Watch Rob Parker and Chris Broussard discuss the Denver Nuggets vs. Minnesota Timberwolves Western Conference semifinals series, as Rob calls out NBA media members and fans alike who went out of their way to try diminish and discredit Nikola Jokic’s accomplishments when Minnesota had won the first two games of the series in Denver.
Check out the segment below as Parker details why the hate for Jokic is REAL and how he’s surprised Jokic has become such a polarizing player for how great he's been.
Rob Parker: “It’s not that you can’t have a different opinion on who you want to vote for for MVP, and you’ve come up with your points or whatever, but some of the stuff that we heard last year and this year was almost wanting to discredit Jokic. After they lost the first two games people were ready to pounce and say he wasn’t ‘that guy.’ And that ‘OH, THEY NEUTRALIZED HIM! LOOK, HE CAN’T DO THIS!’... After those first two games I got a sense that people were ready to say ‘OK, HE WON THOSE THREE MVPS, BUT I REALLY DON’T KNOW BECAUSE HE NEVER BEAT A TEAM WITH MORE THAN 50 WINS!’... There was always something to hang onto.
We had last year Kendrick Perkins on a national platform saying Jokic was a 'stat-stuffer' and he was only winning MVPs because he was ‘White’ and all kinds of other stuff. I said before the playoffs that if he wins the third MVP in four years and they win another title, I’m going to have him in my top 10 because that’s the kind of resume he’s put together. And now he’s turned it up to an even a bigger degree because he was down 0-2 on the ropes, losing two games at home, and for him to turn that around and be as dominant when everyone thought the Timberwolves had their number...
Even with Shaq’s comments that he didn’t think he deserved the MVP, which is fine, it’s his opinion, but when they went down 0-2 I think they wrote the Nuggets off out of disrespect for him [Jokic]. That he wasn’t going to be able to turn it around, that he wasn’t going to be able to regroup against that team. Now people are having to re-think that. I think he’s here to stay. This dude is a MONSTER.”
Chris Broussard: “I think you’re overstating the hate.”
Parker: “No, I think the hate is REAL. If they would have lost this series coming off the championships, YES, it would have been ‘MAYBE HE AIN’T THAT GUY! HE AIN’T NO TOP 10 PLAYER!’...
Broussard: “I think you’re way overstating. People were writing off the NUGGETS.”
Parker: “No, people were writing off HIM! There’s nobody else on that team that’s an All-Star! They were writing him off, they weren’t writing off the Nuggets! They were saying HE couldn’t do it. They were ready to pounce on that guy. They were ruling him out because they wanted to, and they were hoping that this was going to be a one-time championship and that he wasn’t ‘that guy.’ He’s proven people wrong.
When he went down 0-2 everybody threw the towel in on him. They didn’t throw it in on the Nuggets, they threw it down on him. What people were saying, and hoping, and wishing was that Jokic got swept. I’m reading the room and reading the comments on how people bailed on this player. They bailed on him as soon as blood was in the water. ‘OH, THEY’RE GONNA GET SWEPT! THEY’RE NOT THAT GOOD! LOOK AT THE NUGGETS! THEY NEUTRALIZED HIM!’... They wrote him off as soon as there was one chink the armor and one thing went wrong.”
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