Nikola Jokic
Paying a premium — −$17.0M under water
Nikola Jokic projects to 18.8 marginal wins — $65.8M of on-court value — against an apron-adjusted true cost of $82.8M.
Paying a premium — −$17.0M under water
At −$17.0M under water the deal drags the books; it still grades "needs-sweetener", so quietly canvassing the market beats waiting for it to worsen.
For $55.2M this season (3 yr, $179M total), you are buying 18.8 marginal wins of EPM production — $65.8M of value at $3.5M/win. Against an apron-adjusted true cost of $82.8M, that nets −$17.0M of surplus, 131st of 178 tracked contracts — it grades as an overpay.
If wins price up toward $4.2M/win and the apron tax eases, production value climbs to $82.7M and surplus swings to +$13.7M — fair value in the optimistic case.
If a marginal win is worth less and the apron bites harder, true cost rises to $96.6M and surplus falls to −$46.4M — an albatross in the pessimistic case; the verdict flips across the band.
Caution — the verdict flips somewhere across bear/base/bull assumptions. This call is assumption-sensitive, not settled.
This call changes under bear assumptions: Nikola Jokic grades Albatross risk in the bear case but Fairly pricedin the bull case — treat the verdict above as a live read of today’s sliders, not a settled fact.
The market's own numbers: a win costs what the middle of the league pays for it.
Every apron dollar is real money — the tax ledger, not the highlight reel, decides who wins the summer.
Banners hang forever. A marginal win today is worth almost any tomorrow, and the tax is the cost of doing business.
Wins you buy before you're ready are the most expensive wins in basketball — flexibility is the only asset that never ages.
The tenth man is closer to the star than the star's agent admits — pay for scarcity you can prove, not reputation.
4 of 5 desks disagree with the verdict above — that disagreement is the story.
Take the question to the docket →Similar money band ($54.1M vs $55.2M) and impact (6.6 vs 8.8); his deal grades albatross risk at −$33.9M.
Similar money band ($38.3M vs $55.2M) and impact (8.2 vs 8.8); his deal grades bargain at +$25.1M.
Similar money band ($45.9M vs $55.2M) and impact (6.1 vs 8.8); his deal grades albatross risk at −$20.4M.
How the model gets there.
The audit trail behind every figure in the memo above — six steps from raw on-court impact to the final surplus verdict, using the same sliders. Drag any assumption and the memo above updates with it.
AASV = wins × $/win − cap hit × apron multiplier. Set the knobs to your own front-office judgment — every number on this page updates live.
League estimated net rating (per 100 poss. vs. an average player), cached from stats.nba.com (seed snapshot).
Est. Impact = 8.8 · 2025-26 · 74 games · 2,550 minutes
Impact is credited above replacement level (-2.0), scaled by the possessions he actually played (minutes × 2.08/min), then converted at 30.5 net points per win.
(8.8 − (-2.0)) × 5,313 poss ÷ 100 = 574 net pts
574 ÷ 30.5 = 18.8 wins
Wins are priced at your $/win setting ($3.5M per win).
18.8 wins × $3.5M = $65.8M
DEN is a first apron team, so every Nikola Jokic dollar is charged at 1.50× — your setting for what that tier’s tax and roster restrictions really cost. Contract: 3 yrs · $179M remaining.
$55.2M cap hit × 1.50 = $82.8M
$65.8M − $82.8M = −$17.0M
Nikola Jokic costs more than he produces under these assumptions — the contract eats value.
Nikola Jokic's impact is trending down (-0.7 across tracked seasons) — that decline is a direct input into the elevated aging-risk grade on the years still owed.