Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from former Denver Post Nuggets beat writer Mike Singer’s soon-to-be-released book “Why So Serious? The Untold Story of NBA Champion Nikola Jokic.”
“Why So Serious? The Untold Story of NBA Champion Nikola Jokic” will be released on Dec. 3 and available for purchase in bookstores and online. An audio version will be available as well. Advance copies can be purchased at HarperCollins.com. (Provided by Mike Singer)
Café Hilton is a laid-back, unpretentious bar with a relaxing, open-air patio nestled comfortably on a quiet block in Sombor.
It’s casual and cozy, like the rest of the quaint Serbian city. This wasn’t the place to party. Situated at the end of the block where the Jokic family lived, however, it was probably the most consequential watering hole of Nikola Nikola’s career.
Without the profound soul-searching that took place here deep into many nights, the future three-time NBA MVP’s story would have ended prematurely.
The unofficial team of advisors was Isidor Rudic; Nikola’s father, Branislav Jokic; and their horse trainer, Vlada, who happened to be Nikola’s best friend’s father. They all had some stake in his future. Together they were responsible for developing his love of basketball as an early teenager.
He just wasn’t interested in committing.
There were a few concurrent factors. While his two brothers pursued their own basketball careers, Nemanja in the U.S. and Strahinja in the highest Serbian league, Nikola’s parents poured all their energy and attention into raising their youngest. As a result, Nikola grew up a bit spoiled, according to Isidor. Watching his interest in basketball fluctuate, Branislav wondered whether their coddling was hampering him.
Branislav was a former basketball player himself. He saw the trajectory of his two older sons and felt Nikola had even more potential. The timing was fortuitous. Branislav was inching toward retirement and had time to invest in his youngest.
All the interested parties had to contend with his first love: horses. Nikola’s father and grandfather had worked with horses, and Nikola used to attend races with his dad growing up. Even as a child, Nikola was always at the stables.
Vlada, their horse trainer, took him to the racetrack often enough that some of the owners began to believe Nikola was actually Vlada’s son. He was obsessed. Jokic was often at his happiest around the stables, watching races and caring for the animals. His favorite was harness racing, where horses pulled a two-wheeled cart — a sulky — around the track.
“The late Jovan Ladjar, a giant in harness racing, was the first to put him on a sulky and hand him the reins,” Branislav said.
Naturally, Nikola’s morning routine revolved around the horses. There were two shifts: one early in the morning and one in the afternoon. Before heading to school, he’d go to the stables near their home to clean the stalls and tend to the horses.
“I was once summoned by his teacher, who asked me why Nikola ‘smelled,’” Branislav said. “I explained everything to her.”
During that time, the stables were dingy and “kinda smelly,” according to Nikola. “Even if you take a shower or whatever, it kinda sticks to your skin, sticks to your hair,” he said of the scent his teacher was concerned about.
Nikola Jokic, bottom right, is pictured in his 2009-2010 yearbook. (Photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP via Getty Images)
“Some people like it, some people don’t.”
Back then, his first love was a horse named Fantastic Lobel. Nikola’s dad recognized his love and printed a picture of the horse, along with its name, on a shirt for his youngest son. Nikola called it his jersey.
“He constantly told me that he wanted to be a horseman,” Branislav said.
Nemanja, his best friend and Vlada’s son, said Nikola’s obsession defied explanation.
“You need to be born with that,” Nemanja said.
Nikola’s exuberance over horses allowed him to “disconnect,” as he said, and pour energy into his most beloved hobby. He was his happiest when he was around the horses. He loved the preparation and the training, the shoeing and the strategies. He savored talking to trainers and gossiping about the fastest horses outside of Sombor. Mostly he loved being with them, in nature, where he found it peaceful.
“The races are just like one minute,” he said.
He became obsessed with the entire operation.
Though several people around Nikola shared his devotion to horses, they were adamant it not come at the expense of basketball. They saw too much potential.
“For Nikola, horses were his love, but basketball was something that he needed to do,” Isidor, his coach, said.
After numerous long nights, surrounded by dozens of discarded beer mugs, the Café Hilton crew reached a conclusion.
