Three meanings of joker: 1. Evil of the comics, a sadistic killer enemy of Batman; 2. Card of the deck (and other board games) that acts as a joker; 3. The “Giant of Sombor”, a Serbian basketball player, 2.11 m tall and 129 kilos in weight, two-time MVP, five-time All Star, who just led the Denver Nuggets to the finals of ‘NBA, and has humiliated LeBron’s Lakers in four games.
Jokic is unique because he subconsciously applies to basketball techniques from water polo and volleyball, sports he practiced as a child in Sombor, a town 150 kilometers northwest of Belgrade, where he was born 28 years ago and where he goes whenever he can, with his wife, Natalija (teenage girlfriend), and young daughter, before the long season of the American professional league begins. A city of 45,000 inhabitants, deeply rooted in Serbian ethnic culture, surrounded by rivers, mountains and forests. “Like Colorado, but smaller, that’s why I like Denver.” In the living room of his house he has a photograph of the main street, Kralja Peter, where as a young man he used to go to window shop and have an ice cream with his friends.
After football and basketball, water polo is perhaps the most popular sport in Serbia, with public swimming pools in most towns to practice it. This is what Jokic, the son of an agricultural engineer from the former Yugoslavia, did, informally, without playing for any team. The family was not in dire straits, but six people lived in their modest apartment: the couple, their three children (Nikola is the youngest) and the grandmother. Quite a difference from there to the fabulous apartment he now has in the best neighborhood in the Denver suburbs.
Jokic is extraordinary because he is a pivot who grabs a rebound on defense and brings the ball up like a point guard, with a sloppy air but surprising speed, unbecoming of someone of his stature and high center of gravity. And from his vantage point above 2.10m, he watches the panorama and is able to pass the ball from distance with precision, with just one hand, in a single motion, between opposing players, without having to take a step forward with the opposite leg or make an arc with the arm. In the style of water polo. The two sports have similarities: pressure and zone defense, counter-attacks, the central role of the pivot, physical contact and the importance of patience.
The Joker, a boy clinging to the simple life of a village, was playing in the Meta Basketball of the Adriatic League of Serbia when the Nuggets were interested in him for the first time, and he did not see it at all clearly about going to the United States. But his girlfriend Natalija was already in the country to study and play volleyball, which she left to move with him to Denver after he was selected in the second round of the 2014 draft, a total stranger (that same year, in the front from him, the team selected Jusuf Nurkic and Gary Harris).
Since arriving in the NBA nine years ago, Jokic has lost thirty pounds, developed muscle (“before, I had never lifted anything heavier than a coffee spoonâ€) and vastly improved his technique. The vision to pass the ball is innate, and what sets him apart from the rest of the pivots in the entire history of the NBA. But from scoring ten points in the first season, he went on to average 24.5, in addition to 11.8 rebounds and 9.8 assists, the definition of an MVP despite Joel Embiid having snatched the distinction this year.
The Joker is a true basketball wild card, scoring, rebounding and passing the ball like a god. And, for the Lakers, a villain like Batman.
