NBA – At the top of his game with his first league title, and the Finals MVP trophy in addition to his two regular season MVPs, Nikola Jokic is the big man of the season.
To say he’s an NBA superstar like no other is an understatement.
In the “show business” of the American Big League, Nikola Jokic is a UFO. A huge player with the most endearing personality. For the occasion, BasketUSA has delved into its archives to offer you a very large format portrait. Normal for the champion of champions this year in the NBA!
Jockey before being Joker
This photo is taken from a tour of the globe during and after the Finals. With his good face and his slanted smile, the very young Nikola Jokic, shirtless with his parents and his brothers, was first a “little fat” before becoming the double MVP and NBA champion that he is now. Like what, you should never swear to anything…
Born ten years after his first big brother, Nemanja, and thirteen after the eldest of the siblings, Strahinja (“I was probably a mistake! » laughs Jokic), the current superstar of the Nuggets lived a peaceful childhood in his family cocoon of Sombor. A warm but also hard upbringing, with two rather turbulent big brothers!
” Once, [mon grand frère aîné Strahinja] held my arms back and then he threw knives all around my head, it was kinda crazy! » All that for not wanting to climb a tree during an innocent family picnic…
A peaceful and calm kid unlike his brothers, as he told us in 2016, Nikola Jokic was not necessarily destined for basketball. He played there, it’s true, but he also loved football and water polo, volleyball… and horse racing, which he discovered at a fair at the tender age of twelve, with his parents.
“I was going to the stables. It was my life”
Truth be told, Nikola used to cry before going to basketball practice. It was his father who convinced him to keep going. Is right !
“I always liked basketball, but when I was a kid – until I was 13 or 14, I used to go horse racing. » he tells the Players’ Tribune. “I didn’t even practice basketball that much. I went to the stables, to be a stable boy. It was my life. I was shopping. Not as a professional, but as an amateur. I even finished fourth once. It was a cool hobby. »
Before becoming the gigantic athlete of 2m11 and 129 kg, who moves very well for his size, little Nikola therefore climbed on his sulky in races at breakneck speed. He even managed to finish fourth in a race between amateurs, for an encouraging start. But that was before his thrust of belief…
It must be said that the young Jokic did not have the most dietetic diet based on three liters of Coke and “bureks” (a salty pastry, with cheese in this case) as breakfast…
“I was really fat and hadn’t grown when I started playing basketball. I played everywhere, from pivot to point guard. We were having fun. I started training basketball every day when I was 15. When I was 16, I thought I could play really well. And that’s where I left Sombor for Novi Sad. »
An innate talent
As at each stage of his career, it seems, it is by a kind of coincidence that Nikola Jokic is discovered by his first agents (who are still at the time of these lines). Fate, no doubt…
“In Serbia, you play for a club and you play for your school. It’s not like in the United States, where we only play for school.”details Nikola Jokic. “Every year there is a tournament between all the schools in the country. With my school in Novi Sad, we won the tournament. My first two games in the top league, in junior, I played very well. Belgrade club KK Mega Leks saw me and they contacted me afterwards. We stayed in touch and the following season, I went there. »
For his part, it was while leafing through a local newspaper that his future agent, Misko Raznatovic, discovered the first Serbian player to double MVP and MVP of the Finals. By the merest chance. By first locating a line of statistics that jump out at you: 29 points and 26 rebounds!
“I said ‘wow’ but nothing more. The following Saturday, I read the newspaper again: ‘Here, let’s look again’. There I saw 30 points and 15 rebounds. […] He’s the first and last player in the agency’s 27-year history that we’ve signed without anyone seeing him! »
Naturally piqued in his curiosity, the founder of the BeoBasket agency decides to find out by making a phone call to his scout.
“I only had one silence in return: he didn’t know him, which was for me the surprise of the year, knowing that he knows all the ten-year-old kids! For me, it was obvious that he was playing pivot, because of the 26 rebounds. ‘Make a call and check! Is this guy getting so many rebounds because he’s taller, bigger than the others or because he’s versatile?’ He called me back three minutes later and said, ‘No, no, no, he’s not big, he’s even slightly overweight, but he’s very complete, cunning and talented.’ »
“In Europe, but maybe not in the NBA”
Integrated at the start of the 2012 school year in the professional structure of Mega Leks (now Mega Basket) – the nursery where Ivica Zubac, Goga Bitadze, Nikola Jovic, Vassilje Micic and our Frenchies Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot and Alpha Kaba also passed, Nikola Jokic gradually understood that he could make the orange ball his livelihood.
“In Europe, but maybe not in the NBA”, he thought at the time. But after a first season as a junior, then a second discovery as a pro (11 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists), he is a leader in his third (and last) campaign at Mega Leks. At 19 points, 11 rebounds and 3 assists on average for his second real (full) year in the Serbian League, Nikola Jokic was therefore ready to cross the Atlantic at the end of the 2014-15 season.
A title of MVP of the Adriatic League in the bag, the young pivot cut in the Serbian therefore knows a regular and constant ascent…
Not without a hitch with a big European, Barça, who would have liked to serve as a springboard for the Serbian pivot.
“We were practically in agreement, we just had to polish the last details”narrated by Misko Raznatovic. “But during this trip to come and see him play in a match, he was horrible! Really awful. You can’t imagine how bad it was. They asked for more time to think…”
For his part, Nikola Jokic saw it as a sign of fate. Another. “I finished with 4 points and 3 rebounds and had been lousy on defense. But it was a sign [que j’allais finir à Denver]. »
Arrived with 136 kg on the scale when he signed for Mega, Nikola Jokic sharpened little by little during the three years he spent in Belgrade. But, as always with him, the notion of pleasure is essential. Primordial even!
