About two miles from downtown Denver, the yellows, oranges and reds of a spray-painted mural fill the cracked gray concrete wall of a building that houses a temporary employment agency. The mural rises about 20 feet and shows an expressionless Nikola Jokic next to a much more emotional Jamal Murray, his eyes narrowed and his arms outstretched as if he were wielding a bow and arrow.
Thomas Evans, a 38-year-old artist, recently completed the mural of the two Denver Nuggets stars as the team prepared to kick off the NBA Finals. On Thursday afternoon, hours before Game 1 of the ALCS against the Miami Heat, Damien Lucero was blasting out his song “It’s Nuthin” as he filmed a rap music video in front of the mural. Lucero, 21, goes by Dame$, pronounced “Dames” (not to be confused with Dame DOLLA, the rap name of Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard). He said that the mural inspired him and some collaborators to write the song as a tribute to Jokic.
He recited some of his favorite lines:
“Clean sweep, yes, it’s all me.
I had to chase him away like he inflated trees.
Four more dubs and then we pop the rings.
Triple dub, no kidding, he’s the new king.”
The old king, at least for those who want to describe him that way, is LeBron James, whose Los Angeles Lakers were swept by the Nuggets in the Western Conference finals. James is the biggest star in the NBA, with four championship rings, scores of endorsement deals and a constant presence on social media and television. Jokic has none of that.
“I see a lot of myself in him,” said Evans, who also goes by Detour.
“I’m in the studio all day working on my artwork, and I’m not really looking ahead as much as other artists,” he said. “I don’t always want to be in front of the cameras. I don’t want to always be in magazines. I really just want to do my job and let that speak for itself.”
In the NBA, stars often adopt their city’s identity, or imbue the city with their own. Magic Johnson’s love of luxury and glamor made him a perfect fit for Los Angeles; James’ embrace of celebrity has done the same. Patrick Ewing’s physique screamed New York City. Jokic, a 28-year-old Serb who may be the best player in the NBA, is a bit of an enigma, similar to Tim Duncan when he was in San Antonio. And that suits Denver and Colorado very well, according to those who live here.
“The kind of talent that has, you know, modest talent, not someone looking to be in the spotlight, a team player, someone down to earth,” said Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado. “I think Denver and Colorado, we see ourselves as grounded.”
On Thursday, Bennet wore a Nuggets Warm-Up Jersey in Washington, DC, on his way to vote to raise the debt ceiling.
Stars like Jokic, who has won two MVP awards, may come close to being an individual booster for a city. Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock estimated that the Nuggets run alone to the playoffs this year could bring in $25 million economic boost.
Even so, Jokic has almost no cultural footprint off the court as the Nuggets’ jockey for local attention with the NHL’s Avalanche and MLB’s Rockies (all of whom are dwarfed by the New York Broncos). the NFL). But this darkness is apparently by his own design. Talk of stardom seems to bore him. When asked if he was the Nuggets’ best player, Jokic told reporters Wednesday: “Sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not. I’m fine with that”.
Murray, nicknamed Blue Arrow because of his basketball shooting skills, seems more comfortable in the spotlight than Jokic. He is personable, expressive and active on social media. When Jokic isn’t Denver’s best player, Murray almost certainly is. He has endorsed at least 10 brands in the past year, according to SponsorUnited, compared to just two for Jokic. It’s unusual for a great player like Jokic to be so slippery off the court.
“I don’t know how much influence he really has because he doesn’t expose himself,” said Vic Lombardi, a sports radio host from Denver.
Jokic rarely gives interviews outside of the mandatory press conferences, where he gives mostly bland answers. He has a deal with Nike but he doesn’t have a signature shoe. He doesn’t host a podcast, and his politics are a mystery. He has appeared in a handful of commercials. in Serbian. Jokic recently said that basketball was “not the most important thing” in his life and probably never would be.
“I think it would be more connected just because it’s required when you’re a player of that caliber,” said Andre Miller, who played for the Nuggets in the early 2000s and again a decade ago. He added: “I think he approaches it like I’m just a basketball player. Moderate. He goes and plays ball and goes home. So he makes his job a little easier and he cuts out all the distractions.”
Nuggets forward Jeff Green said: “His job is to play basketball, not to cater to everyone’s needs.”.”
