{"id":381866,"date":"2025-12-31T04:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T04:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/381866\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T04:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T04:44:10","slug":"is-nikola-jokic-a-flopper-bam-adebayo-and-ex-nba-player-take-opposing-sides-as-old-narrative-resurfaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/381866\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Nikola Jokic A Flopper? Bam Adebayo And Ex-NBA Player Take Opposing Sides As Old Narrative Resurfaces"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nikola Jokic<\/a> has been sidelined for at least four weeks after hyperextending his knee, which also caused a bone bruise. After Jokic\u2019s early exit in the Nuggets\u2019<\/a> last game against the Heat<\/a>, which they lost 123-147<\/a>, Bam Adebayo<\/a> spoke to the media.<\/p>\n

The NBA seems to have an emerging problem of flopping. Instead of being praised for generating offense, a lot of the NBA\u2019s top players are also coming under the public\u2019s microscope for intentionally drawing fouls or exaggerating contact to sell foul calls to the official.<\/p>\n

While addressing Nikola Jokic, he also spoke about his respect for the Serbian superstar due to his ability to generate offense without relying on flopping or \u2018foul-baiting.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it\u2019s always fun playing against him. I mean, you see how he makes his teammates better. You see the greatness. But, you know, the one thing I like about it: it\u2019s a competition at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s one of those guys who doesn\u2019t really flop. And I truly respect that because, well, I\u2019m not going to say flop, foul baiting. But it\u2019s respect at the end of the day. Then obviously, you hate to see guys go out,\u201d said<\/a> Adebayo while talking about Jokic.<\/p>\n

Just hours after Adebayo spoke his mind, former NBA player Nick Young<\/a> also appeared on Gilbert Arenas\u2019 show \u2018The Gil\u2019s Arena\u2019 with Kenyon Martin<\/a>, Brandon Jennings<\/a>, and Rashad McCants. They spoke about how Jokic gets away with flopping like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> but doesn\u2019t get the same criticism as him.<\/p>\n

The crew of the Gil\u2019s Arena podcast was discussing the impact that Jokic\u2019s extended absence will have on the team when Young explained how Jokic slows the game down for his teammates, which is when he brought up the number of free throws that Jokic makes every night.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t touch Joker. As much as we talk about Shai and all that flopping, Joker flails and does it more than anybody in the league\u2026 He flails, and they give him everything,\u201d said<\/a> Young.<\/p>\n

During Jokic\u2019s recent 56-point triple-double<\/a>, 10 of his 18 points recorded in overtime came from free throws. While Kenyon Martin and Rashad McCants defended Jokic, this is not the first time the Serbian superstar has been criticized for flopping.<\/p>\n

However, the last time it was Marcin Gortat, who played for the LA Clippers<\/a> in 2018, who criticized<\/a> Jokic for flopping long before his superstar days, when he wasn\u2019t as efficient and impactful overall for the Nuggets as he is today.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Jokic was able to convert his style of play into winning basketball and eventually earned the superstar whistle in the league with his consistent formula for success.<\/p>\n

Moreover, a key differentiating factor came to light. Let\u2019s compare Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to understand that factor.<\/p>\n

Jokic is currently averaging 29.6 points, 12.2 rebounds, and 11.0 assists in the first 32 games of the season before his injury while shooting 60.5% from the field. On average, he makes 6.3 of his 7.4 free-throw attempts in each game.<\/p>\n

In addition to the 29.6 points he scores himself, he is also a crucial part in adding 22 points more per night due to his assists in each game (assuming every assist generates two points and not three). Therefore, he averages about 51.6 points generated, of which only 12.2% come from free throws.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 32.2 points, 6.4 assists, and 4.8 rebounds while shooting 55.9% from the field in the same duration. He is averaging making eight of his 9.1 free-throw attempts per game.<\/p>\n

The Canadian guard generates approximately 45.0 points per night (32.2 + [6.4 x 2]), of which 17.7% comes from free throws. This shows that Gilgeous-Alexander not only shoots many more free throws but also relies more on free throws to generate offense than Jokic does.<\/p>\n

Therefore, Gilgeous-Alexander faces a lot more scrutiny, and justifiably so. Hence, we can conclude that while Jokic does get some superstar whistles, his impact on the game is much less reliant on free throws than Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He might get the superstar whistle sometimes, but his game does not warrant criticism for overtly foul-baiting or flopping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nikola Jokic has been sidelined for at least four weeks after hyperextending his knee, which also caused a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-381866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}