New ESPN rankings put Nikola Jokic in rarified air with iconic athletes

It’s the doldrums of the summer for most of the sports world and that means it’s time for sports media companies to find creative ways to drive discourse and engagement. For ESPN, that means coming out with a list, Ranking the top 100 professional athletes since 2000.

These lists tend to do little more than stir the pot and make people irrationally angry about something that is ultimately subjective and largely meaningless. It’s hard enough for fans to agree on rankings within one sport; hell, fans appear ready to go to war just arguing about NBA MVP races and things of that nature.

ESPN ranks top 100 athletes of 21st century

So now we are throwing in all sports and trying to compare a great quarterback to an elite gymnast to an all-time golfer to a legendary tennis player, and so on and so on. It’s an impossible task with vague (at best) criteria but sure enough, ESPN found a way to do it and they’ve now released the entire list from 1-100.

The rankings were compiled based on voting from over 70,000 ESPN contributors and when it was all said and done they came up with Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps as the #1 greatest athlete of this millennium. Behind him was tennis player Serena Williams at #2, soccer star Lionel Messi at #3, LeBron James at #4, and Tom Brady at #5.

Nikola Jokic ranked #28 best athlete since 2000

How one can even begin to compare the careers and achievements of those five amazing, but extremely different athletes is beyond me, but that seems like a pretty reasonable top 5 overall. But of particular note to Denver Nuggets fans was the athlete who came in at #28 on the list, your very own Nikola Jokic. 

It’s pretty impressive for the Joker to be so high on the list; he placed just ahead of Mike Trout and Michael Schumacher and just behind the likes of Randy Moss and Peyton Manning. In terms of NBA players, Jokic was the 7th one to make the rankings. LeBron was #4, Kobe Bryant was #10, Stephen Curry was #14, Tim Duncan was #16, Shaquille O’Neal was #17, and Kevin Garnett was #23.

Jokic still has time to add to his resume

Not too shabby considering the guys ahead of him are either retired or well into the twilight of their careers while Jokic is still in his prime and not yet 30. It’s also a credit to him that he placed ahead of NBA legends including Dwyane Wade (#35), Kevin Durant (#39), Dirk Nowitzki (#41), and countless others.

It’s cool to see Nikola getting this type of recognition, and hopefully, he has many more good seasons in him and can continue to climb up these rankings. By 2050, Nuggets fans certainly hope he’ll have a spot in the top 5.