nikola jokic wife
Nikola Jokic waltzed through the drab visitor's locker room in Houston in early April when he overheard something that piqued his involvement.
"He'south the about even-keeled superstar I've ever been around," DeAndre Hashemite kingdom of jordan mused to a reporter, prompting Jokic to lean in and inquire.
Hashemite kingdom of jordan, a heady 15-yr veteran, wasn't almost to miss the layup.
"No, non y'all," Hashemite kingdom of jordan said, swatting Jokic away like a gnat. "I'm talking nearly Bruce (Dark-brown)."
Content with Hashemite kingdom of jordan's wit, Jokic barely reacted before ambling on toward his locker room stall.
On the eve of the most of import postseason of his career to engagement, Jokic is more at ease than one might call up afterwards wading through the mud of a toxic MVP race, carrying a franchise for consecutive seasons, and fighting to protect his humility in the face up of increasing celebrity.
Fifty-fifty as the racket got louder, and the possibility Jokic could bring together a club currently occupied by only Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell and Larry Bird grew more pronounced, he did everything he could to avert inflaming the soapbox. Whether he wins MVP for a tertiary direct twelvemonth or non, this playoff button could serve equally a plebiscite on Jokic that the last two postseasons, due to notable absences among his teammates, could not. Denver is healthy and in possession of the summit seed in the Western Conference, paving the style for what would be the franchise's outset trip to the NBA Finals. Anything less than reaching the conference finals would be cast by some pundits as a thwarting.
Merely the Nuggets' generational star doesn't appear to exist bogged downwardly by the criticism or the expectations.
"Accept you seen his brothers?" Jordan asked. "They used to boot his (butt). I think he'due south fine. Anything that y'all throw at him, you know what I'm saying? … Zippo really rattles him and that's very rare, specially in our game and how emotional and upward and down it is. But y'all demand a guy similar that who can kind of settle the waters and kind of make everybody feel calm in the sense of he's non panicking, nearly like a Tim Duncan effect. And that's huge, especially when it's your all-time actor."
"Just playing the game"
Jokic can't call back if he had Instagram or social media when his star showtime started to rise. Before he won sequent MVPs and unwittingly became the center of a historic debate, Jokic finished fourth during the 2018-19 season, backside Giannis Antetokounmpo, Paul George and James Harden.
Still, Jokic, an dissonant, Serbian outsider, had crashed the political party. At that point, Jokic conceded it was fun to monitor the discourse.
"Maybe it was just new," Jokic told The Denver Post. "So that's (why) maybe I was following, but at present I don't follow annihilation."
It's a calculated determination, those close to him say, about what he allows to enter his frame of mind and what never even reaches his radar. Yet, the algorithm can occasionally circumvent his lumbering defense.
As he was scrolling YouTube one day, i of Kendrick Perkins' unsubstantiated rants popped onto his feed.
"That'due south why I said it," Jokic said, referencing his unsolicited retort to Perkins on March 8. "But I don't really listen to those people."
There'due south an art to exercising that type of discretion. It involves watching copious amounts of equus caballus racing, prioritizing his wife and daughter, and sheltering himself from the residual of the outside world. When winning the MVP for a tertiary consecutive time became a possibility, and the ensuing conversation turned ugly, Jokic couldn't comprehend what he'd done to engender such animosity. Especially considering winning ii MVPs was a byproduct of his success and never his goal.
Even amid a sour end to the regular season, Jokic maintained what appeared to exist a salubrious outlook. Asked whether it was of import to leave basketball and the accompanying pressures at the gym, he entertained the question with rare candor.
"I hateful, it is and it'south not considering I retrieve if y'all desire to exist successful, you lot need to be obsessed with it," Jokic said. "And so not just in basketball game. I think in everything that you do y'all need to exist obsessed and call back about it 24/7, but it helps sometimes when you don't recollect about it. It'southward a line betwixt to be obsessed and still accept time to relax."
Merely doesn't that burden, considering all Jokic has shouldered for consecutive seasons, become onerous?
"Aye, I mean it depends," Jokic said. "If y'all love the game and yous want to be obsessed, and you want to be the best ever, probably, information technology's not (hard), probably, it's fun. Depends, I mean, depends with the role player. Depends on the personality, graphic symbol."