Vlatko Cancar, another teammate, chuckled when asked about Jokic as a public figure.
“When you are a star at that level, it is very difficult to please everyone,” he said. “I feel like you would like to sign autographs for everyone, shake hands, and take photos with everyone. But it’s too hard because it’s one of him and millions of others.”
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis called Jokic “a rarity in the age of modern sports.” He said people in Colorado “admire him even more for not being a distraction off the court like other so-called stars are, you know, all too often in both basketball and other sports.”
Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Colorado Democrat, said Jokic was like a “big bear who can do ballet.”
“And that’s a great aspect for Colorado, because we’re an old cow town, a mining town,” Hickenlooper said. “We come from honest and hard-working roots. Denver is pretty athletic right now, and I’m not sure we’re ready for ballet yet, but we’re getting there.”
White NBA stars are often described in positive terms that are applied less often to black players, as being brave and selfless. Still, conversations with those who know and follow Jokic suggest that his reputation as a willing passer is deserved. Jokic has said that he would rather pass than score.
His approach to stardom creates a challenge for the NBA, which is constantly looking to expand its reach. But the league doesn’t always help itself: The Nuggets, even with two-time MVPs, weren’t on national TV during the regular season as much as some less talented teams.
Additionally, a portion of Coloradans have been unable to watch Nuggets games for the past four years due to a dispute over transportation rates between Altitude, the regional sports network, and Comcast. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday that it was a “terrible situation.”
Hancock, the mayor, called it “really unfortunate.”
“That robs these great young players of the notoriety they deserve and particularly in this season where they’ve done phenomenal things,” he said.
Stan Kroenke, owner of the Nuggets and Avalanche, also owns Altitude. Polis, the governor, said he had “called on both sides to resolve it.”
In Serbia, Jokic’s home country, the NBA is popular. When he’s home in the off-season, he lives like he does in Denver: away from the public, according to Christopher R. Hill, the US ambassador to Serbia. But Jokic is someone “everyone is talking about right now,” he said.
“Games tend to be at 2 in the morning,” said Hill, who lived in Denver for a decade before leaving for his post in 2020. “People stay up for that. Is incredible. I’ll be talking to someone in the Serbian government and they’ll start yawning: ‘Sorry, I was seeing Jokic last night.’”
Serbian journalists Nenad Kostic and Edin Avdic have reported on Jokic since he was a teenager and now consider him a friend. They traveled to Denver to cover for him in the Finals and had dinner with him the night before Game 1. They said the celebrity makes him uncomfortable.
“This is not about money,” Avdic said. “It’s not about fame. It is, I think, too much trouble for him. No, it’s too much of a burden for him.
Kostic said Belgrade, the capital of Serbia’s big city with nightlife, often becomes home to famous Serbian athletes, even if, like Jokic, they are from smaller towns.
“Nikola is not like that,” Kostic said. “He likes to spend his days in Sombor, in the small town where he was born, where everyone knows him and leaves him alone.”
Twenty years ago, the Nuggets drafted a player who was almost the polar opposite of Jokic: Carmelo Anthony. He was a more traditional franchise star, doing commercials, selling T-shirts and putting out signature shoes. Starting when he was at Syracuse University, he made waves in popular culture, with his style and confidence. He spent more than seven seasons in Denver, matching the number 15, which Jokic now wears.
Kiki Vandeweghe, the Nuggets executive who drafted Anthony, said both players’ approaches to stardom worked well for the franchise from a business perspective because of how well they performed on the court. He said Jokic “makes his team better.”
“He comes up with that every night,” said Vandeweghe, who played for the Nuggets in the 1980s. “He represents in many ways what the city is and his team wins. And that is a successful franchise.”
Evans, the muralist, said he doesn’t normally paint celebrities, but found Jokic’s growing relevance worthwhile. He finished his first Jokic mural in February in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood. He added Murray in his second, which ended just before the NBA Finals.
Caroline Simonson, a 22-year-old Boulder Nuggets fan, said she paid $810 to attend Thursday’s game and sit in the stands. She said Jokic’s public persona “limits his connection to maybe NBA fans across the country, but not to the city of Denver.”
“We are proud. We know what Colorado is,” she said. “If other people don’t know what it’s worth, we know what we have here. It is special to us. Sometimes we want to keep it to ourselves. We can keep Jokic to ourselves.”