{"id":156495,"date":"2025-08-26T12:11:44","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T16:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=156495"},"modified":"2025-08-26T12:11:44","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T16:11:44","slug":"nikola-jokic-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/08\/26\/nikola-jokic-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikola Jokic Poised to Achieve What No NBA Star Ever Has"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nikola Jokic<\/a> is widely regarded as one of the best players in the world. But at the EuroBasket 2025, he has a chance to achieve a historical feat. If Serbia wins the Gold medal, the Joker can become the first player ever to win a regular-season NBA MVP award, a Finals MVP, a championship, and a EuroBasket title. Several European players have come close to achieving that feat, but nobody has succeeded. If Nikola Jokic does it, it will cement his legacy as an all-around performer.<\/p>\n

Nikola Jokic Poised to Achieve What No NBA Star Ever Has<\/h2>\n

Right now, Serbia is favored<\/a> to win the EuroBasket title. They have a deep roster, comprising a mix of young and talented players, as well as experienced veterans. Serbia is coming off a Bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, looking to take a step further and win a gold medal.<\/p>\n

Jokic and his generation have never won a gold medal at any international play. They won the silver medal at the 2016 Olympics, but no gold. Preparing for the tournament, Serbia won<\/a> all seven of their friendly games, beating direct opponents like Greece and Germany along the way. The team has altered their style a bit, playing an offense that resembles the one the Denver Nuggets run<\/a>. They are clearly playing to Jokic\u2019s strengths, a change from having more pick-and-roll sets during the Paris 2024 Olympics.<\/p>\n

Can Jokic Become the Best European Player Ever?<\/h3>\n

Nikola Jokic is currently one of the best European players<\/a> who has played in the NBA, but he can cement his legacy even more. If he achieves the rare feat of having a regular season MVP, Finals MVP, and a EuroBasket title on his resume, he can challenge the likes of Pau Gasol<\/a>, Dirk Nowitzki<\/a>, and Tony Parker<\/a>. Those three are, arguably, the best players from Europe who have had success in the NBA. Parker has four NBA championships, one Finals MVP, and carried France to a EuroBasket win in 2013, winning the MVP along the way. He also helped led them to Silver medal in 2011, and Bronze medal in 2005 and 2015.<\/p>\n

Dirk has a regular season MVP and Finals MVP, but he hasn\u2019t won a gold medal with his country. He has a bronze medal from the 2002 World Cup and a silver from the 2005 EuroBasket.<\/p>\n

Right now, Gasol might be considered the most successful European player. He has two NBA championships and was the driving force of Spain\u2019s dominance in the 2010s. During that period, he won three EuroBasket gold medals, in 2009, ’11, and ’15, and two silver medals at the Olympics, in 2008 and ’12.<\/p>\n

But looking at them all, nobody has a regular season MVP, Finals MVP, and a EuroBasket win. They all lack something. Jokic can become the first player with all three feats.<\/p>\n

Giannis Has the Same Chance as Well<\/h3>\n

Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a> is another player who can achieve the same historical feat. The difference is that Greece has a lower chance of winning the EuroBasket.<\/p>\n

Right now, according to betting odds<\/a>, Greece has the fourth-best odds to win EuroBasket, behind Serbia, France, and Germany. People should never bet against a two-time MVP and one of the top five players in the NBA. But Greece doesn\u2019t have the same deep roster that Serbia and Germany have. If we look at historical play, Greece has lost in the quarterfinals in 2022, 2017, and 2015. Their roster is not good, and if teams load up completely on the Greek Freak, it is hard seeing his teammates winning all elimination rounds.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nikola Jokic is widely regarded as one of the best players in the world. But at the EuroBasket 2025, he has a chance to achieve a historical feat. If Serbia wins the Gold medal, the Joker can become the first player ever to win a regular-season NBA MVP award, a Finals MVP, a championship, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5291,"featured_media":156552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,20,62],"tags":[161,306,72,186,1215],"class_list":["post-156495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nuggets","category-nba","tag-dirk-nowitzki","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-pau-gasol","tag-tony-parker"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156495"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156553,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156495\/revisions\/156553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}