The First Jokić Fan

(Note: this article was originally written in June of 2021 and small edits have been made since)

After weeks of fans and pundits proclaiming that Nikola Jokić was a lock for 2021 MVP, it has finally been made official. Soon, all of the major publications will to put out fluffy columns outlining the delightfulness of Jokić’s game. While I love me a great breakdown on the uncanny and clever nature of Jokić’s patented Sombor Shuffle, I am here to tell a different story. I am here to tell an unusual story about Jokić, a story that is filled with triumph, pride and a copious amount of haters. I would like to tell the story of u/eg14000. 

The year was 2014 and Reddit user eg/14000 had just created his account. As a Denver native, the Nuggets were naturally his favorite team. EG followed is a diehard fan who follows his team with a incredibly high attention to detail: EG would spend his free time watching highlights of the practice squad and second round picks on his beloved Nuggets. During the 2014 NBA draft the Nuggets made a major move— they traded the 11th pick (which became Doug McDermott) to the Bulls in exchange for the 16th and 19th picks (which became Jusuf Nurkić and Gary Harris). However, these two first round picks would prove themselves to be fairly meaningless in context of what was to come for the Nuggets. In fact, Nurkić would not even be the most important player the Nuggets selected from former Yugoslavia. With the 42nd overall pick in the draft, the Nuggets selected a pudgy 7-foot Serbian kid named Nikola Jokić. And remember EG was no regular fan, as soon as EG got news of the pick he began a deep dive into Jokić. EG dived into the small amount of tape of Jokić floating around on the Internet and was impressed. There was one problem though, Jokić was still under contract in Europe and wouldn’t be coming to the states for at least a year. 

Fellow diehards, like EG, might quibble with me over this take but I’ll say it regardless: when your team drafts a European player who is still under contract you wonder if your team just threw a pick away. Go and look up any NBA draft on Wikipedia. If you scroll down to the second round you will find a litany of random European players with their names greyed out, meaning they never made it to the NBA. But EG was faithful to Jokić and held out hope that Jokić would make his way over to Mile High City. Jokić tore it up that year in the Adriatic League that year and ultimately won MVP (not that winning MVP of the Adriatic League is a great accomplishment). Jokić flashed real talent in that season and if he had declared for the draft just a year later, in the 2015 season, he most likely would have been a backend lottery pick (at least according to EG). EG was over the moon and ready for his Nuggets to cash in on the prize that was Jokić. When EG went online to express his excitement he noticed something odd— no one else seemed to be excited or even know who Jokić was. 

In fact, this lack of faith in Jokić as a future star was written right onto Jokić’s jersey— with the number 15. In 2011, the Nuggets traded future hall of famer and their superstar player Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks for a package of talented young players and picks. In his 8 years with the Nuggets, Carmelo donned the number 15 and made himself into one of the best players in Nuggets history. Carmelo was destined to have his number retired by the Nuggets but the Nuggets were stuck in a weird purgatory place because Carmelo’s career had about 10 more years by the time he left. The Nuggets probably didn’t think twice when Jokić asked for 15, there was no way that he was going to be good enough to have his jersey retired.

Jokić was love at first sight for EG, “it was amazing when I first watched Jokić play”. EG saw something special in Jokić and quickly went to r/nba to let everyone know that Jokić is the future Dirk. The rest of the Reddit community did not see the same thing as EG and users sarcastically responded, “Yep next Dirk confirmed everyone. Move along, nothing more to see here. No further proof needed” and told EG that “every tall white guy is the next dirk, but seriously i don’t see anything in that video that was similar to dirk”. EG tried to correct these haters and bring them into the light of Jokić but was EG was quickly downvoted into oblivion, an experience that EG would quickly become familiar with. The bittersweet aspect of all this for EG is that now the Jokić to Dirk comparison is widely accepted. In fact, this past September, nearly five years later, premier NBA writer Zach Lowe dedicated a paragraph to this very comparison. 

I asked EG what drew him to Jokić initially and EG’s answer was clear “It was incredible how fast Jokić learned, like you could see him make a mistake, and the next play he would fix it. Like every single time, like every single time. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, you could see his improvement from like minute to minute”. EG even went on to say that rookie Jokić was “like watching Larry Bird play, his passing was just on another level”. EG literally could not believe what he was seeing and he had to make sure that the world was seeing it too. 

