Nikola Jokić checked the last box.

After a grueling 94-89 Game 5 victory over the Miami Heat, the onslaught of questions regarding legacy, hot shots and pot shots were directed at him for much of the three minutes. last year has been extinguished.

Jokić is an NBA champion and Finals MVP.

He is now among the exclusive list of players who have won two regular season MVPs and at least one Finals MVP:

Jokić, Tim Duncan, Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Moses Malone, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, LeBron James, Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

If you don’t count, that’s 11 names. The eleven greatest players in basketball history. And yes, it’s time to add Jokić to that list of luminaries.

Jokić just finished one of the greatest individual postseason runs in league history.

In 20 games, Denver went 16-4 and Jokić scored 600 points, 269 rebounds and 190 assists. Jokić led the season in all three categories. No one has ever done that before. If you count the BAA years, the league has been around since 1946. Wilt has made 13 playoff appearances. MJ and LeBron have 13 and 16, respectively.

They have never done what Jokić just did. No one has.

For a few years, the saying around Denver when Jokić posted some ridiculous stat line (or series of stat lines) was “Not since Wilt.”

Lately, that’s morphed into “Not Even Wilt.”

In that way, the playoffs (and really this entire three-year tournament) is more of a legacy-creating place than a legacy-protecting place.

“I don’t think you can put it in context” Michael Porter Jr. said when asked by Jokić about this postseason. “He does so many things for our team. I don’t think people understand how good a basketball player he is.”

They do now. Or at least they should.

In most of the two seasons in which Jokić won the regular season MVP, the default answer to “best player in the world” was the default answer to “best player in the world”. the conversation appears to be Giannis Antetokounmpo. There are some Kevin Durant or LeBron James holds. Some vocal fans and analysts are even pushing 2022-23 MVP Joel Embiid into it. The Jokić team is very small.

Throughout this postseason, you can feel the tides turning.

Jokić’s position on top of the mountain was now an indisputable boundary.

Not only is he the Finals MVP, but he’s also the leader (by a landslide) in the plus/minus box since the start of the 2020-21 season (including the playoffs).

(BPM “is a box score-based metric that estimates a basketball player’s contribution to the team while that player is on the court.”)

During that span, he was third among all players in points scored, first in rebounds, third in assists and first in raw plus-minus.

He made 63.0% of his two-pointers, 37.3% of his three-pointers and 83.0% of his free throws.

Statistically, no one comes close. And now the debate has gone beyond numbers.

“This is a historic run,” MPJ said after Game 5. “I don’t know how you can say he’s not the best big man ever.”

“We saw a strength forward,” Aaron Gordon added. “We’ve never seen a focal point before. So he’s the first.”

“He was the Finals MVP and deservedly so,” Jamal Murray said. “He keeps people connected.”

This is a truly unique player we are seeing, who has clearly demonstrated that he puts the team above individual achievements. His teammates were fed up with that energy and approach, so much so that they won the championship together.

When asked which teammate he was excited to see win it all, he listed almost every name on the list.

“All of them,” Jokić said. “Literally every player.”

You can be sure that the same attitude will pervade the Nuggets next season, because Jokić will be on the roster. He hasn’t given any indication that he wants (or will) play any other way.

And that should help Denver maintain its position as a championship contender for the foreseeable future. On the podium, Michael Malone said they were not satisfied with just one championship. He wants more.

Whether he wins more championships or not, Jokić did something on Monday that makes his legacy even stronger. In Game 5 in which his teammates shot 26-of-68 (38.2%) from the field, Jokić was 12-of-16 for 28 points, with 16 rebounds and 4 assists. He is the highest plus-12 on the team.

And he validated three years of NBA dominance, proving on the basketball world’s biggest stage that you can win.