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Former Denver Nuggets teammate Michael Porter Jr. revealed his early impressions of All-Star Nikola Jokic. Ahead of Jokic’s decision to play for Serbia in EuroBasket, Porter Jr, who was traded to the Brooklyn Nets during the summer, didn’t understand the hype surrounding Nikola. MPJ was the 14th overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, four years after The Joker entered the league.
Still, heading into his first NBA training camp, Porter Jr. admits he wasn’t all that impressed with Jokic at first, he said, per Glory Daze with Johnny Manziel.
“I really didn’t see it at first. Like, even when we went into training camp, I remember asking my teammates, I was like, ‘Wait, so this dude is really that nice?’ Like everybody keeps telling me, he’s that cold,” Porter Jr. said. “But in training camp, he and Mason Plumlee were kind of going head to head. And they were like, ‘No, Mike, wait till the real games come, you’re going to see this dude’s a problem. ‘He could score 50 every single night if he wanted to.’
“But, I didn’t see it at first, but I quickly found out that he is him and he is the best player in the world. I got to play alongside him for those years, and it was amazing to learn from him and it was amazing to learn his work habits, too,” Porter Jr. concluded.
Jokic, Porter Jr., Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon, the Nuggets’ core, led their team to a championship, beating the Miami Heat, 4-1, in the 2023 NBA Finals.
Bogdan Bogdanovic's special take on Nuggets' Nikola Jokic
While Nets forward Michael Porter Jr.'s first impressions of Nuggets' Nikola Jokic were a much younger version of the three-time MVP, Bogdan Bogdanovic sees Serbia's best in Jokic. Ahead of competing in EuroBasket, Bogdanovic, Nikola's Serbian teammate, discussed what makes the 2024 MVP such a special player, per Euro Hoops.
“Everybody knows about his IQ and feel for the game, but what really makes him special is his basketball shape for his size – his ability to run and his conditioning,” Bogdanovic said. “He brings probably the highest confidence that I’ve ever had playing with anyone else.”
The two have competed against and alongside one another over the years, as Bogdanovic and Jokic were in the same NBA draft class. Bogdan was selected 27th overall in the first round by the Kings before joining the Hawks for four and a half seasons until he was traded to the Clippers last season.
