As much as Nikola Jokic unquestionably loves playing for the Denver Nuggets and his teammates, let no one ever doubt that he cares a lot more about Team Serbia. For as dominant as the three-time NBA MVP is, when it comes to professional basketball, he’s definitely a proud Serbian first and an NBA superstar second.
With Jokic’s Nuggets visiting Abu Dhabi for a preseason doubleheader with the reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics this weekend, the big man was asked a question about his Serbian Paris Olympics experience.
According to Serbian news outlet B92 Sport, Jokic characterized Serbia’s gut-wrenching, close defeat to Team USA in the Olympic semifinals as the “biggest defeat” of his career.
Below is a rough translation of Jokic’s explanation in Serbian via B92 Sport:
“It was a good game. Probably the biggest defeat in my [Jokic’s] career so far. A big chance, but there… In the end, they beat us. Some people will see it as a normal defeat, but for those of us who played, it must have been the hardest defeat in our career.”
Again, none of this is surprising.
Jokic has already seen his fair share of painful NBA defeats — last year’s Game 7 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round of the playoffs comes to mind as the most recent example. But compared to Serbia, the place where he was raised and all of his loved ones are from, the Nuggets are just another American professional sports franchise.
Ask someone like Kevin Durant what he thinks about playing for Team USA compared to any of his NBA stops. I’d imagine his likely inevitable patriotic answer would be much of the same.
This does not mean Jokic doesn’t have love for Nuggets partners like Jamal Murray, who he has basically played with his entire career. It would be silly to assert he doesn’t care about the Nuggets at all. They are, after all, his conduit to global fame and an athletic dream realized.
This just means playing for his country probably means a lot more. And I think we can all relate to that.
