Nikola Jokić does not dominate NBA basketball like his fellow superstar contemporaries.
The reigning NBA Finals MVP is a maestro in complete control of his orchestra almost every single night. He is perhaps the most complete (and the smartest) offensive player ever. Jokić is the main reason why his skillful Denver Nuggets are many’s favorite to repeat as NBA champions this June.
But where Jokić dazzles on the court in a way we’re not quite accustomed to, he mostly keeps to himself off of it. He is a famously very private person who does not willingly absorb the limelight and doesn’t take his mandatory media sessions all that seriously from time to time. In a new Jokić profile from The New Yorker‘s Louisa Thomas, we learn a lot more about who the Nuggets’ dynamo is behind the scenes and what drove him to the top of the basketball world.
Here are some of the more notable takeaways about Jokić’s unique transcendence and approach to stardom.
1
Jokić REALLY doesn't like speaking with the media
Part of what makes Jokić hard to market for the NBA is that he doesn’t like all the extra attention that comes with being one of the league’s best players. If Jokić could avoid giving any meaningful soundbites, heck, talking to the media altogether, then he probably would. (I’m saying all this for emphasis.)
Thomas learned this herself from Jokić’s agent, Miško Ražnatović, in the form of a one-sentence reply when trying to reach the Nuggets’ talisman for a private discussion: “He doesn’t speak with media.”
No extra fluff or detail is necessary. It’s as simple as that.
One of the rare instances anyone has ever seen Jokić give a one-on-one interview was actually with Nuggets teammate Michael Porter Jr. in the fall. For The Win‘s Mike Sykes touched on some of the more notable pieces of that conversation late last year.
2
Jokić is willing to risk small mistakes on the court if it translates to a bigger payoff
One of the hallmarks of Jokić’s game is how he’s always thinking ahead. What Jokić lacks in traditional above-the-rim athleticism, he makes up for with impeccable processing and creativity. As he told Thomas after a big Nuggets’ regular-season win over the Dallas Mavericks in November, sometimes Jokić will literally try dangerous passes if only to learn what might be available to him later in that same game. That’s thinking two, maybe even three steps ahead.
“In truth, up close, even his turnovers often look purposeful. ‘If I [Jokić] see something, even if it’s risky, I am going to try it,’ he once said. ‘Because maybe that mistake is going to open up something else—or, next time, it is going to be there. Just to give it a chance.’ Jokić nurtures the game, in other words; he makes it grow. When Malone, the coach, took his turn at the microphone, he praised his star. ‘He doesn’t fight the game,’ he said.”
3
Dejan Milojević first uncovered Jokić's uncanny passing ability
Without hands-on tutelage from the late Dejan Milojević, Jokić’s mentor and coach in Serbia, the Nuggets’ center probably never becomes one of the faces of the NBA. Years ago, Milojević knew Jokić could be special based on a challenging, quick-thinking passing drill for big men. It was a drill that hardly seemed difficult for Jokić and makes even more sense when you watch him drop dimes on a nightly basis for Denver.
“A big man would catch the ball, then either pass or try to score, depending on the number of fingers—odd or even—that an assistant coach, standing on the sidelines, was holding up. The drill was meant to speed up the players’ decision-making. Jokić was so good at it that Milojević enlisted two assistants to stand on opposite sides of the court; Jokić was required to look at each of them, calculate the total number of fingers the pair were holding up, and then, based on whether the number was odd or even, make his move. Jokić could do this, too, Milojević said.”
Milojević once told Mražnatović, the then-owner of the Serbian team Mega Basket in the early 2010s, that he didn’t yet believe in Jokic’s physical conditioning to play professional basketball. But he saw something special and untapped in the young center’s passing vision, and that was more than enough to take a chance on him.
