back to indexDenver Nuggets Owner Josh Kroenke on Drafting Nikola Jokic and Watching His Rise to MVP
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When did you realize we had, you know, something special with, uh, Nicola? 00:00:08.760 |
That was a, it's a, it's a funny story about, about Nicola. 00:00:12.000 |
Um, and if anybody tells you they knew they are lying through their teeth. 00:00:16.920 |
The first year I got drafted, I went to training camp and I had no idea. 00:00:21.580 |
Like just cause you know, he treats a game different than practice. 00:00:25.000 |
So I'm seeing Mason Plumlee and Nicola go at it. 00:00:27.000 |
I'm like, wait, why does Nicola start over Mason? 00:00:29.400 |
Like, I remember that was my thought process. 00:00:36.600 |
Um, I remember sitting with, um, our former president of basketball ops and GM 00:00:41.160 |
at the time, uh, Tim Connolly and Arturis Karnaschovas that one of them now runs 00:00:47.400 |
Um, but they were in our front office at the time. 00:00:50.840 |
They're like, Hey, there's this guy that you should, you should see on tape. 00:00:53.520 |
Cause we want to, we want him to keep his name in the draft and he, but he 00:00:57.640 |
wants to stay over in Europe for one more year. 00:00:59.400 |
And, you know, we're going, we're in a phase at the time where we wanted as many 00:01:03.240 |
young players as we could get and to try to see what we could grow. 00:01:06.800 |
And, um, so I was actually like, why, why does he want to stay over in Europe one 00:01:13.400 |
And both Tim and Arturis were like, it's just, it's best for his development. 00:01:16.800 |
And we think that there's a skill level there that that could be interesting. 00:01:19.720 |
Um, but I remember them showing me on tape and Nicola's wearing like this, their 00:01:25.360 |
colors were like pink and blue and Nicola couldn't jump over a phone book, but he'd 00:01:31.480 |
catch these balls and he'd throw these passes that you were like, I don't know 00:01:35.880 |
how that's going to translate, but that player's basketball IQ is obviously off 00:01:40.600 |
And, um, and so we, we drafted him, he stayed over for one more year and then he 00:01:48.280 |
And my dad actually has really good stories about, um, being down in the 00:01:52.440 |
weight room, you know, early in the morning that summer and Nicola would be in 00:01:55.760 |
there every morning with his two brothers and they'd be beaten on him kind of before 00:02:00.000 |
the coaches would even come in and he'd be in there. 00:02:01.920 |
But over time, I think Nicola cleaned up, he cleaned up his diet. 00:02:05.520 |
Um, he understood what it took to be a professional. 00:02:08.000 |
And, you know, you referenced Yusuf Nurkic, who was another, another really 00:02:11.720 |
good young player that we had on our roster at the time. 00:02:13.840 |
And, uh, we couldn't quite tell what, what to do with both of them because Yusuf, I 00:02:20.400 |
think had made second team all rookie, um, and Nicola was coming over. 00:02:24.800 |
And so we had a very established center and, but we knew that they both had really 00:02:30.960 |
And, uh, the, the, the thing that was unfortunate is the league was trending. 00:02:35.920 |
That was when the Warriors were on their ascension and, uh, the league was trending 00:02:39.920 |
to this small ball, you know, shooting everywhere and even more extreme than it 00:02:46.000 |
is now, almost, it was like, everyone's wanted to try to be the Warriors almost 00:02:49.840 |
overnight and you couldn't play Nicola and, and, and Yusuf together, you had two 00:02:55.320 |
seven footers that were incredibly skilled and very unselfish guys, but trying to 00:02:59.800 |
play them together while it did present its advantages at certain points, it was, 00:03:03.360 |
it was tough, it was a tough for them to cover whenever you got, you know, kind of 00:03:06.680 |
almost four guards out there moving around in sync and it's a tough defensive cover. 00:03:10.760 |
Um, so we had to really kind of put our heads together on what we wanted to do. 00:03:14.920 |
And fortunately by the time, um, after, after Nicola's first, first season, I 00:03:22.440 |
Um, and then we were halfway into the second year and, uh, we were really 00:03:28.760 |
realizing that we couldn't, we had to pick, we had to choose because they're 00:03:34.040 |
And, and I think Yusuf's contract was coming up in about a year. 00:03:37.680 |
And so we were having our analytics group run all the different numbers of how to 00:03:45.560 |
And all of a sudden this, this comparison comes through. 00:03:48.480 |
And fortunately we had enough data at the time to be able to, to really put together 00:03:56.040 |
And so, uh, this comparison comes through and it's player A and player B and it 00:04:04.120 |
And the only, the only difference of the two is that player A is two years older 00:04:10.080 |
than player B at the time of their second year in the NBA. 00:04:14.560 |
And you could clearly see that player B's numbers were better in really every 00:04:20.240 |
Um, and so I was like, okay, I was like, I'm going to guess that player B is 00:04:28.680 |
And I'm like, all right, well then who are we talking about with player where is 00:04:30.880 |
this, there's some sort of comparison with Nurk or is there some sort of comparison 00:04:39.840 |
And I was like, Oh, like you looked at the prayer 36. 00:04:43.200 |
And so they, that, that was when I think all of us kind of looked at each other, 00:04:48.080 |
like, because you know, sometimes with, when you, when you talk to like a 00:04:51.080 |
basketball purist, even when you, to your point, Nicola's, his skillset and the way 00:04:56.000 |
that he plays, you know, the eye test, he doesn't jump out at you right away, but 00:05:00.280 |
when you watch it over time and you understand what he's doing and how he's 00:05:03.600 |
affecting a game, it, it really jumps out at you. 00:05:07.200 |
And so that was when, and that was in, that was like the first week of December. 00:05:11.760 |
And I think we were on like a four or five game skid at the time. 00:05:16.360 |
I was like, Tim, I was like, I'm never going to tell anyone who to play any 00:05:19.640 |
coach, what to do, but if we're going to pick one, tell him to put Nicola in and 00:05:25.880 |
And, and then that was the famous, you know, the, the next night or the night 00:05:30.560 |
after was, the date was that December or something when that was when Yoke went 00:05:36.000 |
into the starting lineup and never, never came out, never came out, it was in 00:05:41.800 |
I have unlimited Nicola stories too, about the cleaning up the diet and stuff. 00:05:45.840 |
My first couple of years, I mean, he cared about basketball, but you know, he would 00:05:49.040 |
go home to Serbia in the summer and come back out of shape. 00:05:51.800 |
I've seen him progress every year, even from MVP year to MVP year, he's somehow 00:05:57.240 |
So you guys obviously made the right choice, man.