Top NBA announcer shares all-time-great-type praise for Nikola Jokić

Nikola Jokić is a star among stars. He’s spent the last several years proving that, with a trophy case that includes two MVPs and a Finals MVP award providing clear evidence that he is among the NBA’s all-time greats.

Sunday night, he was the sole Denver Nuggets representative in the NBA All-Star Game. What he did there is largely irrelevant and will be forgotten. But as Denver fans know well, there is something deeper and more profound for Jokić’s excellence.

Indeed, he is one of one, as prominent and long-time NBA broadcaster Kevin Harlan explains.

“I’ve not seen the likes of him before,” Harlan explained.

And that’s saying a lot, because as he notes, whenever he’s seen the true greats of the NBA, he’s seen echoes of a past legend in the league. That was always the case — until Nikola Jokić.

“I could honestly say that when I saw Kobe (Bryant), I saw (Michael) Jordan,” Harlan said. “When I see LeBron (James), I see a combination of Wes Unseld and Jordan and Kobe and everything in between, because he’s just so much bigger and so much more of a brute force and he does it differently.

“Jokić, I’ve never seen.”

It’s #AllStarGame night in the NBA, and we all know there is a star among the brightest stars, and that’s the Nuggets’ Nikola Jokić.

As @NBAonTNT’s Kevin Harlan tells me, Jokić is an all-time unicorn. “This is my 37th year in the NBA; I’ve never seen anything like him.” pic.twitter.com/lMYhjm4zXX

— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) February 18, 2024

The closest comparison Harlan could find was Lithuanian legend Arvydas Sabonis. But by the time he made it to the NBA with the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1990s, his physical prime was long since in the past.

“And I did a couple of Arvydas Sabonis games, the great [Lithuanian] player, many, many decades ago,” Harlan said. “He was a terrific passer. But we saw him at the end of his career. We saw him when the body was failing him and he wasn’t the same player.”

Thus, Nikola Jokić is more than just a great player perhaps on his way to a third NBA MVP that would place him among a select club that includes just eight names: Moses Malone, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, LeBron James, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Michael Jordan and the all-time record holder, six-time MVP Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

“So, Jokić in the way he passes, is incomparable,” Harlan said. “His ability to withstand contact and fight through it so effortlessly — and I know he’s exerting a lot of effort, but it doesn’t look that way — is incredible. He’s so much stronger than I think we give him credit for.

“His ability, his vision to see those around him, understand when the team needs him and when he needs to be facilitating — because he demands so much respect by the opposing defense — like, it’s all of it, Andrew. It’s all of this stuff that just makes him one of a kind. And this is my 37th year in the NBA, I’ve never seen anything like him.”

And since the 1980s, Harlan has seen them all. He began broadcasting NBA games in 1982 — so long ago that the team for which he worked, the Kansas City Kings, hasn’t had that name and franchise location in nearly 39 years.

Harlan has witnessed more than half of the NBA’s history. And in his eyes, there’s no one like Nikola Jokić.