“I told him that because he was truly talented in that sport (the biggest, strongest, and best on the court), he should focus on basketball, earn money, and have as many horses as he wanted,” his dad said.
Nikola had his own ideas.
Practicing hoops — a game where he already excelled — wasn’t nearly as fun as drinking with his friends. Serbian culture didn’t encourage casual teenage drinking, but it didn’t frown on it either. Jokic, who loved dancing and built a deep catalog of Serbian songs in his head, was interested in socializing, just like the rest of his teammates.
Basketball practices were in the morning, so Jokic & Company had ample time to hang out and party at night. Isidor was savvy. He was on to their habits. Beginning in 2010, when Jokic was 15, Isidor roamed Sombor with a breathalyzer (which he still has) and often popped into the local bars unannounced. In Sombor, everyone knew everyone. If one of his players was carousing, there was no hiding from their coach.
“At the time in Serbia, when you’re like 15, 16, 17, you start drinking, and he didn’t allow us to drink,” Nikola said. “I think we respect him so much, and didn’t want to ruin that respect.”
The consequences were simple.
If caught once, they’d miss one week of practice. A second time yielded a month of no practice. If anyone was caught a third time, they’d be kicked off the team, future NBA champion or not.
“All of them stopped after the second time,” said Isidor, including Nikola.
At Café Hilton, every aspect of Nikola’s development was dissected, including the hurdles.
“He was teased a bit because of his ‘larger’ build, but he overcame it as he grew and felt more dominant on the court,” Branislav said.
After every practice they talked and analyzed his state of mind. While other parents drove Nikola home, Isidor and Branislav schemed to meet later that night. If Branislav picked Nikola up from practice himself, he’d drop him at home and then take the short walk down the block to the café for further discussion. If Nikola skipped practice altogether, as he often did, it prompted another meeting.
“Brana saw something in Nikola that he didn’t see in Nemanja and Strahinja,” Isidor said.
Branislav did his best to nurture that spark, even if it grated on his son.
Nikola didn’t yet recognize it, but his talent needed unpacking.
“He had a tough nature, and I was a bit of a demanding dad because I always pushed him to train and play with full force, which often annoyed him,” Branislav said.
Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic, right, watches a harness race with his father Branislav at the hippodrome in the northern Serbian town of Sombor, Sunday, June 18, 2023. Jokic came to Serbia after the Denver Nuggets won the NBA Championship with a victory over the Miami Heat in Game 5 of basketball’s NBA Finals. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
They all tried to convince Nikola to commit.
“The biggest problem at the time was that Nikola wasn’t interested in practice at all,” Isidor said. “We were spending days and nights to formulate a plan to get him to the gym.”
How can we push him without pushing him too hard? How can we make him comfortable so that practices aren’t such a chore? How can we contend with the horses?
When Nikola was 16, he walked away from basketball for four months.
“My dad went to talk to (Isidor and Vlada), and I was with Vlada, the horse trainer,” Nikola said. “In that time, that was my biggest (hobby). I wanted to do just that. He starts, ‘Okay, when you gonna start going back to practice?’ . . . Now I think it’s funny.”
The group devised several coordinated schemes to motivate him.
When Nikola left his condominium, Isidor just happened to be there with his car and asked him about coming back to practice.
“We tried to make it look like it was spontaneous, but it wasn’t,” Isidor said.
Next, they took the equestrian route.
When Nikola was at the horse stable with Vlada, Isidor would get a call to spontaneously show up. This wasn’t bank-heist sophistication, though their schemes did indicate how hard they tried to get Nikola to reengage.
Their next ploy was the craftiest and struck at Nikola’s heart. Vlada’s sons played basketball, and he knew of Nikola’s fleeting interest toward practice. Vlada was at the intersection of Nikola’s two hobbies.
“Brana went to my father and said, ‘Come on, you need to help him get back to basketball and to make a condition, if he wants to do the horse thing, he needs to go back to basketball,’” Nemanja, Vlada’s son, said.
The horse thing.
