replace Kellen Moore, promoting pass game coordinator Kevin Patullo to offensive coordinator.

🏀 Is Nikola Jokić having the best season ever?

It’s easy to get fatigued by consistent excellence, so before Nikola Jokić returns to the floor tonight let’s take a moment to marvel at what is shaping up to be perhaps the best statistical season in NBA history.

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By the numbers: The 7-foot Serbian is averaging 29.8 points (3rd in the NBA), 12.6 rebounds (4th), 10.2 assists (2nd), 1.8 steals (4th) and 0.7 blocks (64th) with a 66.7% true shooting percentage (7th).

• Add it all up and he’s on the doorstep of becoming the sixth player ever to win at least four MVPs, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain and LeBron James.

The greatest seasons ever: Comparing across eras is no easy feat, but Yahoo Sports’ Ben Rohrbach put Jokić’s campaign up against six of the best statistical seasons ever — Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, James, Jordan and Chamberlain’s best seasons by PER — to determine whether we’ve ever seen something like this before. Spoiler alert: We haven’t.

• Embiid (2022-23): 33.1 pts, 10.2 reb, 4.2 ast, 1.0 stl, 1.7 blk, 65.5% TS, 31.4 PER … Embiid’s scoring and assists in his MVP season produced 43.7 points per game, 10 fewer than Jokić is producing this year.

• Antetokounmpo (2021-22): 29.9 pts, 11.6 reb, 5.8 ast, 1.1 stl, 1.4 blk, 63.3% TS, 32.1 PER … Jokić has nearly as many win shares coming out of this season’s All-Star break (12.2) as Giannis had in his best statistical campaign (12.9). Seems good.

• Curry (2015-16): 30.1 pts, 5.4 reb, 6.7 ast, 2.1 stl, 0.2 blk, 66.9% TS, 31.5 PER … Curry then (NBA-record 402 threes) and Jokić now have the two most efficient high-volume scoring seasons ever. And Jokić already has more rebounds and assists than Curry did all season.

• James (2008-09): 28.4 pts, 7.6 reb, 7.2 ast, 1.7 stl, 1.1 blk, 59.1% TS, 31.7 PER … This was LeBron’s statistical apex and his first of four MVP seasons, and yet Jokić this year is averaging more points, rebounds, assists and steals.

• Jordan (1987-88): 35.0 pts, 5.5 reb, 5.9 ast, 3.2 stl, 1.6 blk, 60.3% TS, 31.7 PER … MJ’s first MVP was also the NBA’s first instance of a player winning the MVP-DPOY double. But his defensive stats might have been inflated, and Jokić is the more efficient scorer.

• Chamberlain (1961-62): 50.4 pts, 25.7 reb, 2.4 ast, 53.6% TS, 32.1 PER … Context matters. Wilt was the only 7-foot NBA regular back then, and poorer league-wide shooting meant far more rebounding opportunities. Imagine Jokić if he weren’t surrounded by other giants.

Shoutout to Shai: In almost any other season, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would be running away with the MVP: His 31.03 PER is the 20th-best mark ever and he’s got the Thunder eight games ahead of any other team in the West. Unfortunately, he ran into a buzzsaw.

⛳️ Pick up the pace!

Anyone who’s ever played a round of golf knows that beyond a string of double bogeys, nothing can ruin your day quite like a slow pace of play. Turns out, that issue isn’t unique to weekend warriors.

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Slow play on Tour: The final group at last month’s American Express took five hours and 39 minutes to finish 18 holes on Sunday, just one hour less than it took the NFL to complete two playoff games the same day. A week later, the final group at Torrey Pines took nearly five-and-a-half hours.

What they’re saying: Slow play has been plaguing the PGA and LPGA Tours for years, resulting in a growing cacophony of complaints. And at Torrey Pines, former LPGA star and longtime analyst Dottie Pepper couldn’t take it any longer.

• “I think we’re starting to need a new word to talk about this pace of play issue, and it’s respect,” she said on the broadcast. “For your fellow competitors, for the fans, for broadcasts. It’s just gotta get better.”

• “It’s been gnawing at me and a lot of people for a while,” she added. “It’s on fire post-COVID, and it’s our darn fault if we don’t do better. … Let’s not mess it up.”

So, what can be done? Most everyone agrees this is a problem worth solving, but there’s no consensus on how to do so (although smaller field sizes, coming in 2026, should help). Do you add a shot clock like TGL has done? Do you ban the time-consuming practice of AimPoint putting? Do you penalize repeat offenders?

The LPGA leads the way: While the PGA Tour will soon begin testing various time-saving initiatives,…