He’s the best player out of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, since Dikembe Mutombo. He’s the best player from China since Yao Ming. He was the best high school player in a third country — Texas.

He could be the best teenage 6-foot-5 point guard living in Denver since Micheal Ray Richardson. The best 6-5 point guard of all time was Oscar Robertson.

“He’s the best young point guard I’ve ever seen,” former Nuggets coach Larry Brown once said.

The Nuggets must draft Emmanuel Mudiay on Thursday night.

Ta-ra-ra Mudiay! He will be a game-changer, a franchise-shaker in the NBA.

“Dr. Congo” was on his jersey front last year in China. He has been affectionately referred to as “There I Am” and “EMS” (Express Mail Service).

He should be called the Nuggets’ point guard for the next 10 seasons.

Oh, but the Nuggets can’t get this 19-year-old basketball prodigy at the No. 7 pick.

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Nobody believed the Nuggets could get David Thompson, either.

Let’s just see how smart and sharp Stan and Josh Kroenke, Tim Connelly, Mike Malone, Pete D’Alessandro and the cast of thousands in the Nuggets’ front office are.

Can they pull off a Brink’s Robbery by getting an Emmanuel as good as or better than the Emmanuel the Broncos stole last year?

Or will the franchise end up with a swell player who helps them remain a lottery team for years?

Somebody like Justise Winslow, who is advertised as a 6-7 small forward but actually is a smaller forward at 6-4½. He’s a tweener and a Twitter commotion. The Nuggets already have big small forwards in Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler.

Karl-Anthony Towns and Jahlil Okafor will be drafted 1-2 in the draft, and center Kristaps Porzingis is the latest European du jour. Go big or go home.

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But this man’s league belongs to the point guards.

Hello, Steph Curry.

Goodbye, Ty Lawson.

Mudiay (pronounced Moo-dee-eh) is a taller, stronger and younger John Wall.

You didn’t see Mudiay in a college game last year because he was in China, and not many Guangdong Hongyuan Southern Tigers games were televised in America. Like, none. He went to China to take care of his mom (a $1.2 million contract) and because he probably would have been declared academically ineligible as a freshman at Southern Methodist.

He would have played at SMU for Brown, who knows something about point guards. He was one — even for the Nuggets, briefly — and took another former Nuggets point guard, Chauncey Billups, to the NBA title, and yet another, Allen Iverson, to the Finals.

Mudiay was born in what was then known as Zaire in 1996, the same year countryman Mutombo was finishing his time with the Nuggets. When Emmanuel was 2, his father died of a heart attack, and his mother supported the children by growing coffee. In 2002, to escape a war-torn land, the Mudiay family received asylum in the U.S. — and ended up in Texas.

Mudiay learned English and basketball.

He played at a couple of prep academies, earned a national reputation and was offered scholarships by Kentucky and Kansas, but selected SMU because of Brown. But after his high school was shuttered (because of scholastic issues), his future in college was uncertain. Mudiay could become a millionaire if he traveled to the very Far East.

He averaged 18.0 points, 6.3 assists, 5.0 rebounds and 1.6 steals before spraining an ankle and being forced to sit out much of the season. But the scouts and the digital world had witnessed enough.

Mudiay is a big-time player with bursting speed, special peripheral vision, a powerful body with an incredible wingspan and a mature presence on the floor. He is a fierce defender and can hit the 3-pointers, but the midrange jump shot needs improvement.

“When all is said and done, I want to become a great player,” Mudiay told Lakers.com. He worked out twice for the Los Angeles Lakers.

One problem is, the Nuggets have not worked him out once. No problem. Mudiay, not D’Angelo Russell, is the right young man. Perhaps the Nuggets don’t have the moxie or the mettle to secure a deal with the New York Knicks or the Sacramento Kings — using Lawson, Kenneth Faried and their pick as bait. Maybe, we can hope, he will fall to No. 7.

Mudiay can play and pass it off, and the Nuggets can’t pass up this play.

He would be the Nuggets’ best point guard ever.

Woody Paige: woody@woodypaige.com or twitter.com/woodypaige