Denver Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic is now an NBA Champion and NBA Finals MVP. With his 28/16/4 performance in Game 5, he is officially the first player in NBA history to lead the entire playoffs in points, rebounds, and assists. Not even the likes of LeBron James or Wilt Chamberlain has pulled that off, per ESPN Stats & Info.

On a legendary playoff run, Jokic averaged 30.5 points, 13.5 rebounds and 9.5 assists, breaking all kinds of records along the way: ten triple doubles, lowest-drafted player to win Finals MVP, etc… This is just one more for the books.

Jokic's 2023 playoff run will go down as one of the greatest individual runs ever, but for different reasons than others. LeBron's 2018 run with the Cleveland Cavaliers comes to mind, simply for carrying such a bad roster to the Finals. Same with his 2007 Cavs run.

Jimmy Butler's two Finals runs as massive underdogs with the Miami Heat, Kawhi Leonard's legendary 2019 championship with the Toronto Raptors, Michael Jordan in 1993, when he averaged 41 points in the Finals… All these runs are great in their own way, but none of them are quite like Jokic's.

The big man's ability to impact the game at so many different levels and lead even his own team in all major statistical categories, let alone the entire playoff field, is incredible.

Denver has been the NBA's most consistent team all year long, and they never wavered in the playoffs. It's not to say he carried this team on his own; there are some awesome pieces around him on the Nuggets that contributed in huge ways.

But everything the Nuggets do runs through Jokic, the driving force between a team that made everyone they faced look vastly inferior. After winning back-to-back MVPs but coming up short in the postseason without his co-star Jamal Murray, Jokic has finally reached the top of the mountain.

This was a well-deserved championship for Jokic and the Nuggets, and they aren't going anywhere anytime soon.