Nikola Jokic has never sounded especially interested in basketball’s loudest debates, but his recent appearance on X&O’s Chat offered a clear stance on one of the sport’s most familiar habits: the tendency of former players to diminish the current generation.
In the interview, Jokic said he does not fully understand the tone older players sometimes take toward active NBA players, saying,
“I don’t understand that gap from older players toward us,” and adding that it is often unclear whether the attitude is disrespect or something else entirely.
Nikola Jokić doesn’t like the disrespect from ex NBA players towards active NBA players
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What made Jokic’s comments notable is that they were not framed as an attack on the past. Quite the opposite. He explicitly argued that legends from earlier eras would still be able to play today, using Larry Bird as an example and calling those older stars “extraordinary” and “legendary.” At the same time, Jokic also said it would be “stupid” to think basketball is not better now than it was 30 years ago, comparing the sport’s evolution to the way technology improves over time.
That balance is what gives the quote its force. Jokic was not dismissing former players. He was rejecting the idea that respect for history requires contempt for the present. His point was that basketball evolves, training evolves and player development evolves, so naturally the modern game changes with it. In his view, that should not be controversial, and it should not become an excuse for turning every cross-era discussion into a cheap shot at active players.
The larger significance of the moment is that it came from one of the defining players of this era, and from a star who rarely seems eager to manufacture headlines. Jokic’s frustration sounded less like self-defense and more like a plea for a healthier conversation around the game. Respect, his comments suggested, should be able to move in both directions. The past deserves reverence. The present deserves it too.
