I don’t typically write about sports. If I do, I keep it confined to the areas I know: snow and ice-based sports. I would never consider dipping my toe into… basketball analysis, noooo.
Well, here’s my analysis of Jokic, the most interesting sports figure to me since… since ever. I had to think about it, and this is the most interesting figure to me–ever. I have more childhood nostalgia tied up in Patrick Roy, more raw emotion tied up in Gareth Bale, more admiration for JP Auclair and Seth Morrison, but Jokic stands nearly alone as the most Interesting.
I remember the first time I saw him. It was in person, strangely enough. My Philly friend during college, my tendency to do long-form irony bits, and my love of losers had led me, by 2014-ish, to become very invested in the 6ers and their whole Process. I liked their mercurial, oft-injured big man, the Troel Embiid.
My little brother, a Nuggets die hard from the time that Melo got drafted (he was young, it wasn’t bandwagoning, just timed out that way), got some tickets for a few games in the dismal 300 section for Christmas in 2016. My kind, generous little brother, knowing my irony-saturated affinity for the 6ers, decided to bring me to the 6ers visit to the then-Pepsi Center around New Year’s. I even had a “Trust The Process” shirt he’d gotten me.
This was a few weeks after Jokmas. Not being a Nuggets fan (at least, not since AI) and not being a basketball fan, in general, I was not aware of the significance. Luckily, my little brother was willing to give me the necessary information.
The next two and a half hours changed me, changed my life. I saw a goofy, galomphing galoot impose his will on a game that seemed to be moving twice the speed he was. I saw a man who seemed like he should be followed around by a tuba and tuba player for comedic effect absolutely torch a team that was supposed to be one of the up and comers in the league. That said, I saw the Nuggets lose, despite a late flurry and so many streaks of promise. That night, I bought a t-shirt with the Canadian flag superimposed onto the crossed pickaxe alterate Nuggets logo and I have not looked back. Since that day, my favorite Colorado team is the Nuggets, and it’s not close. (I am a hockey 1st guy, but a Blackhawks fan due to my father’s early intervention.)
My personal affinity for Jamal Murray’s ornery Canadian ass, aside, it’s pretty clear what got me paying attention, what had me so heartbroken later that season when Russ came and ended ours, or on Game 82 of the next season, or in the WCF of the bubble year. This team became the team I “loved” the most, outside of the Cymru national football team (fuck INGURLAND). And it’s all down to Jokic.
Jokic is an anomaly in the constellation of American Sports Leagues’ greats. He is self-effacing (evidence: any post 2021 presser, but ESPECIALLY the post game of game 6 2024 WCSF, after the Nuggets were dusted by almost 50 points). He is selfless (perhaps to a fault, even according to his current and former teammates). He is the inverse of the American Sports Star in his physique, his mentality, his cultural and linguisitic makeup. This man is different.
And he’s the greatest center of my lifetime! Sorry Shaq! I have eyes, and I don’t care that you were so big that no one could guard you, so big that you effected roster changes around the league. I’m looking at a Minnesota team that was designed around beating Jokic, so kind of a non-unique point anyway! No, I’m looking at the circius passes, the Sombor Shuffle 3s over DPOYs and DPOY candidates. Sorry Shaq: when Jokic retires, he’ll be past you. He may already well be.
So, here I sit, nearly June, Nuggets out of the playoffs (and nearly Minnesota, too). I didn’t get this written before my Nugs were sundered on the 3 Big Man model, didn’t get to see a repeat.
But success is ephemeral in sports, especially modern PARITY-FOCUSED leagues like the NBA. To hope for another title is natural, to expect it is borderline insane and entitled. But was it so insane to expect it, really?
I’ve seen the face of god, and it’s a blokheaded Serb.
I studied philosophy in college (OH WOW, NO WAY, REALLY), and one of my grad-req. seminars was on the general corpus of American Pragmatism. I ended up going on some wild goose chase about the philosophical pragmatism of SCOTUS Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (It’s somewhere on this website if you want to read it; you don’t want to read it.) The long and short of it, though, is that I read A LOT of William James.
In James’ “Varieties of Religious Experience,” he attempts to quantify or describe the transcendent, the immanent, the sublime. To me, it mostly failed. Never penetrated my deeply materialist brain. That’s fine, though, because now I know the Sublime. The Sublime is a Serbian Cart Horse Racing Fan.
May we all one day know the Sublime.