Scouts Predict How Long Nikola Jokic Stays NBA’s Best

Heading into this NBA season, Denver Nuggets' big man Nikola Jokic is once again firmly in position to rank as the near-unanimous top-one or two player within the entire league.

After another MVP-caliber season in the rear-view mirror, the stage is set for another similar campaign to be on tap. The Nuggets are better, Jokic remains in the athletic prime of his playing career, and if all holds to form, it feels like the Denver big man will be at the peak of the NBA mountain in terms of talent once again.

But when could that reign for Jokic finally come to an end? When will the three-time league MVP not be best-player-caliber anymore?

In the eyes of NBA personnel, the Nuggets big man could have at least two more runs at that best in the world title.

ESPN's Tim Bontemps recently polled a pool of NBA general managers, scouts, and coaches on a few questions surrounding their latest ranking of top players from 1-100, where one of those topics centered on predicting how long Jokic (the recently-named No. 1 player) can be crowned as the top player in the league.

Two more years, at the very least, was the verdict.

"The consensus from conversations is that Jokic, who has been the definitive top player or at least in the conversation for the past several years, has at least two more runs at No. 1 before he's likely to start sliding down this list," Bontemps wrote. "That might seem low,' an East executive told ESPN, 'but we never account for how fast things change in the league."

"But Jokic's stay atop this list, at least according to league insiders, will be as much about how his game should age as the pack trying to catch up. And for a player who doesn't rely on speed or leaping ability to make an MVP impact, aging gracefully into the end of his prime shouldn't be a problem."

In the minds of a few scouts, his peak could simply come down to his ability to stay in shape better for longer, and if he can, it's hard to find reasons against his standing remaining steady at the top of the league.

"There's no reason his game will slow down," an East scout said.

"It's all about his motivation to stay in shape," another said.

That would put Jokic at age 33 before that decline begins to set in; a relatively long peak for the Nuggets big man, and it's easy to see how he can both reach that point and even surpass that prediction.