Nikola Jokic and Magic Johnson’s spotlight reel has beautiful similarities

Nikola Jokic had already firmly established himself as the perfect basketball participant on the planet heading into the 2024-25 season with three NBA MVP trophies, one championship, and one NBA Finals MVP already beneath his belt earlier than he turned 30 years previous. Jokic confronted one of many greatest challenges of his profession this season with the remainder of the Denver Nuggets’ roster beginning to crumble round him. He’s responded with arguably the perfect season of his profession.

Jokic is third within the NBA in scoring, first in rebounds, and second in assists to start out the brand new season. He’s working at big 30 p.c utilization whereas scoring with sky-high effectivity (65 p.c true capturing). The Nuggets go from among the finest groups within the NBA when he’s on the ground (+10.51 net-rating) to the worst when he’s on the bench (-15.28).

Jokic’s three MVPs tie him with Magic Johnson, Larry Chook, and Moses Malone all-time. If he wins his fourth this yr — and he’s the large front-runner proper now — he’ll be a part of LeBron James, Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Invoice Russell, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the one gamers with 4 or extra MVPs in league historical past.

On Thursday evening, Jokic recorded his league-leading ninth triple-double in Denver’s shut loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. It was Jokic’s 139th triple-double all-time, transferring him previous Magic Johnson and into third place in league historical past. The NBA used the event to rejoice the similarities between Jokic and Magic, and it’s downright eery how a few of these strikes really feel like a carbon-copy of each other. Watch the Jokic/Johnson supercut right here:

Jokic is simply too younger to have ever watched Magic reside, but it surely’s clear the flexibility, creativity, and high-IQ that pulsed by means of Johnson’s recreation are discovering a contemporary reincarnation by means of the Nuggets star.

There are additionally a number of statistical similarities between Johnson and Jokic. Field rating plus/minus is an all-in-one stat that estimates a participant’s influence on the court docket. Jokic and Johnson every within the top-5 in NBA historical past within the metric:

Win shares per 48 minutes is one other stat the place Jokic and Johnson each shine:

Solely 12 gamers in NBA historical past have ever averaged at the very least 19 factors, seven rebounds, and 7 assists for his or her profession. Jokic and Magic are each on the checklist.

Magic has an ironclad case as a top-10 participant in league historical past. Jokic is getting there, too.