The Nuggets altered their starting lineup for Saturday night’s contest against the Detroit Pistons, opting to bench Serbian big man Nikola Jokic.
The move caught a lot of people off guard, but it was later discovered that Jokic actually approached head coach Michael Malone, asking to be benched.
“Nikola Jokic is probably the most selfless player on our team. He’s a guy that even came to me, says, ‘Coach I don’t want to start anymore. I just want to win,’” Malone said about the switch. “He’s one of the few guys on our team, that if I can pull him out of the starting lineup, he’s not going to be upset and pout. And I give him a lot of credit and respect for that.”
Jokic was arguably the team’s best player last season, but has been unable to get things going so far this year, averaging 9.9 points and 6.3 rebounds per game which is down from last season.
A big reason for the down performance has been that Jusuf Nurkic has been the team’s starting center thanks to an impressive offseason, forcing Malone to move Jokic to the power forward position, a position he is not all that familiar with.
After the game, Jokic told reporters he went to the coach, asking to be benched.
“I talked to coach about [not starting],” Jokic said. “I am good with that.”
At the end of the day, Jokic has best intentions in mind, and wants to help this team win in any way possible.
He did admit that shifting to forward has affected him in a way, saying: “All last season I played center. I had a good season, so it’s a little bit different … I just need to have more fun out there … And everything will be better.”
Jokic has the talent to be great, but right now he is struggling to get his swagger back. Hopefully he can figure things out from the bench, and return to being the Nikola Jokic that everybody came to love in his breakout season last year.