Charles Barkley is convinced he knows who is the all-time best foreign NBA player

During a recent appearance on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast, Charles Barkley spoke about the fact that the NBA is dominated by international players, and not American grown talents as it has been in the past with Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and many more.

During this chat, the Hall of Famer gave his take on who is the best foreign player to ever grace the NBA court. The ESPN broadcaster didn’t hesitate to chose Nikola Jokic as his favourite, but not too far behind from another great player who led the Mavericks for two decades.

“Dirk, up until the Joker, was the greatest foreign player ever,” Chuck said, also delivering praise to Nowitzki, who retired five years ago. However, choosing the Nuggets big man makes sense, as he is not only an NBA champion, and a two-time MVP, but he’s also changed the game becoming one of the best playmaking centres in league history.

"Dirk, up until Joker, he was the greatest foreign player ever."

Charles Barkley says Nikola Jokic is better than Dirk Nowitzki 😮 Do you agree?

(via @ClubShayShay)pic.twitter.com/b6rmmWqI6V

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) May 5, 2024

Sharpe’s social media platform posted a video of Barkley’s take online. “Charles Barkley Says Nikola Jokić Is Better Than (Dirk Nowitzki) – Do You Agree?” it reads, with thousands of comments below.

As the Denver star is currently competing against Minnesota‘s rotated three bigs and lost to them 106-99 this past Saturday night, he joked about finding a solution to overcome this Western Conference playoff series.

“To have a duplicate clone of myself, and then I could be fresh when they sub another guy, I’m gonna be fresh,” he said about confronting Naz Reid, Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns. “It’s a tough game, and they’re a really good defensive team.”

However, the Serbian is convinced that things will look up this Monday for Game 2. “I think that’s why they’re good. They can play big, they can play small… they’re long physical, they rebound really well, they’re aggressive,” Nikola said. “I’m satisfied with the shots that I took, some of them I miss, some of them I made.”

Rising NBA superstar Anthony Edwards recently praised Jokic as “the best player in the world”

After beating the reigning champions in Game 1 of the conference semifinals, young Anthony Edwards gave his respects to the Nuggets and Nikola Jokic after this hard-fought victory. The forward well knows that he’s clashing against the “best player in the world” as his team continues their unbeaten playoff run.

“Going against the best player in the world is always fun. Going against the best team in the world is always fun,” he said postgame. “Like I said, they’re well coached, they’re disciplined, they’re not going to beat themselves.”

The Serbian also praised his opponent, who dropped 43 points, won 7 rebounds, handed 3 assists and produced 2 blocks in his team’s 106-99 triumph. “Of course he is a special player,” Jokic said. “I have a huge respect for him. He can do everything on the floor.”

“You need to enjoy and respect your opponent and how good and how talented he is,” Nikola added. “But it was him in the first half, he scored like 20-something in the first half. Then it was [Karl-Anthony Towns], Mike [Conley] had some big points, Naz Reid had an amazing fourth quarter, and of course Ant had a really good fourth quarter too. So, they are a really talented team and that’s why they were the number one seed most of the year.”