Jokic's workload and dedication suggest a level of unassailable commitment. Yet he's careful to categorize it equally an obsession.
"I don't know," he said. "I'm just playing the game. Sometimes perchance, sometimes I'thousand non, so I don't take a hundred percent answer, (if) I'k obsessed or not."
And what about pressure, that other amorphous quality that follows Jokic around similar a shadow?
Jokic said he doesn't have a "routine" or a "solution" when confronted with pressure in a basketball setting. He said he does his best not to call up about the stakes.
"I don't know," he said glibly. "I don't have an respond. Simply maybe who I am. Maybe that's my personality."
"He knows who he is"
Vlatko Cancar is one of Jokic'southward closest confidantes in the organization. On route trips, it'south most exclusively Cancar who gets one of the stalls side by side to the MVP.
A 26-year-old Slovenian, Cancar conscientiously keeps conversations light and tries to inject his wry humor whenever possible.
"I check on him," Cancar said. "And I checked on Luka (Doncic) when he was saying all of that stuff that he is not happy."
Cancar, whose profile is dwarfed past Jokic's, still finds the talking heads unavoidable.
"As much equally you want to say, I don't scout media, blah blah, blah, you hear it, you're the best (freaking) player in the world," he said. "Of course you're going to hear everything. Everybody's criticizing you. … It'due south just then hard not to encounter it. Turn on TV and I don't know, CBS or whoever puts on those ii guys, (Shannon) Sharpe and (Skip) Bayless continue talking (garbage)."
Just Jokic is determined not to give any credence to media noisemakers. It'south their job to talk, the MVP said. His chore is to play.
Nuggets double-decker Michael Malone said Jokic's conclusion to avoid what's being said about him publicly is an indication of how grounded he is as a person. And whether he's being touted as an MVP candidate, or celebrated equally a ascendant postseason actor (26.iv points per game average), who Jokic is doesn't waffle.
"In today'southward NBA, you have certain players, certain stars who are reading annihilation and everything written about them, and I call back what makes Nikola unique is that what allows him to thrive in the face of adversity or negativity or pressure is that he doesn't read it," Malone said.
"… He is kind of just oblivious to it, man. I think that's really the biggest fundamental for him is that he'due south not one of those guys that is looking for the people on social media to love him. He doesn't care. He'due south got information technology. He knows who he is equally a person, first and foremost, equally a son, as a brother, as a hubby, as a male parent, and he doesn't need everybody else'due south validation. He's very content and comfortable in his own skin."
"The same way … every time"
Though numerous players and coaches maintained he'due south been in a good head space this season, it was still unsettling to see the Nuggets driblet five of their final seven games while Jokic navigated a nagging calf injury. Since the All-Star suspension, the Nuggets (12-11) were barely a .500 squad with a pedestrian criminal offence and middling defense.
The mediocrity, paired with the aural MVP churr, was enough to consider whether the noise had gotten to Jokic. For better or for worse, the scrutiny volition but increase this postseason afterward his ii MVP seasons yielded only one playoff series win. But a healthy Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. change the parameters of the discussion. Whatever Denver does in the playoffs, there can be no accompanying asterisk over who was on the floor with him. Though he may not win the MVP for a third time, Jokic finally has what matters significantly more than to him: help.
Their returns, coupled with the defensive potential of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Aaron Gordon, Bruce Brown and Christian Braun, take significantly lightened Jokic's burden. It'southward why, according to another person close to Jokic, this yr might not have been as hard every bit the prior two.
"He'southward the same way with u.s. every fourth dimension," veteran Jeff Green said. "… I mean, he's a happy guy. He loves life. He goes nearly it his way and that's what I respect him for."
If the vitriol of this season ever affected him, "he hasn't shown it," Green said.
Jordan has a different theory on how Jokic handles the harsh glare of the spotlight.
"I experience like he does it with such ease considering I think with all the accolades individually, I retrieve he still cares almost his teammates existence better around him," Hashemite kingdom of jordan said. "So when you lot got the right (stuff) on your mind, other stuff doesn't matter."
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Source: https://www.denverpost.com/2023/04/16/nikola-jokic-basketball-obsession-nuggets-playoffs/
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