The basketball gods made Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic twin brothers from different mothers, but only some good, old-fashioned tampering can make them teammates in Denver.

So, let’s stop dreaming about it and let the (subtle) manipulation begin.

The goal is to see Joker and Luka chase the NBA championship together. Wearing Nuggets uniforms. No later than the autumn of 2026. It’s going to take a coordinated recruiting effort, a serious overhaul of the team’s core and a heap of money from Stan and Josh Kroenke.

It won’t be easy. But if there’s a will, not to mention a pact between Jokic and Doncic, there’s a way.

The NBA has long been run like a cartel, with LeBron James or Kevin Durant thumbing a nose at competitive balance and pulling strings to help win themselves not one, not two, but as many rings as possible.

When Jokic celebrated his 30th birthday last week, the question was asked: Where can the NBA’s three-time MVP go from here? What’s the next step in the evolution of this Joker?

Well, his next big step has nothing to do with points, rebounds and assists, or breaking Denver teammate Russell Westbrook’s career record of 202 triple doubles.

It’s time for Joker to put on another hat and become a kingmaker.

At the All-Star Game, Jokic said he admired Steph Curry, because all the point guard does is win, win, win. And the Nuggets center added that he hoped to do for Denver what Curry has done for Golden State, which has won the Larry O’Brien Trophy four times since 2015.

With the current indications that Jokic won’t hang up his new signatures and retire to Serbia to muck out the stables for his beloved horses anytime soon, he is on track to post career statistics to be among the top 10 players in league history.

But the only thing that can push Jokic into the debate with Michael Jordan and King James as the GOAT of this game is to start stacking championships.

And that’s where Jokic and Doncic need to get more serious about a relationship that is as genuine and goofy as the bond that Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly celebrated with good-natured mayhem in the classic 2008 bromance flick “Step Brothers.”

Naysayers have long maintained that an NBA super team can never be assembled in Denver because the Rocky Mountain west is too cold and snowy white.

Jokic, however, has the uncanny knack to see a brilliant play two steps before everybody else on the court. His next visionary instinct could tilt the odds in the Nuggets’ favor against Oklahoma City, Boston and all contenders for a glorious part of the next decade.

In a trade that smelled like a charade, the knuckleheads in Dallas recently traded away Doncic to the Lakers in a slapdash deal because … the Mavericks thought Luka is fat? The logic was so absurd it again made basketball-lovers wonder if the NBA is rigged and commissioner Adam Silver is nothing more than a humble servant to the whims of King James.

Well, the twilight is creeping up on the career of James, now 40 years old. At age 25, Doncic is the superstar that Jokic never has had on his side in Colorado.

Although it sounds like a longshot, the opportunity for Joker and Luka to join forces exists, because after next season, Doncic can opt out of a contract that pays him roughly $45 million per year.

Amid all the chatter about how Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth must do something so Denver doesn’t waste the prime of Jokic’s career, recent suggestions to trade Michael Porter Jr. for Zach LaVine or Brandon Ingram was basketball maneuvering on a checkers level of simple-minded thinking.

Go big or go home. The target should be Doncic.

Joker and Luka could call each other Dragon and Nighthawk, demand bunk beds in the team hotel during Nuggets road trips and do karate in the garage.

Brennan and Dale from “Step Brothers” would be so proud.

This would be a bold deal that can only be done through a great, tried-and-true NBA tradition:

Collusion between two best friends that want to take turns blasting the siren on their fire truck during victory parades through downtown Denver.