Nikola Jokic’s run over the past few seasons has led to basketball fans debating where he sits among the game’s all time greats. That is especially true after he led the Denver Nuggets to the first championship in franchise history, as Jokic was nearly unstoppable en route to being named the NBA Finals MVP.
Recently, Dwight Howard decided to chime in on this, as the former All-Star center laid out to Zion Olojede of Complex Sports why he believes that he was better than Jokic in his prime. While he made it a point to say that he loves Jokic and believes he is already one of the NBA’s great centers, “I’m not going to throw dirt on my own name.”
“Obviously, people going to say Jokic can score,” Howard said. “He got all those offensive skills. But at the same time, I was getting 38 and 20, 45-18, 19, 20, and I’m doing all this with twos. No threes, all twos. I’m doing this with lobs. I’m not getting a lot of post-up attempts like Jokic. He’s getting way more opportunities I would say as far as to show his low post game and all that stuff. And I was just in a different era.”
Howard made the case that he didn’t just need to use skill to score the ball, as he was able to beat opposing players with power and speed, as well. Whether he was better than Jokic, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, and this is where we’ll put the usual caveat that it’s exceedingly rare that an all-time great player will flat-out admit someone is better than them.
Source: https://uproxx.com/dimemag/dwight-howard-better-nikola-jokic-prime/