By the time Cameron Johnson released the ball from the opposite corner, Nikola Jokić was already heading back on defense. From the left side of the floor, nearly flat-footed, behind his back and without looking toward his teammate, he sent the ball almost 50 feet through the space occupied by Lauri Markkanen, Jusuf Nurkić and Svi Mykhailiuk, directly into Johnson’s hands. Johnson did not need to adjust the catch, the look was clean, and the three went down. Jokić had already done his part.
It was a preseason game in Boulder that Utah won 109-97, and nobody was talking about the result after the game. The only thing people were really talking about was another bit of magic from Nikola Jokić. Once again, everyone was stunned by his court vision and by how effortlessly he reads opposing defenses. Jokić played about 15 minutes, scored three points and handed out seven assists. and everyone ranked this one among the best passes of his career. There may be no other player capable of delivering the ball from that spot with the same combination of speed and precision. But, Jokić did.
Steve Nash Was Not Sure Anyone Else Could Make That Pass
Steve Nash watched the play with Zach Lowe. A two-time MVP, five-time league leader in assists and the owner of 10,335 regular-season assists, Nash was asked whether Jokić’s pass reminded him of anything he had seen before. Lowe admitted he could not remember a similar one.
Nash separated what an elite point guard can see from what he is physically capable of doing. Many good passers would recognize an open teammate in the opposite corner, but getting the ball there from that position is another matter.
“I don’t know if there’s anyone in the history of the game that can make that pass”, Nash said, emphasizing Jokić’s ability to disguise his intent, release the ball almost immediately and deliver it with enough velocity to hit his teammate exactly where he needed it.
The Disguise Mattered as Much as the Distance
Nash focused in particular on the way Jokić hid the ball. He was pinned near the corner, and a conventional pass over the defense would have given the nearest defender enough time to read the trajectory. Jokić shielded the ball with his body and whipped it behind his back. By the time Utah’s defenders could see it, the pass was already cutting through the middle of the paint.
The precision impressed Nash just as much. The ball did not merely reach Johnson, it arrived directly in his shooting pocket, without forcing him to lower it or adjust his position. Lowe wondered how many attempts it would take him to recreate the same pass on an empty court with no defenders. The estimate was around 500. Even that might not have been enough.
Jokić Has Replaced Point Guards at the Top of the Passing Conversation
Nash spent years setting the standard for creative passing among NBA point guards. NBA general managers voted him the league’s best passer in five different seasons, and the same survey later put Jokić in that spot. Before the 2025-26 season, 80 percent of general managers named him the best passer in the NBA.
Former NBA player Eddie Johnson also focused on the fact that Jokić made the pass almost from a standstill. In his view, the play required an unusual combination of strength and ball control. Among the players he could imagine making something similar, he mentioned Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, LeBron James, Bill Walton and Jason Kidd.
Inside Denver, the Reaction Was Much Simpler
The reaction inside Denver’s locker room was shorter. Rookie Trevon Brazile stepped in front of reporters and did not bother trying to break down what he had just seen.
“Did you see that pass? Behind the back? That’s all I have to say. Crazy”.
David Adelman had a little more to offer.
“He’s just one of one when it comes to making that pass”, the Nuggets coach said.
Adelman also noted that Jokić had six or seven opportunities during his short stint to finish at the rim but kept looking for teammates. If you want a team that moves the ball to the open man, he explained, your best player has to set that standard, especially in games like this. The most spectacular play of the night came from the same logic behind Jokić’s routine passes to cutters or out of handoffs: he saw an open teammate and found a way to get him the ball.
He Was Talking About Basketball This Way Before the NBA
He was talking about basketball that way before the NBA knew quite what to make of him. At the 2014 Nike Hoop Summit, a few months before Denver selected him with the 41st pick in the draft, he told Jonathan Givony: “Basketball is about teammates. When I’m open, I score. When I’m not, I pass”.
Three years later, he delivered the line that has followed him through most of his NBA career. Asked whether he preferred scoring or assisting, he said that “a pass makes two people happy, while a basket only makes one person happy”.
Dejan Milojević Gave Him the Phrase That Followed His Career
Much later, he explained where that idea came from. In December 2025, after passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the center with the most assists in NBA history, he thought back to Dejan Milojević.
“I always say an assist makes two people happy. My coach Deki Milojević used to say that all the time”.
Milojević coached him at Mega at a time when the idea of Jokić becoming a dominant NBA center still sounded overly ambitious. Years later, his former player became the NBA’s all-time assists leader among centers.
The Assist Record Does Not Explain How He Creates Them
The record shows how many of them he has accumulated, but not how he creates them. With Jokić, what often matters is the extra second a teammate gains because the pass arrives early, the angle that takes the ball past a help defender, or the fact that he sees the opening before the defense recognizes it.
Ognjen Stojaković has previously explained it through Jokić’s anticipation. LeBron James said something similar after the 2023 Western Conference finals: Jokić sees plays before they happen. Branislav Vićentić, one of his first coaches at Mega, used a different image: “He’s Beethoven. Give him a piano and he’ll make music”.
The Greatest Pass Is Probably Not the Point
The argument over the greatest assist ever is unlikely to produce a definitive answer. Basketball has given us Magic, Bird, Nash, Kidd, Pete Maravich, Bill Walton, Arvydas Sabonis and many others whose passing ability cannot be reduced to one play in a preseason game. Jokić himself would probably not spend much time on that debate. When he was asked for his favorite assist after breaking Abdul-Jabbar’s record, he did not choose any of his most spectacular ones. He explained that making the right play matters more to him than making a beautiful pass…