Ever since the Denver Nuggets claimed their 2023 Finals victory, and Nikola Jokic has risen to MVP-caliber heights, the discussion around the big man’s standing amongst the league’s best to ever do it has continued to buzz with every season that he’s filling up the stat sheet.
And now in what’s started off as another dominant season for Jokic, that conversation has only begun to get louder, to the point where some prominent names around the league have proposed the idea of whether the Nuggets big man is the greatest talent the NBA has ever seen.
Stan Van Gundy Says Jokic Could Be the Best Player in NBA History
During an appearance on The Zach Lowe Show, former coach Stan Van Gundy threw out the idea of whether Jokic could not only be the best offensive talent in NBA history, but the best and most talented player altogether.
“He might be the best player in the history of the NBA,” Van Gundy said.
“Here’s the thing. My son says this all the time… I understand the thought that you compare players to how well they did in the era they played in, but the evolution of athletes is… we can probably say that the best 20 basketball players in history have probably played in the last 20 years.”
It’s easy-to-follow logic from Van Gundy: as the league has progressed, so have its players, and when you have a guy like Jokic putting up the numbers he has with the skillset he shows on a nightly basis, it’s hard to ignore how strong the talent has emerged in the league today.
“To me, right now, LeBron’s the best player in the history of the game,” Van Gundy continues. “People want to argue Jordan and the whole thing, Jordan’s moments were 30 years ago, man. Players have gotten better. These guys are the best player ever in every sport. It’s not trying to demean anybody; that’s just evolution.”
“If I had to take one guy in history, right now, I’m taking Jokic.”
In terms of being labeled the “greatest” NBA player to ever do it, Jokic still has a ways to go to catch some of the elite names. But when sizing up pure talent, there might be a real case that Jokic has the offensive prowess to beat out anybody, outside of a handful of anomalies.
He’s scoring nearly 30 points a game on an extremely efficient 62.6% from the field, leading the league with 11.1 assists, along with 12.8 rebounds a night, making for numbers that the league simply hasn’t come close to seeing before, especially if done throughout the course of a whole season.
The longer Jokic is able to keep up his current level of dominance, the harder it’ll be to keep him out of those top-tier conversations that Van Gundy isn’t shy to put him into. And at age 31, putting up the best averages of his career thus far, that should be some pretty concrete proof that he has no plans of slowing down anytime soon.
