The debate of who is a superstar in the NBA is prevalent not only among young players like Tyrese Haliburton and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander but also among experienced veterans like Nikola Jokic and Jayson Tatum. Among international players, especially, the league seems to have an issue with deciding who becomes the face of the NBA. While the young players deliberate who has reached the superstar status, among veterans, the discussion is more often which superstar is the face of the NBA.
Nikola Jokic has earned his name in that discussion after winning three out of the last five seasons’ MVP awards and also leading his team to a championship. However, DeMarcus Cousins, his former teammate, believes that despite accomplishing so much in his career, it is very tough to sell Jokic as the face of the NBA. He appeared on the ‘Run It Back’ show on FanDuel with Michelle Beadle and Chandler Parsons to express his views about Jokic.
“You can’t be a superstar if you’re only known in the States. I don’t consider that a superstar. The league is bigger than that—it’s a global brand. Once you start having that global impact, you go into that superstar status. I think it’s a combination of all those things. Charisma, as well.”
“I mean, as great as Jokic is, you can’t sell him. You can’t market him because he’s not this great personality, and this is by choice. I had the opportunity to be teammates with him. He doesn’t care about the spotlight; he doesn’t want to be that type of guy. Then you have guys like Anthony Edwards—everything he says is gold, you know what I mean? So, obviously, charisma matters. I think it’s a combination of all those things. That’s what gets you a superstar.”
Cousins played for the Nuggets in the second half of the 2021-22 season. He played 29 games alongside Jokic in that year. Therefore, despite a potential bias after having been his teammate, if Cousins is still claiming that there is something wrong with Jokic’s personality, then there must be some substance to it.
His observations are fair that Jokic’s personality is not appealing to the crowds. The Nuggets’ NBA Finals series in 2023 was the fifth least-watched series in the Finals in the modern era. Moreover, basketball does not consume a major portion of his life, let alone a single day.
He has several times admitted that he enjoys watching horse races and engaging in other activities instead of watching or playing basketball in his free time. He does not symbolize what the general sense of a great role model player would be. And personally, I blame Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant for this underlying bias towards athletes with basketball at the center stage of everything in their lives.
Bryant’s work ethic and discipline, combined with Jordan’s resilience and competitiveness and slightly flawed lifestyle, would give the world a player that the modern era would accept as the face of the NBA. Anthony Edwards is much closer to being accepted as the face of the NBA because he symbolizes an undying obsession with the game, combined with a flawed lifestyle that shows the basketball that despite his superhuman capabilities, he is still human.
But if basketball is not the center of your life, like in the case of Jokic, it will be very hard to sell your personality to the fans. Hence, I personally see merit in why Cousins claims it is very hard to sell Jokic in the modern era.
