Jokic has won three of the past four MVP awards and has been excellent again this season. He’s averaging a career-best 29.7 points per game, along with 12.8 rebounds and 10.2 assists. He could join Oscar Robertson and his teammate Russell Westbrook as the only players in NBA history to average a triple double over the course of an entire season.

DENVER — In one corner of the Minnesota Timberwolves locker room sat Julius Randle, ice bags on both knees and eyelids at half mast, his body in shambles and the words coming slowly after he spent 50 minutes on the Ball Arena court wrestling a 6-foot-11, 284-pound Serbian bear.