The Denver Nuggets absorbed a gut-wrenching three-point defeat to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night, the final dagger coming from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s game-winning bucket. In an instant, SGA solidified his status as the clear NBA MVP frontrunner. Yet for Nikola Jokic, the “L” felt strangely secondary—because in the same breath he delivered a statistical miracle that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar needed more than a decade to accomplish.
While the scoreboard read defeat, Jokic walked off with 32 points, 14 rebounds, and 13 assists on an efficient 12-of-19 shooting. That triple-double wasn’t just another monster line; it pushed him past Kareem for the most games in NBA history with at least 20 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists—323 and counting, according to OptaSTATS. Kareem required 1,560 career games and roughly a decade of dominance to reach the same plateau. Jokic? He did it in just 794 games.
This is the kind of anomaly that rewrites the definition of greatness. This season alone, Jokic is averaging 28.9 points, 12.5 rebounds, and 10.3 assists while shooting 57.5% from the field, 39.4% from three, and 83.2% from the free-throw line. He is on track to become only the second player ever—after Russell Westbrook—to post multiple triple-double seasons. And he has now reached that magical 20-10-5 threshold in roughly 40% of his entire career.
To put the pace in perspective: Kareem (322), LeBron James (296), and Wilt Chamberlain (278) sit behind him, but all three played hundreds more games to get there. Jokic is simply operating on a different timeline. Three MVP trophies already sit on his shelf, and he is barreling toward becoming just the third player in league history to finish in the top two of MVP voting for six straight seasons, joining Bill Russell and Larry Bird.
Right now, he is the only player in the NBA ranked inside the top ten in points, rebounds, and assists—fifth in scoring, first in rebounds, and first in assists. While Gilgeous-Alexander is making a compelling case as the best player alive, Jokic’s sheer statistical dominance remains impossible to ignore.
The Nuggets’ recent struggles have been real, but Jokic has not slowed. If anything, nights like Monday prove he is still accelerating. The superstar center and his teammates will try to bounce back Wednesday against the Houston Rockets, where Jokic is almost certain to stretch his new record even further.
A loss has never felt this big—because hidden inside the defeat was a historic triumph that took Kareem a decade to achieve. And Jokic just did it faster than anyone thought possible.