How Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic found his voice and conquered final frontier of his basketball maturation
The Nuggets had just shredded the Lakers’ vaunted defense, and Nikola Jokic’s basketball soul was satisfied. But in trying to assign a word to Denver’s surgical 30-assist, five-turnover showing in Game 3 against Los Angeles in the Western Conference Finals, Jokic stumbled into a rare misstep.
“Not poison,” he said before a reporter coaxed an apt description out of him.
“Contagious,” said Jokic, settling on a plausible through line for someone speaking a second language.
“I love it. I think that’s the best brand of basketball.”
Now eight years into his Hall-of-Fame-bound career, Jokic is more comfortable speaking than he’s ever been. With his singular intuition and preternatural court vision already established, the final frontier of Jokic’s basketball maturation was always his voice.
With it, he could share his wisdom and wield even more influence over the game than he already did. Late in Game 3, Jokic tapped into it.
That’s when Jokic took over the timeout huddles and explicitly called for Denver’s most potent action — the two-man game between himself and Jamal Murray — in an attempt to pull the Nuggets closer to the NBA Finals than they’d ever been before.
As if playing a real-life version of NBA Jam, the Nuggets heeded his words and tilted the court, riding Jokic and Murray to close out the game and seal an insurmountable 3-0 lead over the Lakers.
“Coach Jokic did a great job tonight,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone quipped late that night.
As Jokic ambled out of the news conference and down a long hallway past the Lakers’ dispirited locker room, he explained the genesis of what he shared.
“I just saw something that maybe can help us, and I just say it,” Jokic told The Post. “When I see something that can help us, I will always say it.”
Well, not always. It took years to get to this point. Asked if anyone encouraged the type of vocal leadership Jokic levied, the two-time MVP turned serious.
“(DeAndre Jordan), but I hate him,” Jokic deadpanned. “And Jeff (Green). I hate him, too.”
“I just want to win”
Late last season, on a road trip in Indiana, Green and Jokic settled in for dinner.
It was just the two of them, an aging veteran trying to squeeze a few more years out of his career and a once-in-a-generation player firmly in his prime. Green hit Jokic with a question the rest of the NBA couldn’t stop asking.
What would it mean to win a second MVP?
“‘Man, I really don’t care,” Jokic replied. “I just want to win.’”
In that moment, Green said he more clearly saw the essence of Jokic.
“I played with all-time greats,” said Green, who counts among his former teammates LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Kevin Garnett. “That helped me understand who he is as a person. The humble, respectful, down-to-earth guy he is.”
There was no grand design for getting Jokic to speak up. It wasn’t as if Green and Jordan, two loud personalities who pride themselves on meshing with anyone, concocted a plan to get Denver’s most gifted player to share his insights. Instead, it was mostly a product of being a good teammate.
“Nikola has a lead-by-example kind of voice,” Jordan said. “I always compare that to a guy like Tim Duncan.”
So how did the longtime veterans go about extracting those pearls of wisdom?
“I just asked his opinion,” Green said. “I think first and foremost, people have to understand the cultural and language barrier that guys that’s coming from European countries, overseas, that they have to deal with. Expressing themselves, trying to get their point across, sometimes can be difficult.
“… I didn’t force him to talk, but I forced him to give me his opinion instead of just being like, ‘Joker talk, Joker talk.’ It’s about just having that simple communication of ‘What do you think? What would you like to see? Where do you want me at?’”
Over the course of his career, Green’s played with teammates from Brazil, Serbia, France and Spain, to name a few. There’s an art, he said, to meeting his teammates where they’re at, with the language, nuance and culture of an NBA locker room.
Jokic, somewhat masterfully, has managed to find the sweet spot of goofy, irreverent English, laced with a tinge of dry sarcasm. Anyone who thinks Jokic lacks personality or doesn’t have the confidence to command a news conference, locker room or huddle hasn’t been paying attention.
“I just observed, I saw how he was,” Green said.
In the meantime, Green said he was happy to speak for Jokic if he wanted. It was an extension of the trust built up over dozens of dinners and team outings throughout the season.
The obstacles in getting Jokic to speak more were two-fold. One, the language barrier is real.
“Of course he hates it,” Green said. “It’s like somebody telling you to read out front of the classroom. You’re not going to like it, but when you’re done, you’re like, ‘Alright, glad I got that over with.’”
The other is his preference not to elevate himself above his teammates. Privately, Jokic doesn’t like offering his opinion on trade candidates or potential free-agent signings despite his status within the organization. He often delineates a clear church and state separation between himself and the Nuggets’ front office. The same goes for the coaching staff. His job is to play. Their job is to manage.
Jokic would prefer to leave the politicking to someone else.
“I don’t want to be a coach,” he said after Game 3. “I think that’s the worst job on the planet, for sure.”
Before Jokic became at ease grabbing the whiteboard during timeouts or demanding accountability, he first had to overcome his own hesitation to raise his voice and disrupt the established hierarchy.
“He doesn’t really want to ruffle feathers or use his superstar status,” Jordan said.
“He’s being a leader”
Before a game in Houston this season, Jokic noticed something in the lackadaisical way his team was warming up. Preparing to face one of the league’s cellar dwellers, Jokic saw an apathetic attitude that warranted a response.
He gathered his team together and called them out, extending the standard he sets for himself to the rest of his team.
“When he’s holding others accountable and he’s being a leader in that way, I think that’s what really matters,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said.
But has his volume increased in the playoffs as the Nuggets have marched toward their first NBA Finals?
“I think that makes for a great story, but I don’t know if it’s entirely accurate,” Malone said. “I think throughout the year, not just the playoffs, he’s picked his spots in terms of when to be vocal, when to challenge his teammates.”
As the Nuggets have matured into title contenders, patiently waiting until a healthy roster matched their lofty ambitions, Jokic’s willingness to engage is a development as significant as any.
In his stubborn, reluctant tone, Jokic groused about the impact Green and Jordan have had on him.
“They are trying to make me to talk,” Jokic said.
But when told of Jokic’s “hate” for him, Jordan, the wily veteran, smiled.
“That means he really loves us,” Jordan said.
Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.