Eighty years. The NBA has existed for eighty years, and in all that time, no single player has finished a season as the statistical leader in both rebounds and assists per game simultaneously. Not Wilt Chamberlain. Not Magic Johnson. Not LeBron James. Until now. Nikola Jokic has done it — leading the entire NBA in both categories simultaneously — in a season already described as the greatest individual statistical performance in modern basketball.
How Jokic does it
He is not a traditional centre who stations himself near the basket and fights for position. He operates from the high post, the elbow, the corner — anywhere the ball needs to go next. His passing is built on a reading of defensive alignment that is more characteristic of a guard or point forward than a seven-footer. The rebounds come from positioning — he is almost always in the right place — rather than from leaping ability or physical battles.
The MVP race
The race for the 2026 NBA Most Valuable Player award has effectively one credible candidate. Jokic has won the award three times previously and is the consensus frontrunner for a fourth. Denver enters the playoffs as a top-four seed in the Western Conference. Whether any team in the West has a credible answer to him is the question the bracket will answer.
Chukwu Vincent Ogbonnia is the founder and lead editor of Viralarena, a Nigerian digital media platform covering breaking news, music, and sport. Based in Abuja, Vincent is a content creator passionate about telling Nigerian stories with speed, accuracy, and cultural authenticity.
Chukwu Vincent Ogbonnia is the founder and lead editor of Viralarena, a Nigerian digital media platform covering breaking news, music, and sport. Based in Abuja, Vincent is a content creator passionate about telling Nigerian stories with speed, accuracy, and cultural authenticity.
