When did you realize we had, you know, something special with, uh, Nicola? Did you, did you know that early on? I know Nerkich was here at the time. Yeah, yeah. That was a, it's a, it's a funny story about, about Nicola. Um, and if anybody tells you they knew they are lying through their teeth.

I didn't know. The first year I got drafted, I went to training camp and I had no idea. Like just cause you know, he treats a game different than practice. So I'm seeing Mason Plumlee and Nicola go at it. I'm like, wait, why does Nicola start over Mason? Like, I remember that was my thought process.

So yeah, yeah. Tell me that story. How did you? So yeah, Yoke, Yoke is a, is a funny story. Um, I remember sitting with, um, our former president of basketball ops and GM at the time, uh, Tim Connolly and Arturis Karnaschovas that one of them now runs the Timberwolves.

One of them now runs the Chicago Bulls. Um, but they were in our front office at the time. They're like, Hey, there's this guy that you should, you should see on tape. Cause we want to, we want him to keep his name in the draft and he, but he wants to stay over in Europe for one more year.

And, you know, we're going, we're in a phase at the time where we wanted as many young players as we could get and to try to see what we could grow. And, um, so I was actually like, why, why does he want to stay over in Europe one more year?

And both Tim and Arturis were like, it's just, it's best for his development. And we think that there's a skill level there that that could be interesting. Um, but I remember them showing me on tape and Nicola's wearing like this, their colors were like pink and blue and Nicola couldn't jump over a phone book, but he'd catch these balls and he'd throw these passes that you were like, I don't know how that's going to translate, but that player's basketball IQ is obviously off the charts.

And, um, and so we, we drafted him, he stayed over for one more year and then he came over in the summer of 2015. And my dad actually has really good stories about, um, being down in the weight room, you know, early in the morning that summer and Nicola would be in there every morning with his two brothers and they'd be beaten on him kind of before the coaches would even come in and he'd be in there.

But over time, I think Nicola cleaned up, he cleaned up his diet. Um, he understood what it took to be a professional. And, you know, you referenced Yusuf Nurkic, who was another, another really good young player that we had on our roster at the time. And, uh, we couldn't quite tell what, what to do with both of them because Yusuf, I think had made second team all rookie, um, and Nicola was coming over.

And so we had a very established center and, but we knew that they both had really good hands, really good skills. And, uh, the, the, the thing that was unfortunate is the league was trending. That was when the Warriors were on their ascension and, uh, the league was trending to this small ball, you know, shooting everywhere and even more extreme than it is now, almost, it was like, everyone's wanted to try to be the Warriors almost overnight and you couldn't play Nicola and, and, and Yusuf together, you had two seven footers that were incredibly skilled and very unselfish guys, but trying to play them together while it did present its advantages at certain points, it was, it was tough, it was a tough for them to cover whenever you got, you know, kind of almost four guards out there moving around in sync and it's a tough defensive cover.

Um, so we had to really kind of put our heads together on what we wanted to do. And fortunately by the time, um, after, after Nicola's first, first season, I think he made first team all rookie. Um, and then we were halfway into the second year and, uh, we were really realizing that we couldn't, we had to pick, we had to choose because they're both starting level centers.

And, and I think Yusuf's contract was coming up in about a year. And so we were having our analytics group run all the different numbers of how to compare the two and what to look for. And all of a sudden this, this comparison comes through. And fortunately we had enough data at the time to be able to, to really put together per 36 minutes and compare different things.

And so, uh, this comparison comes through and it's player A and player B and it was, uh, they're in their second season. And the only, the only difference of the two is that player A is two years older than player B at the time of their second year in the NBA.

Player A just entered the league later. And you could clearly see that player B's numbers were better in really every category. Um, and so I was like, okay, I was like, I'm going to guess that player B is Nicola. And they're like, yep, you're right. Player B is Nicola.

And I'm like, all right, well then who are we talking about with player where is this, there's some sort of comparison with Nurk or is there some sort of comparison with someone else in the league? And they're like, player A is Larry Bird. And I was like, Oh, like you looked at the prayer 36.

And so they, that, that was when I think all of us kind of looked at each other, like, because you know, sometimes with, when you, when you talk to like a basketball purist, even when you, to your point, Nicola's, his skillset and the way that he plays, you know, the eye test, he doesn't jump out at you right away, but when you watch it over time and you understand what he's doing and how he's affecting a game, it, it really jumps out at you.

And so that was when, and that was in, that was like the first week of December. And I think we were on like a four or five game skid at the time. And then Tim and I wound up on the phone. I was like, Tim, I was like, I'm never going to tell anyone who to play any coach, what to do, but if we're going to pick one, tell him to put Nicola in and we, we gotta, we gotta roll with it.

And, and then that was the famous, you know, the, the next night or the night after was, the date was that December or something when that was when Yoke went into the starting lineup and never, never came out, never came out, it was in Dallas, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

I have unlimited Nicola stories too, about the cleaning up the diet and stuff. My first couple of years, I mean, he cared about basketball, but you know, he would go home to Serbia in the summer and come back out of shape. I've seen him progress every year, even from MVP year to MVP year, he's somehow progressing.

So you guys obviously made the right choice, man.