Nikola Jokic has been the Denver Nuggets’ best player this season. His stellar play has had some Denver media members speculating about his future legacy, and former Denver Nugget Scott Hastings even ventured to say that Jokic has a chance to be the greatest Nuggets player of all-time. Chris Dempsey of the Denver Post lent his opinion to Mile High Sports Radio’s Afternoon Drive to tell everyone to slow their roll.
“I don’t even want to put that kind of pressure on him,” Dempsey said. “Plus, there are guys from this organization that are in the Hall of Fame. I think what it does show is how highly thought of he is by people who have played the game. I think that’s significant even if I wouldn’t go that far.”
That’s not to say that Dempsey doesn’t think Jokic is capable of such a feat. He doesn’t even balk when the word superstar is mentioned.
“I think the one thing that now we’re going to get into at this part of the conversation is, what does a superstar do? Well, one of the biggest thing a superstar does is raise the level of the players around him,” he said. “I think what we’ve seen with Jokic is the players in the locker room have given him this kind of credit. So it isn’t just coming from those of us who are observing what he’s doing; he makes the players around him better.”
Dempsey simply takes a realistic view of the situation. One can’t base a player’s future legacy on such a small sample size.
“When you look at what Jokic has put on the court, if we just look at production, he produces in all of the stat categories with major numbers. Obviously you have to do that over years and years and years and years before you start really being in the conversation for greatest player ever in an organization. I understand where that’s coming from, but we’re so early in his career.”
Listen to the full interview with Chris Dempsey, including his thoughts on Jamal Murray getting minutes at point guard, in the podcast below.
https://soundcloud.com/milehighsports/1-27-17-chris-dempsey-joins-eric-sean-with-how-the-jokic-injury-effects-the-nuggets-moving-forward
Catch Afternoon Drive with Goodman and Shapiro every weekday from 4p-6p on Mile High Sports AM 1340 | FM 104.7 or stream live any time for the best local coverage of Colorado sports from Denver’s biggest sports talk lineup.
