Toni Kukoc on Nikola Jokic: 'Drazen Petrovic, Dino Radja, Vlade Divac and Arvydas Sabonis have done things that he hasn't touched yet'

Donatas Urbonas: Arturs Zagars 🇱🇻 set the new FIBA World Cup record with the most assists in a single game – 16. This record has been held by Toni Kukoc since 1994, and Carlik Jones tied that number this year (15). 📊 Opta Stats -via Twitter @Urbodo / September 9, 2023

LeBron & MJ cannot be compared says Toni Kukoc: “It’s hard to compare players that never played in the same era; that never played against each other. Obviously like everything else in the game of basketball is evolving. It’s getting better. These days you can see all the older previous players and you can get all their moves. You can practice those moves, you can get better ready because the knowledge of what to eat and how to prepare yourself, how to get rid of your injuries faster, how to keep your body in shape… all these little things – which appear to be little things, but they’re not can make you a better player. So when it comes to pure – like okay, Michael from the ‘80’s and ‘90’s or LeBron from 2000 or 2010’s you can’t say one was better than the other. Michael obviously brought world basketball to another level. And from that point on, LeBron is what LeBron is now that he gave a chance for Luka to be Luka or Jokic be Jokic. You could never imagine that back in the days. So if I can compare Michael, I would compare him to Tiger with golf, Messio Renaldo with soccer, [Michael] Phelps with swimming and stuff like that. Because of those things, Michael is – I can’t say the best player but he is a GOAT of basketball. I don’t think it’s selfish, it’s just the way it is. -via Twitter / September 4, 2023

Toni Kukoc: I wish that you could put today’s players in the 90’s and have that way of basketball with the hard fouls and everything else and when you’re talking about these guys obviously there’s going to be players that say, ‘Yeah but what about Magic and Bird? What about Bill Russell? What about Elgin Baylor?’ Because in their era those guys were so dominant, that nobody else came close. And then they say why would you and say disrespected and in a way it might be true because you’re not mentioning – especially now when you’re talking; people want to get on social media and these are all mid-20 or mid-30 years old that have never seen these guys play and they say, ‘Awww they were slower, they were not physically ready, they’re not this they’re not that…’ but they were scoring buckets from everywhere. They had so much skills; they knew basketball in their little finger. So it’s hard. It’s really hard and it’s not pleasant to try to say that this guy was better than the other if they never played against each other. If they had some kind of record – either the playing that their teams respectfully playing against each other or their records individually head-to-head, then you can say this one had more wins than the other but not such a case.” -via Twitter / September 4, 2023

???? Nikola Jokic joined the Serbian national team at their celebration party ?? -via Twitter @BasketNews_com / September 13, 2023

“Even though the team does not have big stars like [Nikola] Jokic, [Vasilije] Micic, [Nikola] Kalinic, and [Vladimir] Lucic, Serbia showed what team spirit means and how far the unity of all players around the same goal can take it. That’s why I congratulate them on their great success.” Garbajosa admitted he didn’t expect Serbia to go all the way in the tournament, especially since they lacked four important players. -via BasketNews / September 9, 2023

Asked about Nikola Jokic, who after winning the NBA championship with the Denver Nuggets couldn’t help the Serbian national team this summer, Bogdanovic said: “Nikola Jokic texts us after every game“. -via EuroHoops.net / September 8, 2023