Nikola Jokic Makes The Basketball Community Uncomfortable | Bobby Burack

Nikola Jokic is the best basketball player in the world. It's not particularly close. 

He has won three of the past four league MVPs.  He's the reigning Finals MVP.  Jokic's dominance was on full display Tuesday night, leading the Nuggets to a 3-2 series lead over the Timberwolves behind another ho-hum 40-point, 13-assist effort.

Yet you wouldn't know Jokic is the best by listening to current and former NBA players speak.

Ringer podcast host and basketball junkie Ryen Russillo questioned the reluctance to crown Jokic as the guy in X post last night.  "It’s inconceivable that guys that played in the NBA think anyone is better than Jokic," he wrote.

Russillo didn't specify to which players he was referring. But there are several who fit the bill.

Last week, Shaquille O'Neal told Jokic to his face during an interview on TNT that he didn't deserve the MVP. Shaq said Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was the better player this season.

"I want you to hear it from me first," Shaq told Jokic. "I thought that SGA should’ve been the MVP, that’s no disrespect to you."

Gilbert Arenas argued on his podcast that Jokic isn't even the best player on his own team, calling Jokic the worst MVP in "40 years." Other former and current players like Draymond Green and Kendrick Perkins have also recently scoffed at the idea that Jokic is the best player in the sport.

Over the past four years, players-turned-analysts have routinely argued in favor of Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Devin Booker, and, now, Anthony Edwards as superior players to Jokic – despite Jokic's résumé dwarfing all of theirs.

Russillo says guys who played in the NBA "don't think Jokic is the best." We disagree. They know Jokic is the best. How could they not? They are just willing to admit he is.

DENVER, CO - MAY 14: Nikola Jokic (15) of the Denver Nuggets cocks back before hammering a two-hand jam against the Minnesota Timberwolves during the first quarter at Ball Arena in Denver on Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)

Nikola Jokic makes the basketball community uncomfortable.

He's a white guy who dominates a majority black sport. If you don't believe that causes resentment, you are naive. Black players talk about Jokic the same way they talk about Caitlin Clark, by reeking of jealousy and racial animus.

An ESPN article last June called Jokic the latest installment of "The Great White Hope," alluding to racist fans rooting for white players to unseat their black counterparts. That's how some players view Jokic and Clark, as beneficiaries of a majority white nation.

Jokic, to no fault of his own, also found himself in the crosshairs of the race wars last season when Kendrick Perkins baselessly accused white voters of favoring Jokic in the MVP race. 

Despite evidence to the contrary, several pundits ran with Perkins's accusations that Jokic's skin color had contributed to his accolades. That narrative eventually cost Jokic the MVP award, in favor of Embiid.

Society preaches to black Americans that white people are their former oppressors and born with systemic advantages. So, naturally, a white player starring in a historically black space can cause resentment from other black players.

Last December, activist and social media influencer Dr. Umar Johnson explained why black people are reluctant to accept white people as equals in historically black spaces.

"No non-African can ever be the best of anything African. It's an insult to the ancestors. It's an insult to the race and it's an insult to every black person," said Dr. Johnson.

"Eminem has all the privileges of a white male and all the privileges of being in the hip-hop community, so we got to be careful about letting non-Africans into our community."

Now, you know what Arenas meant when he said white Euro players were coming for "our" league earlier this year. 

"The Euros are takin the league from our people," Arenas warned a panel of black pundits below:

Now, race is probably not the only factor driving the bitterness toward Jokic. 

The Euro-factor is also real. A soft-spoken Gru-looking character from Serbia doesn't fit as naturally in a majority black locker room as American-born athletes. 

Jokic is not one of them.

He plays the game differently, relying little on athleticism and heavily on precision. 

Colin Cowherd recently alluded to how Jokic's awkward, maddeningly effective style of play could infuriate his peers.

"I don't think current or former NBA players are rooting for Jokic." Cowherd begins. 

"Jokic is the best player in the world … but aesthetically, it's not a very pretty game. Esthetics have always mattered in the NBA. Most kids are not sitting around and mimicking and copying Jokic's game near the basketball. They are doing that with ANT [Edwards], MJ and Kobe. And, now Euros are taking over the league."

Players don't relate to Jokic's game. 

It's foreign, no punt interned, to them. 

And it must be so, so irritating that a guy who looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy can school those athletic specimens on the daily.

Take a look:

Yeesh. 

No wonder his peers cringe at his very existence.