Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic sat down with ESPN and offered a very candid response to those who doubted his rise from a chubby teenager to NBA Finals MVP, saying, ‘don’t bet against the fat boy.’
ESPN’s Malika Andrews asked Jokic to reflect on being taken with the No. 42 overall pick in the 2014 draft as a Taco Bell commercial was airing.
‘They didn’t believe in the fat boy,’ Jokic said. ‘It seems like it worked out. Don’t bet against the fat boy.’
‘The fat boy’ became the first player in history to lead the league with 600 points, 269 rebounds, and 190 assists in a single postseason as he led the Nuggets to their first NBA Finals trophy in franchise history.
In the series clinching win in Game 5 he recorded 28 points, 16 rebounds and four assists.
Jokic’s ‘fat boy’ reference however shows just how far he has come from being obese, Coca-Cola guzzling teenager, to becoming the guiding force in leading the Nuggets historic title run.
The five-time All-Star even quit basketball for around six months as he fell in love with harness racing.
‘Basketball was always in my life,’ Jokic told SLAM magazine. ‘I had two older brothers who played basketball. I fell in love with basketball because of them. We would always play together.
‘But then at some point in my life I started to go into horse racing. I just fell in love with horses and their beauty and elegance. It was like a hobby for me. I didn’t get serious with it. And I wasn’t taking basketball serious either. I was in between both.’
He also mentioned that he once competed in an amateur race as a jockey, finishing fourth, before returning his attention to basketball.
Despite showing a clearly special skillset that after recommitting to basketball opinions on Jokic were still all over the board.
‘Nikola’s passing isn’t decent,’ Dejan Milojevic, Jokic’s coach with the Adriatic League’s Mega Basket told Sports Illustrated. ‘It’s extraordinary.’
While other centers around the sport were focusing on surviving near the basket, Jokic was developing an all-around game, that was further aided by his own unselfish play. Rather than skill, Jokic’s problem was conditioning.
‘I knew immediately that this guy’s incredibly talented,’ Milojevic said. ‘But his body’s in terrible shape.’
‘He’s so slow that his basketball mind slows down and he sees the game in slow motion,’ former college coach and ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla told SI.com. ‘He’s able to make plays because he’s not sped up like a lot of young players are.’
It seems those who were able to look past Jokic’s early conditioning issues and see the building blocks of a superstar turned out to be correcting for not betting against the fat boy.
