From ‘sirens and bomb shelters’ to NBA glory: The legend of Nikola Jokic

The Serb star inspired the Denver Nuggets to their first title after a 4-1 series win over the Miami Heat

Nikola Jokic completed one of the most improbable journeys in NBA history after guiding the Denver Nuggets past the Miami Heat 94-89 in a thrilling victory, securing a gritty series win and a first-ever championship.

The Serb was named Finals MVP, joining New York Knicks legend Willis Reed as the only other second-round pick to win the award. Jokic averaged 30 points, 13.5 rebounds and 9.5 assists in 20 games in the 2023 playoffs.

He is now one of 11 players who have secured two regular-season MVPs and at least one Finals MVP, joining legends such as Michael Jordon, Tim Duncan, Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Moses Malone, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, LeBron James, Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Denver went 16-4 during its playoff run, and Jokic led the playoffs in all points, rebounds and assists. No player in NBA history has ever achieved this during the playoffs. Jokic is unique. “It puts him in the legendary category for what he’s done statistically in the Finals,” Isiah Thomas, the former Detroit Pistons star, told ESPN. “I don’t know if there’s anyone who’s ever had a statistical run in the NBA Finals as a centre as he had in these categories.”

Nikola Jokic celebrates winning the NBA championship and Finals MVP with the Denver Nuggets (Getty )

“The job is done and we can go home now,” said an earnest Jokic.

Having grown up in a cramped two-bedroom apartment that he shared with his parents, two brothers and grandmother in northern Serbia, his basketball abilities were honed playing with his two older brothers, Strahinja and Nemanja. His father worked as an agricultural engineer to help provide for the family.

When he was four years old, Nato troops bombed Serbia for 11 weeks in 1999 at the tail end of a war between Yugoslavia’s six neighbouring states: Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. “I remember things like sirens, bomb shelters, always turning off the lights,” Jokic recalled in 2017 in a conversation with Bleacher Report. “We practically lived in the dark. Even at like 9am, everything was turned off.”

Jokic left home when he was just 16 to play with Mega Leks, a Serb basketball team in the Adriatic League. By his third year, he was named league MVP, a sign of things to come. Nicknamed “the Joker”, Jokic was selected by the Nuggets with the 41st pick in the second round of the 2014 NBA draft. His moment was slightly overshadowed when his name was called during a Taco Bell commercial, and the 6ft 11in star opted to remain in Eastern Europe for an extra season and finally arrived in Denver in 2015.

Jokic competes with Miami Heat centre Bam Adebayo during the NBA Finals (AP)

During the draft, Jokic was fast asleep in Serbia when he received a call in the middle of the night from his older brother, Nemanja. Nemanja informed his younger brother that he had been drafted into the NBA while popping a bottle of champagne. Jokic came into the league without draft pedigree. He was never supposed to be where he is today. Now he is arguably the best player in the NBA.

The future Hall of Famer redefines modern-day positionless basketball as his unconventional playmaking and slick scoring blur the lines between a point guard quarterbacking the offence and a high-scoring big man. The NBA champion has proven to be unstoppable in the pick-and-roll. He bends defences with his smooth passing and soft touch around the basket. His man-to-man defence is unconventional, slow and ugly but it still gets the job done.

Throughout his historic trip to the NBA finals, Jokic has surprassed Wilt Chamberlain for the most triple-doubles in a single playoff run. The two-time MVP also won the championship without a single all-star teammate. The Joker has etched his name in history with his dominating playoff run, but he couldn’t have done it without his co-star Jamal Murray.

Jokic celebrates after the team won the NBA Championship (AP)

Murray has averaged 26.1 points, 7.1 assists and 5.7 rebounds in 20 games in the 2023 playoffs. The Nuggets also put together a strong supporting cast of roleplayers that were tailor-made to play with the dynamic duo. The supporting cast, headlined by Aaron Gordon, included Michael Porter Jr, Bruce Bowen and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to help propel the team into a championship calibre squad. The group has a chance to repeat as champs next year if they remain focused and don’t suffer from complacency.

The entire team orbits around their all-time great player as Jokic has revolutionised basketball with his offensive prowess, changing the way teams gameplan around one player. He is cut from the same cloth as Michael Jordan, LeBron James and Stephen Curry, as opposing teams create a game plan around stopping him. In the 2020 Orlando bubble, after the Denver Nuggets lost to LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, it was clear that the Nuggets had the blueprint to be a championship contender. After empathically sweeping the Lakers in this year’s conference finals, the team realised their full potential and came out on top.

The NBA title ought to solidify Jokic’s status as the best player in the NBA. Despite winning two regular-season MVPs, critics doubted if he could anchor a championship-level defence, and now he has silenced all who dismissed him.