Yes, it's the best pass Nikola Jokić has thrown, and you can make a real case it's the best pass anyone in the NBA has thrown in a while. The fact that it happened midway through the first quarter of a preseason game Denver lost doesn't shave a single point off it. If anything, it makes the whole thing funnier.
Here's what he did. Jokić had Lauri Markkanen on him on the baseline and started to post him up, the most ordinary situation in basketball. Then, without a beat of hesitation, he whipped the ball behind his back and sent it from one corner all the way across to Cam Johnson in the other, past a wall of Jazz defenders. Johnson caught it clean and buried the three. No windup, no tell. The ball lands in his shooting pocket like it was mailed there.
Sam Vecenie said it broke his brain, that he couldn't work out how the ball got thrown with that force at that arm angle and still arrived exactly where Johnson needed it. Plenty of players can make a flashy pass. Almost nobody can make a flashy pass that requires zero adjustment from the shooter, in rhythm, off a dead stop, out of a post-up. The degree of difficulty and the degree of ease are both maxed out at once, which shouldn't be possible.
There's a dissenting take going around: a defender could've guarded it, the hype is overblown. Wrong. You can't guard a pass you don't see coming, thrown to a spot you have no reason to expect. Three Jazz defenders are standing in the middle of the floor because Jokić gave them nothing to read. Posting up Markkanen only sets up the behind-the-back release, and by the time anyone sees it, the ball's already gone. Saying a defender could've stopped that is like saying you'd have called the punchline if the comedian had told it to you first.
Denver's coach gets this better than the skeptics do. David Adelman said "He's just 1-of-1 that can make that pass," then added the context that matters: "I think there were six or seven times he could've just laid the ball in. If you want to create an atmosphere where people pass the ball to the open man, you have to do it in these moments in the preseason." That's basketball philosophy. The best offensive player alive is using a game that doesn't count to wire his teammates into expecting the ball, building the habit in October so Johnson's ready for the same pass in May.
Johnson being the target is its own small story, too. That read only works if the shooter trusts it's coming and keeps his feet set. He did. He got rewarded.
Jokić finished with 3 points on his only shot, which he made, plus 7 assists and zero turnovers in 14 minutes. One shot for himself, seven for everybody else. Jamal Murray sat out for personal reasons, Denver lost 109-97, and none of it will matter on October 22 when the real thing starts in Oklahoma City. The pass will. People will still be pulling up that clip in January.
We're still out here debating whether Jokić gets enough credit, which is its own kind of insult. A guy coming off a first-round exit just produced the clip of the preseason without breaking stride, in a game with nothing on the line, as a teaching exercise. Stop treating the setting as a discount. The hardest thing in basketball doesn't get easier because the scoreboard is meaningless. He did it anyway, because he can, and almost nobody else can.
