Nikola Jokic once had a chance to date a woman whom every player on the Denver Nuggets was interested in, but he decided against it. Jokic’s former Nuggets teammate Joffrey Lauvergne shared the story of the Serb passing up on that chance to Mozart Sport.
“When you’re in the NBA, you always travel on a private jet, and the crew is always the same,” Lauvergne said. “We are always greeted by the same people. Among them was a girl. I can’t tell you how beautiful she is. Like from a video or a movie.
“Amazingly, I remember her after all these years,” Lauvergne continued. “Well, when you have a girl like that and a plane full of basketball players who are a bit unprofessional at the same time… you can imagine the scenes.
“There is not a player in the team at that time who did not approach her, tried something,” Lauvergne stated. “Tossed and searched for the phone. No one could conquer her. She was always unavailable. Nikola was also there, but in a completely different style. Everything was easy, Nikola, made some jokes. He was kidding. He never even approached directly yet, but he always joked.
“She obviously liked it because he was different,” Lauvergne said. “After one trip, we land in Denver and she approaches someone for the first time, she comes to Nikola and gives him a piece of paper with a phone number. The whole team is in awe.
“Nikola coolly gets up from the plane and comes to me,” Lauvergne stated. “We have already established a rhythm for me to drive him from the airport. A few minutes of driving pass without conversation and he suddenly turns to me: ‘Zo, here’s your number, I definitely don’t need it. I have a girlfriend.’ In amazement, I reply that I don’t want the number because she gave it to him. He just opens the window and throws a note with a number on it.”
That is quite the story. In this day and age, we hear from time to time about NBA players cheating on their partners, but Jokic seems to be one of those who are cut from a different cloth. If you’re wondering who was the girlfriend he was referring to there, it was Natalija Macesic, who is now his wife.
As for Lauvergne, he and Jokic were teammates during the 2015-16 season when the Serb was a rookie. The Frenchman had also played against Jokic in Serbia and while he could see back then that he was a good player, he didn’t think the Nuggets superstar would turn out to be this good. To be fair, no one else did either.
Nikola And Natalija Jokic
Nikola and Natalija are both from Sombor, Serbia, and started dating back when they were in high school. She even once shared a beautiful picture from 2012 of the two of them together.
A year after that picture was taken, Natalija moved to the U.S. to play volleyball at Seminole State College in Oklahoma. A year later, Jokic would be drafted by the Nuggets, but he didn’t really have an interest in going to the States.
Natalija being in the country, though, played a part in his decision to sign with the franchise in 2015. She then headed to Denver to stay with Nikola and his two brothers, Nemanja and Strahinja.
Their relationship continued to go from strength to strength as the years went by and in January 2020, Nikola and Natalija got engaged. They then got married on Oct. 24, 2020, in their hometown of Sombor. A year later, they had their first child together, a girl whom they named Ognjena.
Natalija and Ognjena were often spotted at Nuggets playoff games last year and they witnessed Nikola have one of the greatest postseasons in recent NBA history, as he led the franchise to a championship. Jokic also won his third MVP recently, of course, and Natalija narrated a video to celebrate that incredible feat.
A priceless moment 🥹 pic.twitter.com/hmd1JkE8LD
— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) May 9, 2024
That was indeed priceless. It is wonderful to see such a happy family and their story is so wholesome as well. Here’s to hoping things stay the same between them for the rest of their lives. For now, both Natalija and Ognjena would be cheering on Nikola as he looks to help the Nuggets overturn a 2-0 deficit against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Semifinals.
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