This article is by Trevor Sides:
So there’s Nikola Jokić, the best basketball player on the planet. He’s standing on the court of Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado, being interviewed by ESPN’s Lisa Salters just moments after he and his Denver Nuggets defeated the Miami Heat to win the NBA Finals. The confetti is just starting to fall for Denver’s first championship in its 50-year franchise history. The gravity of the moment is just beginning to sink in and Salters looks up at Jokić, asking him how it feels to be an NBA champion.
“It’s good, it’s good,” he says without a smile. His voice is even, if contented. He’s looking at the floor, as if he had just been asked how he liked his morning coffee. Then he looks at Salters. “The job is done, we can go home now.”
And then he looks up. Not at the camera. Just kinda up and away, if only for a moment, and there’s this look of relief mingled with joy in his big, blue Serbian eyes. It’s as if he’s looking toward home. The hint of a smile creeping at the edges of his mouth. Salters laughs and congratulates him, surprised at such a… well, what kind of response is this, exactly?
Is it an ungrateful one? It’s easy to imagine the mindfulness types shaking their heads at his answer to Salter’s question. Be in the moment! Enjoy this! You’ve earned it! Celebrate with your team! Like his brothers, who were tossing Nuggets head coach Michael Malone up and down like a bridegroom at a wedding.
To his credit, Jokić did throw teammate Jamal Murray into a pool as part of the celebration. And yet, in the post-game press conference, Jokić was distraught to learn that the championship parade in Denver would be on Thursday, making it difficult for him to get back to Serbia in time for a horse race.
Yes, a horse race. Years ago, while Jokić was developing into a generational talent in Serbia, he also developed a love of horses. He now owns a stable of horses and is actively involved in horse racing. He has a ribbon won by one of his horses pinned in his locker. He received his second MVP award in his hometown of Sombor, Serbia, at his stable, while training his horses. Look at this:
Okay, then, is it a humble response? On the surface, I suppose. The word “humble” gets used a lot when talking about Jokić. His story is made of Hallmark sports movie material. All the rags-to-riches beats are there: he grows up in a cramped, two-bedroom home with his parents and two brothers; he falls in love with the game of basketball at an early age; he starts turning the heads of NBA scouts and gets drafted — but in the second round, with the 41st pick in the 2014 draft. Eventually, he overcomes the skeptics, and becomes a two-time MVP, an NBA Finals champion, and NBA Finals MVP.
Then at the climax of this sports-movie fever dream, he tells the world that all he wants to do is to go home. A trip to Disney World is not on his itinerary.
This is not something NBA superstars are supposed to say. This is not something one of the most recognizable and celebrated sports celebrities in the world is supposed to say. It’s not what we expect any sports superstar to say.
It’s something a hobbit would say.
Thinking of Nikola Jokić as a 6’11” hobbit is as humorous as it is helpful. His skillset for a person of his size is as surprising and unexpected as a halfling bold enough to leave the Shire. And when the eucatastrophe has come to pass, and all is well, and all manner of things have been made new, the place of real belonging must be returned to. For Jokić, NBA glory and international fame are but part of the pilgrimage, not the goal. Not the why. The why is thousands of miles away. The why is right there on his shoulders, in the form of his daughter. The why is right there by his side, in the form of his wife, as they stand removed from the rest of the Nuggets team celebrating around the podium. The why is right there in his heart.
Embedded within Jokić’s answer is a healthy sense of vocation. Like Frodo and Sam, Jokić sees the limits of work as an identity-shaping, soul-satisfying force. By wanting to return home after completing the job, he treats work as one of many callings and not the calling. In one sentence, he subverted the empty promises of workism and the fleeting pleasures of success. He also offered a preemptive correction to Michael Malone’s “We want more!” posturing that usually accompanies such occasions. The job was done; it was time to return to living. Once upon a time, Pat Riley, owner of the team Malone’s Nuggets had just dispatched, warned about the “disease of more.” Maybe Jokić’s remark is the closest thing we’ll get in the real world to J.R.R Tolkien’s line about valuing “food and cheer and song” above hoarded gold — or more rings and trophies.
It’s a vocation of grace that acknowledges the reality of leaving and returning. There’s a rich eschatology here. Heaven is a place we’ve been before and long to behold again. As T.S. Eliot put it in “Little Gidding”:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Now, I don’t want any of this to take away from the emotional reaction of Jokić’s teammate, Jamal Murray, the Robin to Jokić’s Batman—the second member of the duo behind the Nuggets ascension to the top of the Association. Murray cried tears of joy and gratitude as he lifted the Larry O’Brien trophy, having missed the last two NBA postseasons because of a torn ACL. For the joy and confetti and champagne set before him, he endured a long rehab and he will take his place on the parade bus.
And Jokić probably will, too. Though it’s tempting to imagine him skipping the parade for an early flight home. Horses, gardens, strawberries, and a meal by the fire await. Yet even Frodo attended Aragorn’s coronation.
COMMENTS
8 responses to “Nikola Jokic Just Wants To Go Home”
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At age 75, I was a lifelong NBA fan until about 2017 when I realized the NBA value system and money sources were divergent from biblical passages that have allowed me to appreciate Christ’ love for us. It’s incredibly refreshing to have a new standard bearer for the NBA that represents a moral base of selflessness.
I think you got it right, Trevor, and it’s so refreshing to see! A professional sports superstar who doesn’t live, or even pretend to live, for the glitter and the glory of fandom and winning, but prefers to be left alone with his family and cannot wait, not even for the sake of a huge, once-in-a-lifetime parade, to return to home, sweet home. Bless you, Nikola!
This is brilliant. Much high beauty here.
Hey Gary,
Thanks for reading and for your reply. Will Jokic give you reason enough to reconsider your NBA fandom?
Hey Jack,
Thanks for reading and for your comment! It was good to see him in the parade, though, eh?
Jeff, thanks for reading. Those are very kind words. What moved / resonated with you most?
Trevor, before Nikola’s comment, it looked like he hugged every Heat player before any celebration with his team. Refreshing indeed! Great article. Thank you!
[…] the heart of a universally important story that began ages before their setting foot on the stage, they just wanted to go home. The glories of Numenor and the vastness of the plains of Rohan cannot compete with that. Tolkien […]