“He only thought of having fun”remembers his brother Nemanja in Sports Illustrated. “The first time I saw him play, he sent passes behind his back that nobody would have tried. And everyone let him. He was never told he couldn’t do it. They knew he had a unique talent. »
Darko’s Specter
Having only known experiences in the Serbian league and the Adriatic league, without the slightest passage in the Euroleague, Nikola Jokic is far from being a safe bet when he arrives in the NBA. On the contrary, other Serbian pivots before him left half-fig half-grape memories, like a certain Darko Milicic.
And that’s good, because Darko’s story is well known among the Jokic. And for good reason, Nikola’s big brother, Nemanja, knew Milicic well, since the latter had invited the eldest Jokic to come and live with him when he was also playing in Detroit, in a minor league club.
“His brothers look like mafiosi, they are so different from him”laughs Michael Porter Jr. “They are ready to fight with someone almost every two games! They are known in Serbia, but they are so different from Joker. They are simply taking care of their little brother. They are good guys! »
Taken in hand by his big brothers, Nikola Jokic also wants to join the United States as soon as possible for another reason. Natalija, his girlfriend at the time, who is now his wife (and the mother of his daughter, Ognjena), is then a volleyball player in a small college in Oklahoma (Seminole State College, between 2013 and 2015).
“It’s been like that all my life”he revealed on the sidelines of the Finals. “My family, my mother and my father have always supported me, especially my father. He always thought I could aim higher, like Jamal Murray [avec son père], who always wanted to aim higher. Then when I moved, my older brother took on that role and lived with me, and then we came to the United States, and that was my brother, Nemanja, who’s been here for nine years. We’ve been together for 15 years, and it’s just been a great adventure. To be honest, when I arrived in the United States, I was especially happy to be able to be with them. When you’re a child and you’re the little one, you always want to be with your big brothers. I was happier being around them than being in the NBA. »
“The guy had no apparent muscle”
After Strahinja, his other big brother, who arrived in Belgrade to take care of the little one, in particular to watch what he eats and that he goes well in the weight room, it is therefore Nemanja who takes over across the Atlantic. By using sharp objects if necessary!
“Nikola doesn’t really have a choice: we will always be around him. He’s smart and I trust him not to lose focus at this point. But it’s such an important moment that I want him to have the support that I didn’t have. I always tell him: you live my dream, don’t take it at face value, don’t make the same mistakes as me! »
However, doubts quickly fly away around Nikola Jokic. Lining of Jusuf Nurkic on his arrival in the Rockies, the Serbian pivot was finally elected in the best five of NBA rookies, after a first season with 10 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal and almost 1 block per game.
The former Mega Leks even beat the pawn of the Nuggets’ first draft pick, Emmanuel Mudiay, selected in 7th position in 2015… and finally in the second five rookie only!
“There was a direct prejudice in relation to his physique”declares a GM who remained anonymous. “The guy had no muscle on display. He couldn’t jump. » Gradually hardened by the infernal rhythm of the NBA calendar, Nikola Jokic will take time to forget his “fat period”.
Evidenced by this anecdote reported during his Serbian years, when he defined himself as “a fat leader” who notably missed a week with his Mega club, injured in the wrist. Tendinitis caused, get this, because he signed too many autographs!
More tonight…
Nikola Jokic Percentage Rebounds Season Team MJ Min Tues 3pts LF Off Def Tot Pd Fte Int Bp Ct Pts 2015-16 DEN 80 22 51.2 33.3 81.1 2.3 4.7 7.0 2.4 2.6 1.0 1.3 0.6 10.0 2016-17 DEN 73 28 57.8 32.4 82.5 2.9 6.9 9.8 4.9 2.9 0.8 2.3 0.8 16.7 2017-18 DEN 75 33 49.9 39.6 85.0 2.6 8.1 10.7 6.1 2.8 1.2 2.8 0.8 18.5 2018-19 DEN 80 31 51.1 30.7 82.1 2.9 8.0 10.8 7.3 2.9 1.4 3.1 0.7 20.1 2019-20 DEN 73 32 52.8 31.4 81.7 2.3 7.5 9.7 7.0 3.0 1.2 3.1 0.6 2 0.0 2020-21 ★ DEN 72 35 56.6 38.8 86.8 2.9 8.0 10.8 8.3 2.7 1.3 3.1 0.7 26.4 2021-22 ★ DEN 74 34 58.3 33.7 81.0 2.8 11.0 13.8 7.9 2 .6 1.5 3.8 0.9 27.1 2022-23 DEN 69 34 63.2 38.3 82.2 2.4 9.4 11.8 9.8 2.5 1.3 3.6 0.7 24.5 Total 596 31 55.3 34.8 82.9 2.6 7.9 10.5 6.6 2.8 1.2 2.9 0.7 20.2
How to read the stats? MJ = matches played; Min = Minutes; Shots = Shots made / Shots attempted; 3pts = 3-points / 3-points attempted; LF = free throws made / free throws attempted; Off = offensive rebound; Def= defensive rebound; Tot = Total bounces; Pd = assists; Fte: Personal fouls; Int = Intercepts; Bp = Lost bullets; Ct: Counters; Points = Points.
2023-07-23 07:50:00
#Large #format #Nikola #Jokic #jockey #Joker #Serbian #rise
