Nikola Jokic adds yet another impressive achievement to his storied legacy

At this point, there aren’t many things in the world of basketball that Nikola Jokic has left to accomplish on an individual level. He just won his third NBA MVP award in four seasons, and that came on the heels of taking home his first NBA Finals MVP in 2023.

He could retire tomorrow at age 29 and be a shoo-in for the Basketball Hall of Fame the second he became eligible. His legacy is Teflon and everything he continues to accomplish will just add to one of the most storied basketball careers we’ve ever seen.

And on Monday, Jokic did just that, as the rankings came out for the popular NBA 2K25 video game were released, and for the second straight year, the Joker topped the rankings. Jokic was ranked a 97 overall, a rating shared with Luka Doncic and Giannis Antetokounmpo who were the second and third-ranked players in the game respectively.

The best player in @NBA2K and the best player in the world 🃏 pic.twitter.com/IIoDJW6rRX

— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) August 26, 2024

=”_hvp8ioonl”>Antetokounmpo was the last player to be atop the rankings prior to Jokci in 2022 and he still lurks closely behind. It’s completely justified, of course, but it’s still nice for Nuggets fans to see that Jokic has ascended to a place where he’s the undisputed best player alive right now.

There’s barely even much discourse around the topic these days (relative to the toxic nature of NBA discourse and ranking players in general, that is!) as it seems widely accepted; as it should be. It’s still nice to see the Denver guy getting his flowers while he’s at the peak of his powers.

The rest of the Nuggets were not rated so highly

This video game ranking is expected at this point and there’s little room for argument. It’s still nice after the Nuggets were somewhat disrespected by some of the other rankings that have come out.

Jamal Murray was ranked as just the 38th best player in the name, while no other Nugget was even in the top 60. Aaron Gordon came in at 61st on the list and Michael Porter Jr. was 67th, but the team had no other players in the top 100.

Right or wrong, this feels like a pretty good reflection of the public sentiment towards the Nuggets. Everybody knows Jokic is legit. People are losing faith in the rest of the starters. And the rest of the team is almost entirely unproven. Let’s hope this time next year we are talking about all of the young Nuggets’ players who moved way up in the rankings.