Getty Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets.
There aren’t a whole lot of comparisons to Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird. Arguably a top-10 player in NBA history, Bird was a 6-foot-9 forward who could do it all.
Viewed by many as the top passing forward ever, Bird led the Celtics to three championships in the 1980s. He also became one of three players in history (along with Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell) to capture three straight MVP awards. After watching the Denver Nuggets sweep the Celtics in the season series, former Boston Globe reporter Bob Ryan said that Nuggets star Nikola Jokic just might be on par with Bird.
Bob Ryan Says Nikola Jokic Has ‘Mastery of the Game’
Jokic is the favorite to win his third MVP honor in four seasons. The Nuggets center is a dominant force on both ends of the floor and has turned himself into arguably the best player in today’s game.
Like Bird, Jokic has turned his team into a perennial championship contender. A triple-double machine, Jokic is averaging 26.0 points, 12.2 rebounds and 9.2 assists this season. In Bird’s three MVP seasons (1983-1986), he averaged 26.2 points, 10.1 rebounds and 6.6 assists. Also like Bird, he does it without pure athleticism. He’s smart and always seems to be one step ahead of everyone else in the court.
In the Nuggets’ March 7 meeting against the Celtics, Jokic finished with 32 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists in a 115-109 victory. He also had zero turnovers.
“There’s a level of efficiency that very few ever attain for even a brief period of time,” Ryan said on the March 10 episode of the “Bob Ryan & Jeff Goodman” podcast. “I call it mastery of the game. Larry reached that point in the mid-80s.
“They’re very complementary, if you think about it. Jokic is there right now. What I love about him is he does it at his pace. Nobody can stop him from going where he wants to go. Nobody took the dribble away from him. No little guy sneaked in. He doesn’t allow those things to happen.
“He is a basketball Ph.D., and he’s 7 feet tall, and he makes 3s, and he throws passes that nobody else in the league sees. He’s a remarkable player.”
Ryan Believes the Celtics Are Chasing Jokic & the Nuggets
Despite the two losses to the Nuggets this season, the Celtics (49-14) have the best record in the NBA. Although the Nuggets (44-20) are looking up at the Celtics in the standings, Ryan said that means nothing.
“The fact is you’re trying to catch Denver, not the other way around,” Ryan said of the Celtics. “I don’t care what the record of wins/losses is right now.
“We know Denver’s had some issues of injury,” he said. “They proved last year that they know how to get it done. We have a constant theme that will not change until it does. That is, the Celtics have proven that they do not know how to get it done.
“They’ve proven that they know how to win regular-season games, sometimes by as many as 50 points,” he said. “We know they have this potency, but these aren’t the games that determine your destiny.”