After 56-Point Game Nikola Jokic Suggests Players Get Paid Less As Nuggets Continue To Be Inconsistent

Nikola Jokic had himself a night, a career night in fact, against the Washington Wizards on Saturday, scoring 56 points to go along with 16 rebounds and eight assists. One would imagine that with that statline, the Denver Nuggets blew out the Wizards handing them their 17th straight loss in the process.

Instead, the Wizards snapped their losing streak with a 122-113 win. While the Nuggets were without Aaron Gordon and Jamal Murray, Jokic wasn't in any mood to come up with any sort of excuses after the loss, but instead came up with a tongue-in-cheek (we think?) idea for how to punish his teammates and get things back on track.

"In my country, where I’m coming from, after this kind of stretch, you’re gonna get a paycheck that is a little bit less than you are worth," Jokic told Bennett Durando of the Denver Post. "Maybe that’s what we need to do. Maybe a little motivation that way."

In a sports world where players and coaches are handed bonuses for accomplishing just about anything, punishing them for not performing to expectations is honestly a strong idea.

Nikola Jokic suggests his teammates get paid less during inconsistent stretch. (Credit: Getty Images)

Jokic was certainly frustrated after Denver's loss to Washington, but it has been building throughout what has been a very odd year for the Nuggets thus far.

Denver put together a five-game winning streak in November to move to 7-3 and looked like the same old Western Conference animals they have been for years, but all of a sudden the Nuggets are just 11-10 on the year despite getting MVP-level play from Jokic.

Inconsistent has been the trend of the year thus far with Denver not being able to string back-to-back wins together since its five-game winning streak came to an end on Nov. 15.

Jokic has been doing typical Jokic things as he sits second in the NBA in scoring while averaging 31.4 points per game. He also ranks second in assists with 10.3 per contest, which is insane given he's a big man, and he, of course, leads the NBA in rebounds with 13.6 per game.