The Denver Nuggets probably didn’t realize the impact they were going to create on the NBA when they selected a 19-year-old Serbian center with the 41st pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. Fortunately for them, that center was Nikola Jokic, who has since brought the only NBA championship in Denver’s history, along with the three league MVP trophies he’s won over his 12-year career so far.
Jokic might go down in history as one of the best centers of all time, as he definitely is the best NBA player of the 2020s so far. He’s averaging 28.8 points, 12.5 rebounds, and 10.3 assists this season, leading another MVP race alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the OKC Thunder. But this isn’t a reality anyone would’ve pictured on June 26, 2014, when Jokic was drafted in the middle of a Taco Bell commercial on ESPN.
That Taco Bell advertisement gets brought up every time the story of Jokic’s draft night is told, but nobody has ever addressed what Jokic was doing in that moment. The 31-year-old Nuggets center revealed to ‘X and O’s Chat’ that he was actually asleep when he was drafted, with his brother waking him up with a phone call from New York.
“The Draft itself, the moment that I was drafted, my brother was living in New York, he called me on the phone, celebrating, and I was sleeping, man. I’m like, ‘Who’s even thinking about that?’ A 17-year-old me, just thinking how I will wrestle with these guys.”
Jokic also spoke about how much NBA he had watched prior to him becoming a player in the league, as the Serbian legend admitted he primarily just watched highlights.
“I mean, I wasn’t watching actively, but I looked at highlights, best moments—there was that NBA Action show, thank God, we were all watching that.”
It’s not surprising to see someone like Jokic have such a flat reaction to the news that he’ll be playing in the best basketball league in the world. For a man who’s often mocked for a perceived lack of interest in the NBA, he’s managed to achieve heights that even some of the greats would envy him for.
Jokic averaged 22.2 points, 11.0 rebounds, and 7.4 assists over a career featuring seven All-NBA selections and eight All-Star selections. While he has never been a lockdown defender, he’s arguably the most gifted triple-double artist the league has ever seen.
He’s already No. 2 in the all-time leaderboards for that stat with 187, trailing former teammate Russell Westbrook. Jokic is inching closer to Westbrook’s 207 triple-doubles every season, while still having many years of his prime ahead of him.
Nikola Jokic might not have had a big reaction to getting drafted, but he’s put in the work to be among the best the game has ever seen. He hopes to cement his status with another championship for the Nuggets this season, although there are major challenges in the way.
The Nuggets lost Jamal Murray to injury in their last game, with just 18 games before the Playoffs. Denver’s 39-25 record is only good enough for fifth in the West right now, meaning they have very little margin for error going forward. Aaron Gordon’s return from a hamstring injury will boost their prospects going forward, but Murray’s absence might cause offensive hiccups.
Thankfully, Jokic has proven he can rise up and take the entire offensive burden upon his shoulders. He’ll be wary of overextending himself after making an early return from an ankle injury in January, but this is the cost the all-time legends endure to make sure their teams succeed at the highest level.
Nikola Jokic might have had an underwhelming draft night, but this is as far from an underwhelming career as one could imagine for a second-round pick.
