Following the Denver Nuggets’ 2023 NBA championship, Nikola Jokic is now broadly considered the perfect participant within the league, deservedly so. For years he has been thought of the most effective passers, playmakers, and total offensive gamers within the league. Jokic is also the best post player in the NBA, however the one space of concern was all the time his protection.
Whereas some NBA speaking heads claimed that Jokic was a non-existent rim protector, a traffic-cone on the perimeter, and that it might be not possible to construct a championship-caliber protection round him, he proved everybody improper. One of many greatest causes as to why his protection didn’t undergo within the playoffs was attributable to nice schematic staff protection and Jokic’s skill to have energetic arms and get any a part of his physique into the passing lanes whereas protecting screen-plays, together with his knack for kicked balls.
Not solely was Jokic eighth amongst qualifiers within the NBA in deflections per recreation (3.1), however he additionally made use of getting his legs and toes on the ball when wanted, getting “foot deflections” or as they’re extra generally often called, kicked balls. Jokic led the NBA with 47 kicked balls in 2022-2023, which was greater than 27 different NBA groups. With there being 333 complete kicked balls final season, Jokic accounted for 14.1% of all kicked balls. Right here is the highest 10 checklist for kicked balls within the 2022-2023 season:
- Nikola Jokic: 47 kicked ball violations
- Nikola Vucevic: 19 kicked ball violations
- Nic Claxton: 18 kicked ball violations
- Jakob Poeltl: 18 kicked ball violations
- Jaden McDaniels: 16 kicked ball violations
- Domantas Sabonis: 15 kicked ball violations
- Jusuf Nurkic: 13 kicked ball violations
- Luka Doncic: 11 kicked ball violations
- Jonas Valanciunas: 11 kicked ball violations
- Pascal Siakam: 10 kicked ball violations
In a world of defensive hurdles for NBA gamers, kicked balls are a sound type of protection for Jokic.
The NBA is a league the place defending has turn out to be increasingly tough attributable to no hand-checking on protection, defensive 3-second violations, travels and carries not being known as on offensive gamers, shifting screens going unnoticed, and the general spacing within the trendy NBA.
For these causes, any edge {that a} defensive participant can get ought to be prioritized and celebrated, not criticized. A lot to the dismay of some NBA analysts and informal followers, who declare that kicked balls are foul play and an inexpensive or lazy solution to defend, it’s an elite defensive tactic that takes ability, timing, and anticipation.
Zach Lowe with ESPN stated on his podcast, “Jokic has 45 kicked ball violations this yr. [Number two] has 17. It’s his approach of claiming ‘I simply don’t really feel like taking part in protection.’ It’s good, however we shouldn’t enable guys to karate kick the ball…” Lowe does state that it’s a good defensive technique from Jokic however that he merely doesn’t prefer it, probably as a result of it disrupts the move of the sport and is by definition, a violation.
Regardless, simply because Jokic has discovered a solution to cope and survive regardless of the entire defensive hurdles of the trendy NBA, doesn’t imply that he “doesn’t really feel like taking part in protection”. If kicked balls were easy to do, more players, especially big men, would be doing it.
Kicked balls happen most frequently when a screen-play on the perimeter takes place and the opponent is trying to feed a cross right into a participant who’s slicing to the rim or posting up. Kicking the ball in that state of affairs helps reset the protection and protects the rim, particularly for a staff whose main blocker final season was Aaron Gordon at a measly 0.8 BPG.
When Jokic is kicking the ball, it’s nearly all the time when he’s not in a great place to contest a backdoor cutter. It additionally permits your complete protection to take a second for relaxation and restoration, which may be essential within the playoffs when star gamers are taking part in 40+ minutes an evening.
It’s totally truthful to say that extra massive males within the NBA ought to be adopting the kicked ball method slightly than making an attempt to power Jokic to cease doing it. Search for Jokic to attempt to hit 50 kicked balls in 2023-2024 which might break the document he set final season.
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