Denver Nuggets star center Nikola Jokic was named Western Conference Player of the Week for Week 6, thus achieving a feat not accomplished by any Nugget since Carmelo Anthony.
Jokic has now won back-to-back Player of the Week Awards, making him the first Nugget to do so since Anthony earned back-to-back honors in 2006. The Joker has won Player of the Week eight times, which already ranks second in franchise history.
It would have been hard to deny Jokic Player of the Week after the way it finished.
The Serbian native dominated the Utah Jazz on Sunday, scoring a career-high 47 points on 17-for-26 shooting while also pulling down 12 rebounds and dishing out five assists. Though Jokic's assist numbers curtailed over the course of the past week, he shot well over 60 percent from the field and led the Nuggets to wins in three of four contests.
Jokic's brilliant play has resulted in his name being tossed around as a top candidate for league MVP. He leads the NBA in PER (31.4), Win Shares (4.4), VORP (2.3) and Box Plus/Minus (10.6), spearheading a Nuggets team otherwise struggling to build on last season's run to the Western Conference Finals.
The 25-year-old has long been renowned as one of the best bigs in the NBA, capable of racking up triple-doubles and impacting the game in just about every way. But Jokic is asserting himself as perhaps the best player in the league this season.
Anthony was a star in Denver, and Jokic is on the fast track towards being a far bigger star.
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