Denver Nuggets All-Star Nikola Jokic had the pass of the year ahead of the regular season, and Aaron Gordon is calling it an all-timer. Jokic is making a very good first impression on his new Nuggets teammates and broke his silence on the preseason pass to Cam Johnson that went viral last week.
Jokic says it's one of, if not, the best pass of his career, he said, per The Denver Post's Bennett Durando.
“Probably was the best pass I ever passed in my NBA career,” Jokic said about last week's incredible behind-the-back pass. “I just saw the window, and why not? It happens to be a good pass.”
Cam Johnson tried to recreate the pass during the Nuggets' practice a few days removed from the preseason game. For Aaron Gordon, Jokic's ability to pull of the pass through the opposing defense from corner to corner is what made the move so impressive.
“It wasn’t necessarily the pass that amazed me,” Gordon said. “Obviously, it was an amazing pass. But it was his ability to read the defense. So he broke the play off. The play wasn’t designed for him to catch the ball there. And he took it upon himself, because he saw something. And what he saw was a behind-the-back, cross-court pass under the basket. Which is [freaking] ridiculous.”
Gordon says Jokic's pass goes down in history as one of the greatest ever.
“Top-10, top-five pass of all time,” Gordon said. People “thought I was glazing,” he added. “And sure enough, it went viral.”
Although the play was supposed to lead to a post-up for DeMar DeRozan, Aaron Gordon revealed how Nikola Jokic called an audible for the Nuggets.
“Jok saw something,” Gordon continued. “It’s like how when teams are in zone on a baseline out-of-bounds [play], I want to take the ball out so I can throw it off somebody’s back [to myself]. You know what I mean? It was like that kind of spark. He saw a [freaking] cross-court behind-the-back pass. It was the most ridiculous [crap] I’ve ever — like, that’s what you see? That’s the read that you get from the defense that they’re playing?”
Nikola Jokic with a behind the back pass along the baseline 👀 pic.twitter.com/GO45IXxbnF
— Kyle Ingram (@SnapshotKyle) October 4, 2026
In regards to the greatest pass of all time, Nuggets' Aaron Gordon places it over the 70-foot inbound alley-oop that Nikola Jokic threw him in Memphis three years ago.
Article Continues Below“Cameras couldn’t even catch it,” Gordon recalled. “It’s tough. I think this one beats it. Narrowly. I just think the three-quarter court alley-oop gets so slept on. You can’t even do that in videogames.”
Even Nuggets head coach David Adelman was blown away by Jokic's lastest showstopping pass.
“One of the best passes ever,” Adelman said. “To be honest, live, I didn’t realize just the angle of it. So when I watched it on tape, I almost fell over. … I’ve been lucky. I’ve seen Magic (Johnson) play and (Larry) Bird and all those guys, and you see things that they do and how they see it before it happens. All those things. They know the rotation. They know the defense they’re playing against. But Nikola is a whole other thing. … This is new.”
The Nuggets will continue their preseason games with a matchup against the LA Clippers on Wednesday.

