International players have made a lot of noise around the NBA in recent years, taking over and dominating the competition individually speaking. The last four regular-season MVPs have been won by European players, showing that they are getting better every year and the talent they’re sending is more dangerous than before.
2x MVP Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic are perfect examples of how players can dominate in the NBA without being as lean or athletic as American stars, and apparently, some within the association aren’t happy about that.
New Chicago Bulls point guard Goran Dragic recently spoke about this, throwing shade at American players while explaining that Doncic and Jokic bother the competition with their talents, which doesn’t necessarily come from having the best bodies in the league.
“His [Jokic] IQ is such that he’s messing with them there,” Jokic said in an interview with Sportal. “Americans are pushing their way forward through marketing, and that’s all normal but when you put everything on the floor, it’s a different story. Jokic is not fast, he doesn’t jump and that gets up their noses, how can a man play like this? They [NBA players] are all in good shape, you need to have six percent body fat, you need to jump… And I think it gets on their nerves, how can Jokic and Luka play like this?”
Doncic and Jokic have been great with their respective teams, and although they haven’t won a championship yet, many people believe it’s a matter of time before we see them lifting the Larry O’Brien trophy. Luka took his Dallas Mavericks to the Western Conference Finals last season, and fans expect him to emulate or improve his participation.
Meanwhile, Jokic hopes that the returns of Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. can help him and the Denver Nuggets make a deep playoff run. These two stars are set to light the league up, and it seems like their peers will stay mad because they are far away from done.