Nemanja had gone to horse races as a kid, but his interest fizzled over time. He never questioned Nikola’s love and just accepted that the sport — chariot racing — resonated with his best friend.
“There’s more love for horse chariot racing as a sport than love for horses overall,” Nemanja said.
Nikola’s unofficial team leveraged that love. The Café Hilton group had established a foothold.
The late nights at the café tended to bleed beyond midnight, as the topic always revolved around Nikola’s mercurial motivation.
There was no quick fix or easy solution. Nikola was stubborn.
“It was a process which lasted four years,” Isidor said.
How could they convince Nikola to prioritize basketball? Better yet, why did they care so much?
Branislav’s motivation was clear, but Isidor didn’t have time to invest like this in every kid. What differentiated Nikola?
“I noticed that he was becoming a leader even if he wasn’t the best player on the team,” he said. “But I didn’t see this big career coming.”
Jokic maintained he wasn’t ready to abandon the sport altogether even though he needed a break.
“I was not (that close to leaving entirely) because I still enjoyed playing outside, still enjoyed playing basketball,” he said. “I wouldn’t completely give it up because I really loved the sport, and I enjoyed the sport. I (thought I) will eventually come back at some point, but in that moment, I didn’t care about basketball.”
Jokic also wasn’t convinced his unofficial team — Branislav, Isidor and Vlada — was totally fixated on motivating him.
“They say that, but I think it was just an excuse for drinking and having fun,” Nikola said.
•••
Isidor’s teams practiced twice a day in the summer. In a curious twist of fate, the morning session was almost always at the hippodrome — the now-infamous track where Nikola owned and trained horses.
There Nikola followed one mandate. The horses were the priority; the team’s conditioning drills were not.
While his teammates ran the exposed dirt track on the outside of the ring, Nikola trained his horses on the inside.
The scene was preposterous. His teammates were incredulous.
During one morning session, Nemanja and his teammates pleaded with Nikola to train with them.
His fitness unlocked new levels to their potential. They needed him to run.
Nikola, stubborn and sarcastic, reminded his friends they held little jurisdiction over his actions. Jokic momentarily dropped his feet off the chariot he’d been driving and mimicked jogging with his teammates.
Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, center, arrives at the hippodrome in the northern Serbian town of Sombor, Sunday, June 18, 2023. Jokic came to Serbia after the Denver Nuggets won the NBA Championship with a victory over the Miami Heat in Game 5 of basketball’s NBA Finals. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
That was the best they were going to get. He did as he pleased.
The scene was a microcosm of his relationship with his teammates.
They worked hard; he worked with horses. They ran in the summertime; he didn’t. They would’ve been justified in their frustration that Nikola continued to see playing time despite a shoddy practice record except that they all liked him. He was funny and unselfish. Of course, they all wanted to win and understood that Jokic facilitated that. That was the uneasy
balance Isidor had to strike.
“If Nikola was thankful for something to me,” Isidor said, “it’s that I found a way to handle that.”
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Isidor had other frustrations when it came to workouts at the hippodrome. The track was so long that he couldn’t police his guys’ effort like he wanted. When he yelled, his voice would trail off, message unsent. Occasionally he’d ride a bike around the track to enforce the summer workouts.
One summer, parents were encouraged to come to the track to watch their kids train. Nikola’s mom, Beba, was in attendance.
She was the anchor of the family, according to Nebojsa Vagic, Nikola’s godfather. She was humble, smart, and down-to-earth, and her voice was often in the back of Nikola’s mind.
“She’s there to always show them where everything began,” Nebojsa said. “They know. They cannot forget. They weren’t born in a Rolls-Royce.”
Beba sensed Isidor’s frustration mounting at how little his team, and specifically her son, cared about the conditioning. She sought to reassure him.
What she said that day reverberated in Isidor’s head for more than a decade.
“She said, ‘Coach, why are you so mad? One day Nikola will go to the NBA and will buy this hippodrome.’”
“Why So Serious? The Untold Story of NBA Champion Nikola Jokic” will be released on Dec. 3 and available for purchase in bookstores and online. An audio version will be available as well. Advance copies can be purchased at HarperCollins.com.