Nikola Jokic is a bona fide star. So when are NBA referees going to start treating the Nuggets center like one?

In hindsight, Nikola Jokic had a point. Two of them, probably.

With a minute left late last Saturday night, his Nuggets down one at home to Brooklyn, Jokic, Denver’s All-Star center and the uncool leader in the NBA MVP race, set himself at the right side of the paint, a few steps in front of the restricted area.

The big Serbian took a feed from teammate Facu Campazzo, made himself as big as he possibly could, as if trying to scare off a mama grizzly bear, turned and fired. It was a pivot he’d tried a 1,000 times before. It was a shot he’d made probably 999 of those times.

Just not this time. With Brooklyn’s Joe Harris extending his arms behind him and Nets teammate Jeff Green closing in to swat it away, Jokic’s shot seemed rushed. The ball doinked high, then off the front lip of the rim, then into the waiting arms of Harris.

No call. The Joker pleaded his case, but to no avail.

Fast forward a day, and the NBA’s Last 2 Minutes report on Sunday included that one as a mea culpa. Joker should’ve had two foul shots, the league decided upon review, as Harris was late to his spot and made contact.

Instead, play went on. A few seconds later, Jokic got pressured from Nicolas Claxton on a similar exchange, which also wasn’t called, and the Big Honey released his inner Jackie Moon on the nearest official, eliciting a technical foul that helped the Nets escape with a 125-119 victory.

“You know what? Nikola might be his own worst enemy as far as that’s concerned,” Nuggets icon Dan Issel told me recently.

“He’s so talented and can do so many things on the floor, maybe the referees feel like he’s not being fouled and not giving him the calls that most superstars get.”

We want a conspiracy. Don’t we? A fall guy. Someone to point a finger at. We want to tell ourselves that the NBA has it out for the Joker, who can’t shake the weird, chubby guy from Europe tag slapped on him by the twits on both coasts, even though only the “Europe” part of that sobriquet is true anymore.

We want to tell ourselves that the league has it out for the Nuggets as a franchise, because it’s Denver, and Denver is a football town.

And you wonder, sometimes.

According to NBA.com, the Joker’s fouls drawn (5.8) and free-throw attempts (5.4) per game are actually up 16% and 32%, respectively, over a season ago. Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, the reigning two-time MVP, drew 8.2 fouls per game in 2019-20, tops in the league, and 7.7 per tilt the year before that as one of the best at attacking the rim.

So politicking works. To a point.

Of the last six mea culpas via the league’s official 2-minute review that involved the Nuggets, four of the incorrect calls involved Jokic. And three of them, in hindsight, should have been overturned in his favor.

Jokic ranks 14th in the NBA in terms of fouls drawn during the fourth quarter (1.6). A season ago, he was 25th. Over the past decade, only two NBA MVP winners didn’t finish among the top 10 in fourth-quarter fouls drawn: Steph Curry (’15 and ’16) and Derrick Rose (’11), both of them guards, and both shorter than 6-4.

“A reputation certainly is important,” Issel continued. “He just has to keep going, keep doing the things he’s doing, and eventually, those calls will come.”

Eventually.

With that, Issel paused. He let out a knowing laugh.

“The thing about Nikola,” the former Nuggets big man added, “is that when he goes to the line, he’ll make them.”

Jokic is connecting on 86.3% of his free-throw attempts this season. He’s a career 83.4% foul shooter. Hacking Shaquille O’Neal was a good strategy, the kind of gambit that could take a point away per possession. Hacking Joker, most of the time, is basically an uncontested Nuggets layup.

Then again, the Sixers’ Joel Embiid is an 86% shooter from the charity stripe. He’s going to the line 11 times per contest, anyway, while drawing 7.6 fouls per game, second only to Antetokoumpo’s 7.8.

Again: You wonder. You really do.

“I don’t know. We’ll see,” Jokic said late Saturday evening when asked if the Nets game felt like a playoff preview. “Right now, we are playing against Dallas (as the 5 seed), I think, so they’re a really tough matchup for us.”

In last year’s postseason bubble, the Joker drew 5.1 foul calls per game, up a whopping tenth of a point from the regular season. It also ranked 15th in the league.

As trends go, it’s the kind that inspires a lot of feelings around these parts. But hope isn’t one of them.

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