DENVER -- Long before Nikola Jokic won his first NBA championship, his first Finals MVP and his back-to-back league MVPs, there was "Jokmas."
It was 10 days before Christmas in 2016, and Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone was "racking" his brain for solutions to jump-start his team, which was sputtering to a 9-16 start to the 2016-17 season.
The Nuggets had been starting Jokic and fellow big man Jusuf Nurkic as the foundation of a gigantic lineup that wasn't working, spurring Jokic to ask Malone to bring him off the bench.