Nikola Jokić has added another statistical first to a career already overflowing with them. When the regular season ended Sunday, the Denver Nuggets star finished as the NBA leader in both rebounds per game and assists per game, becoming the first player in league history to top both categories in the same season. Jokić finished the season at 12.9 rebounds per game and 10.7 assists per game.
The numbers make the feat even cleaner. Jokić finished ahead of Karl-Anthony Towns in rebounds per game, with Towns at 11.9, and ahead of Cade Cunningham in assists per game, with Cunningham at 9.9.
What makes this remarkable is not just rarity, but positional absurdity. Centers are supposed to own the glass. Point guards are supposed to run the offense. Jokić, as he has done for years now, ignored that division entirely. He rebounded like a traditional big man while orchestrating possessions like the league’s best table-setter, turning a supposed contradiction into a season-long norm.
The achievement also fit neatly into Denver’s regular-season finish. Jokić capped the year in the Nuggets’ finale against San Antonio as Denver secured the No. 3 seed in the West, and in the process officially sealed the historic leaderboard double. It is one thing to post unusual all-around numbers over a few months. It is another to finish first in two categories that almost never belong to the same type of player.
At this point, the challenge with Jokić is no longer describing what kind of player he is. It is finding new ways to describe what he has made normal.
