NBA Hall of Famer Bill Walton has never been one to mince words, so you knew he was going to have a lot of special things to say about Denver Nuggets star big man Nikola Jokic.

Nikola Jokic is not your typical center. The 23-year-old is not only averaging a double-double, but he's also one of the best passers in the game.

Jokic is averaging 7.3 assists per game on the season, which ranks 10th in the NBA. The Nuggets' franchise player is averaging more assists than guys like LeBron James, Trae Young, Mike Conley, Ricky Rubio, Kyrie Irving and D'Angelo Russell — players who play the point guard position for their respective teams.

Bill Walton was a pretty good passer himself during his playing days. The former MVP averaged 3.4 assists during his career and 5.0 per game during the 1977-78 season.

Walton says Jokic is a beautiful player to watch play basketball, and he even compared the Joker to the likes of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King when it comes to seeing the future.

“He’s a beautiful player who plays a mental game,” Walton told Nick Kosmider of The Athletic. “He has what seems to have been lost in the world, which is peripheral vision. When you walk down the street in life, when you drive a car in life, when you ride a bike in the world on a street, it is staggering the lack of peripheral vision. But Nikola Jokic is the antidote to so many of our problems in the world.

“When you see someone like a Nelson Mandela or a Martin Luther King or a Mahatma Gandhi, someone who sees the future before anyone else does, knows how to get to where they need to be, where they want to be, that is Nikola Jokic. Happiness begins when selfishness ends. In a game that has been taken over by incessant dribbling for yourself, Nikola Jokic is such a breath of fresh air. And it’s his imagination. Watching him play basketball is like watching Bob Dylan come up with a song.”

The Nuggets are 21-10 on the season, which is the second-best record in the Western Conference. Jokic has to be in the MVP conversation for the way he has led Denver this year.