Nikola Jokic

Jokic runs the offense from the center spot, and the card backs every word of it. Five-bar passing, a crowned 5 from two, and 5 from three — he’s the rare big who can pick you apart from the elbow or just bury you over the top. Park him at the high post and the whole floor bends to him: he dimes the cutter, steps into the pull-up, or muscles a 5-power shoulder into the paint. Add crowned rebounding and he owns both backboards. The catch is foot speed — a 3 there means he’s not winning a footrace or chasing a guard, so he plays at his own pace and makes you live with it.

In the Zone: Glass Cleaner. It bumps his already-crowned rebounding even higher and juices his putback finishing straight off a board, so every miss in the half-court turns into a live second-chance bucket. Crash the glass, go right back up instead of resetting — the immediate finish becomes the highest-percentage play. On defense, swallow every rebound to kill the possession and start your offense.

Run him with a downhill scorer who eats off his passes. Anthony Edwards is the cleanest fit — Ant attacks the rim, Jokic feeds the open look and cleans up the misses, and the two of them form about as nasty a pure-offense pairing as the roster has. Since Jokic’s foot speed is the soft spot, a rangy on-ball stopper as the third man covers the perimeter ground he can’t.

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