The Denver Nuggets enjoyed an offensive explosion on Wednesday night as they cruised past the New Orleans Pelicans, 144-119. Nikola Jokic dropped in 38 points while grabbing eight rebounds and dishing out 10 assists in Denver's fourth-consecutive win. They now sit at 32-19, good for fourth place in the Western Conference and just .5 games behind the Houston Rockets for third.
That's a lot of numbers to digest but rest assured in knowing that Jokic is not getting bogged down with any of them. Asked postgame if he believes his team has gotten better, Jokic offered this:
"Maybe. I don't know. To be honest, I don't know any stats, any of the analytics stuff so I don't follow that."
Jokic went on to point out allowing too many offensive rebounds and turning the ball over too often as things for them to improve upon.
"Maybe we are a little bit better," he added. "Who knows?"
It's not surprising at all that Jokic is not locked into PER and offensive efficiency and any other metric used to quantify play. It's still amusing that arguably the best player in basketball has no use for checking his box scores and press clippings for affirmation. There's only one thing he counts and that's rings at the end of the season.
Now, ask about advanced analytics when it comes to horse racing and it might be a totally different answer.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Nikola Jokic Had Comical Line About Stats After Denver Scored 144 Points in Win.