“Milojević told Mražnatović that the young center was not yet in physical shape to play professional basketball—and also that he was going to be a star. He encouraged Jokić’s creativity, which was already evident. ‘He was throwing all these ridiculous passes—and it drove me crazy,’ Milojević said later. ‘But I saw something wonderful, so I didn’t want to focus his mind on mistakes. I let these things go so he could grow and learn from them.’”
In his first game after Milojević’s death in January, Nuggets head coach Mike Malone explained that Jokić’s quiet tribute to his mentor was dropping 34 points, 12 rebounds, and nine assists to help break the Boston Celtics’ 20-game home winning streak.
4
Jokić's older brothers were instrumental in shaping his tough mindset
Given their comparable size and how often they’re seen at Nuggets games, Jokić’s brothers, Strahinja and Nemanja, have become something of a meme in the NBA sphere. It should be no shock that they are likely the two people — who also played Serbian and college basketball — that shaped Jokić’s competitive mindset more than most. It probably all started with the trio’s childhood shenanigans back home in Sombor, Serbia, which included once throwing knives at Jokić’s head.
Don’t worry, you read that right.
“He [Jokić] and his brothers lived in a two-bedroom apartment with their parents and grandmother. They played full-contact games of basketball on a little indoor hoop; Strahinja and Nemanja were as aggressive with their kid brother as they were protective of him. Jokić has spoken fondly of a day when Strahinja threw knives around Jokić’s head because he refused to climb a tree during a picnic.”
5
Jokić's off-the-charts testing in bizarre areas won the Nuggets over
It’s no secret that the casual NBA observer probably views Jokić as “unathletic” or “out of shape.” Even despite his listed 6-foot-11, 284-pound frame (!), Jokić’s appearance does not necessarily scream the typical NBA superstar. Parts of his NBA Draft testing back in 2015 — like a comically low 17-inch vertical, “one of the shortest vertical leaps that the trainers had ever seen” — said much of the same. But other sterling aspects of his testing, particularly how quickly he reacts to a ball in the air, eventually won the Nuggets over, who understood he would probably be an unconventional player at his massive size.
“The discomfort that some people had with his [Jokić] body blinded them to his unusual physical gifts: remarkably rapid footwork, raptor-like vision, dexterous hands and arms. The evaluators at P3 [an athletic center in Santa Barbara] also test how fast a player can get his hands to the height at which the ball typically bounces off the rim. At this, Jokić was among the ten quickest players of all time.”
Notably, Jokić has been one of the league’s finest rebounders — on both ends of the court — for almost the entire duration of his career.
6
NBA legends have very fascinating player comparisons for Jokić
Once considered the cream of the crop when it came to offense-first and pass-first big men, the legendary Bill Walton is something of a basketball scholar these days. Jokić is also often compared to him. When Thomas spoke with Walton during a November 2023 Nuggets game with the Chicago Bulls, Walton rebuffed the comparison.
Instead, Walton said Jokić is more like former two-time MVP Steve Nash, who similarly made up for his athletic limitations by maximizing his basketball IQ and controlling the game. Well, when you put it that way:
“‘Of all the players I’ve ever seen,’ Walton said, ‘Steve Nash is the one who left me awestruck more than anybody else, because he never had a physical advantage.’ Jokić, like Nash, creates room to operate by dictating the rhythm of the game, he added. ‘It doesn’t matter if that pace is faster or slower, it’s just got to be different. Because the difference of your pace creates the separation.’”
Meanwhile, Los Angeles Lakers legend Jerry West seems to think Jokić channels another famously prolific big man — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Magic Johnson, another iconic player Jokić is oft-compared to, wholeheartedly agreed with this analogy.
“Later, Jerry West, the great Laker guard who became a general manager and helped build the Lakers dynasty led by Magic [Johnson], told me that it wasn’t Magic he thought of but Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, because ‘they both played with great finesse.’ Then I asked Magic about it. ‘I love it,’ he said. ‘I think that we dominate with our mind, our basketball I.Q.’ He added, with a laugh, ‘Also, teammates love playing with us. At every level, we excel.’”
