After winning two straight MVPs, Nikola Jokic added his first NBA championship and Finals MVP to the list his accolades. ESPN host Jared Greenberg thinks that the Serbian superstar is changing the game basketball.
According to him, Jokic will have the impact on the game similar to that of Steph Curry. Greenberg envisions teams now starting to look for big men with point guard skills and young kids emulating Jokic.
With Victor Wembanyama, another big with point guard skills, about to join the league, kids’ coaches will be putting tall players in a narrow role of a traditional center he thinks.
“I think this postseason will become the one that changes the game,” Greenberg said on Get Up. “I think Nikola Jokic is going to do for the NBA something similar to what Steph Curry did for the game a decade ago where everybody decided we need to shoot threes, we need to find ways to shoot threes.
“Analytics took over the sport and all of a sudden everyone is looking to shoot 30-footers and they’re stretching the defense like a rubber band as best as they can. Now all of a sudden they think this is the direction that it goes.
“I’m not saying that Nikola Jokics grow on trees, but the 7’1″ point guard is going to be what everybody in the NBA wants from now on. And there will be at some point 10 of them walking on the face of planet Earth and they will be in the league. I think he will always have been the first. He’s going to change the sport as we know it.”
