• Toni Kukoc thinks Nikola Jokic has more to achieve before being called the greatest
• Kukoc admitted that Jokic will likely be regarded as the greatest international player when he retires but his current resume needs more work
• Kukoc named legends such as Drazen Petrovic, Dino Radja, Arvydas Sabonis, and Vlade Divac as players ahead of Jokic
Nikola Jokic is ascending in the all-time conversations as the two-time league MVP finally became a champion and established himself as one of the greatest centers in league history. However, Toni Kukoc doesn’t believe Jokic has achieved enough so far in his career to be put ahead of legends like Arvydas Sabonis, Drazen Petrovic, Dino Radja, and Vlade Divac. He does believe Jokic will surpass them eventually.
“He’s going to do it for the rest of his career. I don’t know whether his career is even at 50 percent of what he can do. He will be the best European ever to play the game. Statistically, he probably will. In that matter, it’s normal that there’s a negative because I think that Drazen (Petrovic), Dino (Radja), (Vlade) Divac, (Arvydas) Sabonis are players who he is yet to touch.”
Kukoc has a fair point, but he still didn’t name other European greats, such as Dirk Nowitzki and Pau Gasol in his list. Even Giannis Antetokounmpo is in that mix, but Giannis hasn’t brought glory to Greece as the others have to their national teams.
Jokic saw his Serbian team make the Finals of the FIBA World Cup without him and seal a qualification berth for the 2024 Olympics. Medalling there with Serbia could help Jokic jump ahead of many greats that Kukoc named who are still ahead of him.
Toni Kukoc On Nikola Jokic’s Play-Style
Kukoc wasn’t trying to bring Jokic down with everything he said, he was just putting into perspective that there are some giants of European basketball that Jokic could not have surpassed with just nine years as a professional. Kukoc spoke glowingly about how Jokic plays and the way he impacts the game.
“He plays great. I spoke very well of him when no one spoke of him yet. I like his style of play. He just shows it game after game. He has his own way of thinking that’s different from the others. With basketball knowledge and intelligence, which is very important, he makes up for his lack of athleticism. And you can’t see that either because he plays the game at his own rhythm, you can’t notice that anyone is faster or more agile than him.”
Jokic averaged 24.5 points, 11.8 rebounds, and 9.8 assists last season and finished second in a controversial MVP race. That ultimately didn’t matter, as Jokic ended up dominating throughout the playoffs and earning Finals MVP after averaging 30.2 points, 14.0 rebounds, and 7.2 assists against the Miami Heat to become an NBA Champion.
Would Old International Players Do Better In The NBA’s Modern Age?
The emergence of Dirk Nowitzki and Pau Gasol in the 2000s and 2010s helped shake the stereotype of European players being soft, with the generation of Jokic, Giannis, and Luka Doncic eliminating that notion entirely. Kukoc believes international players from the ’90s would benefit similarly if they could enter the NBA in 2023.
“If you put Sabonis or Drazen, let me play in the NBA now when everything is known, when we have YouTube that we could watch three years before we left, when the confidence of the coaches [in international players] is totally different than when we were coming in, I believe that our statistics would have been much better,” Kukoc said. “You can’t compare the two but we are talking about [a player of] a terrific quality.”
The 2023 All-NBA First Team featured four international players to just one American player. That shows the leaps and bounds the NBA has taken in terms of international players comfortably transitioning to the league.
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