Jokic, the normal guy who drank three liters of Coca Cola a day, chosen again as the best player in the NBA

Nikola Jokic has been chosen this morning

as MVP (Most Valued Player, for its acronym in English) of the NBA for the second consecutive year.

An achievement unthinkable a few years ago, when, still in Serbia, he was an overweight kid who didn't care much about basketball and preferred to drink soda with his brothers while his country suffered in the Balkan war.

Jokic, born 27 years ago in Sombor, 180 kilometers from Belgrade, looked back in an interview with

in 2017 to remember a childhood marked by "sirens, bomb shelters" and a house, his, "always with the lights off".

Now, seven years after flying to the United States for the first time, the Denver Nuggets center has left that darkness in oblivion with a record season —27 points, 14 rebounds and 8 assists per game— that has served to revalidate the highest individual distinction on the planet ahead of Joel Embiid (Philadelphia 76ers) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks), the other two finalists.

The story has changed a lot for that pale boy who arrived in Colorado in the summer of 2015. A year earlier, the Denver Nuggets had selected him in the second round of the

-41st place- from Serbian KK Mega, a team without even for the European fan.

There, during his first forays into the first team, Jokic coincided with veteran Goran Cakic, who was giving his last gasps as a professional player.

“He was still very young, he was 17 years old, but when he went up to train with us you could already see that he was very intelligent.

Everything seemed easy for him on the parquet”, confesses the now manager by phone.

Although not all the way was easy.

Cakic remembers that at first Jokic did not side with him.

“In Serbia, when he had not yet gone to the NBA, it seemed that he did not take basketball seriously.

He was too relaxed, he didn't take it as something professional”, confesses Cakic, who came to fear for the future of his disciple: “More than once I thought he would leave basketball”.

Now, seven years after reaching the best league in the world, Jokic's mentality is very different: “Things have changed a lot.

Every time he comes to Serbia, he seems like a different person.

[...]

Two years ago he came to our pavilion for a charity match in which we said goodbye to our coach, with whom we had a great relationship.

It was just after the end of the NBA season.

He did not hesitate to come and spent more than two hours training in the gym before playing the game.

He was a different Jokic than the one I had met."

That work, coupled with undeniable talent, has led the Serbian center to write several pages in the NBA history books.

The last one, to revalidate the MVP award, a feat that only 12 players have achieved since the founding of the league.

"It's something you can't fake.

If you don't train, you're not fooling anyone.

Talent is not enough,” says Cakic.

Jokic, in the Denver Nuggets since he said goodbye to his homeland in 2015, became on April 8 the

only player in history capable of registering 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 500 assists in a single season.

In addition, the Serbian is the first player of

the last 50 years who finished the season among the top ten in points, rebounds, assists and shooting percentage.

"Not even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined something like this, no matter how much I saw a special talent from the beginning," admits Cakic from the KK Mega facilities.

Much earlier, in 2014, several directors of FC Barcelona traveled to Belgrade to finalize the signing of the Serbian center after having reached a prior agreement with his club, KK Mega.

That night, on the banks of the Danube, Jokic played the worst game in memory of him in his land.

“His performance of him was disastrous.

The Barça people [with Joan Creus at the helm] were very, very interested, but they ended up ruling out the signing after the game”, says Cakic, who was present at that meeting.

Jokic stayed one more year in Serbia, where he was named MVP of the Adriatic League —where the best teams from the former Yugoslavia participate— at just 19 years old.

Shortly after, Arturas Karnisovas, director of the Denver Nuggets and, precisely, ex-Barça, fell in love with the slow game of that center and bet on him.

Thus, on May 20, 2014, on the night of the

, the name of Nikola Jokic appeared for the first time on North American television on a commercial for a well-known fast food chain, far from the glitz and the spotlight of the protagonists.

Nikola Jokic enters the basket on April 27 in the presence of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, of the Golden State Warriors. Cary Edmondson (USA TODAY Sports)

"The truth is that I didn't see it, I was sleeping," Jokic said years later in an interview with

.

A sample of the unwavering personality of the Serbian, which he has resisted over the years.

Cakic, with whom he still maintains a relationship, defines him as follows: “He is a person who has the gift of avoiding pressure, it seems that nothing affects him.

And that is very difficult, especially when you are young and all the spotlights point at you.

Jokic lives away from social networks and enjoys taking care of his horses in Sombor, his hometown.

"It's what he likes the most.

He enjoys every summer when he comes home to be with his family, ”says his former partner.

This season, Jokic has led the Denver Nuggets to the

for the fourth year in a row, something they hadn't done for more than a decade, before the Serb joined the franchise.

His historic year has made him the fifth center in history to win the MVP in consecutive years, after Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Moses Malone.

However, sporting success has not altered many of his habits off the track.

Just one, the diet, which led him to lose almost 20 kilos in the summer of 2020. “As a child he drank more than three liters of Coca Cola a day.

The truth is that I miss him, ”he said with a laugh in the

interview last year.

Cakic acknowledges that his former partner is not worried about being as popular as other stars: “He is not going to pretend something that he is not.

He is a basketball star, but he lives well, quietly and close to his people.

He is a simple and very normal guy.”

And that makes him, in turn, someone special.

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