Jokić’s play was off the charts according to EG’s “eye test”. But EG was curious if the statistics backed up the “eye test”. EG quickly noticed that Jokić’s advanced statistics were out of this world. EG told me that at the time he was new to the world of advanced stats and that he would take to reddit with these stats less so as a way of proving that Jokić was amazing and more so as a way of trying to gain an understanding of what the stats actually meant. On a near daily basis, EG went to r/NBA to post a new discovery about Jokić. His posts included things like how Jokić had the best BPM (box plus minus) of any center in the league or that his PER (player efficiency rating) was comparable to all-time great players’ rookie season, and that Jokić had the highest assist% of any rookie center in the 3-point era and many, many, many more posts. Despite nearly all of EG’s claims being backed up by advanced statistics, EG was still a social pariah in the world of  r/NBA. It was just too outlandish that this awkward, chubby European second round pick who was barely getting 20 minutes on a bad Nuggets team could really be the next great thing. 

Before we dive into the drama that would prove to ensue between EG and r/NBA lets zoom out. At the time of these posts, Jokić was a nobody. EG told me that his birthday was not too long after the start of the 2015 season (Jokić’s rookie year). EG, with his sights set on his new found love, asked his mom for a Jokić jersey for his birthday. EG’s mom, as any loving mom with the means would, went to the Denver Nuggets store to buy the jersey. When EG’s mom got to the store the staff looked at her with confusion—  they didn’t have a Jokić jersey in stock or really know who she was talking about. In fact, EG and his mom could not find a Jokić jersey anywhere. Even after winning the Adriatic league MVP (!!!), no one in the Nuggets organization thought it was worth making a Jokić jersey, how outrageous. EG and his mom had to order a custom made jersey from the Nuggets online store so that EG could wear the jersey of his beloved. 

EG gained a reputation around the r/NBA community and his name began to precede him. Anytime that he would comment on anything in the community, even if it had nothing to do with Jokić, people would bring Jokić up. EG, however, could not bear to let Jokić be slandered in any capacity and would quickly fire back at the Jokić-haters/EG-trolls. All of the haters only emboldened EG to post more and more content about Jokić. People started to take notice of this and theorized that EG must have been trolling. The basis of this theory was less so that it was annoying that EG posted so much and more so that EG was violating community guidelines by defending a position he ‘obviously’ did not find to be true because how could anyone actually think Jokić was a future MVP.  The r/NBA moderation team heard these complaints and banned EG’s account for 6 months. Saying that Jokić was a future MVP and hall of famer was so outlandish to the mod team that they concluded that EG must have just been trolling. Yet, here we are with Jokić standing tall hoisting the MVP trophy. 

As I continued my conversation with EG, I asked him what other NBA takes he had. EG is currently working on a new project, EG has his eyes on a new talent. Isaiah Hartenstein is a European player drafted in the second round of the 2017 NBA draft (43rd overall, just two spots after where Jokić was taken). EG runs a subreddit called r/Hartenstein where EG posts about Hartenstein on a near weekly basis. For anyone wondering Hartenstein has barely been able to find a spot on an NBA roster but he was named the MVP of the G-League finals two years ago. EG thinks that if a single team took a chance on Hartenstein and really gave him playing time that the team would see the obvious— that Hartenstein is a future multi-time all-star and hall of famer. Despite Hartenstein’s limited play, EG claims that all of the advanced statistics send a clear message: Hartenstein is destined for greatness but he just needs someone to believe in him. EG likes to say that he thinks 4 years ahead of everyone else. 

Nikola Jokić won MVP this year and Jokić, like every other MVP, will eventually have a seat in the Basketball Hall of Fame. EG was right and he could not have been right in any more spectacular of a fashion. But when I asked what EG what he was going to do for his victory lap, he had little in mind. EG told me that, “I prefer to be wrong because when I am wrong I can learn about an error in my thinking, which ultimately helps me to understand basketball even better… When I am right about something, I usually don’t care because it is not interesting to me anymore”. So perhaps this article can be EG’s victory lap because it appears that he won’t parade around the Internet on his own. I hope to be back in another 4 years to discuss the transcendent career of Hartenstein. 

Update September 2022: Isaiah Hartenstein was able to find a consistent role with the Clippers averaging a career high 18 minutes and receiving the attention and praise of many people in the NBA community. This offseason, Hartenstein signed a 2 year 16 million dollar deal with the New York Knicks. I predict that Hartenstein will only continue his ascent into NBA stardom. Also Jokić won another MVP.