Snezana Stanojevic
Belgrade (EFE).- Nikola Jokic has led the Denver Nuggets to the NBA finals. The first for player and franchise. The two-time regular season MVP is a simple man. His vacations are spent in his native Serbia, where he takes care of a horse ranch. He invested 1 million for the reconstruction of the modest Sombor racecourse.
In Sombor, a city of 50,000 people located about 200 kilometers northwest of Belgrade, the 28-year-old maintains a stud farm, where he often spends his free time before and after the NBA season.
With his family always close but far from any publicity, the player watches his animals’ every step and looks after their well-being, whether in the United States or in Serbia on vacation.
According to the Serbian press, when his Nuggets teammates see him focused and excited looking at the screen of his mobile phone, they know that Jokic is seeing the situation in his stud.
Knowing his passion for horses and equestrian sports, the Nuggets’ coaches and executives prepared a surprise for him last year by bringing Sombor, unknown to Jokic, the season’s MVP award to deliver to his stable.
“I would like maybe to be able to spend a little more time with the horses, watch the races,” Jokic said then, who has been fascinated by horses since childhood.
The player has inherited that love from his father, Branislav Jokic, an agricultural engineer and president of the local equestrian club “Vojvodjanin”.
“Before going to school, Nikola would first go to the stable to clean it and be with the horses. He told me that he wanted to be a groom when he grew up, ”his father once recounted, who preferred his daughter to dedicate herself to basketball, like his two older brothers.
Jokic’s stud farm is named “Dream Catcher”, after his first horse, and perhaps because of his identification with himself, who fulfills his “dreams” (dreams) in the NBA, where he has a contract of 272 million dollars for the period between 2023 and 2027.
With income of this type, the player has no problem investing up to one million euros for the reconstruction of the modest Sombor racecourse, to bring it closer to international standards.
“The idea is to build the stands, rebuild the stables, the adjacent spaces, the restaurant and the paddock,” Father Jokic explained to the local press.
Jokic’s enormous talent led him because of his height (2.11) to basketball, first to the local club Vojvodina and then to Mega Belgrade.
In 2014, at just 19 years old, he was chosen by the Nuggets in the second round of the draft, in 41st place, although before making his NBA debut in 2015, he played another year at Mega Belgrade, being MVP of the ABA league that season.
The two-time NBA MVP (2021 and 2022) is currently the biggest sports figure in Serbia, along with tennis player Novak Djokovic.
“Djokovic represents Serbia at a much higher level, he is our ambassador. He is the idol of the children in Serbia, not only because of what he does on the pitch but also because of what he makes the foundation of. He is an example. I can’t compare myself to him,” Jokic once acknowledged.
However, due to his most recent successes, with a triple double (29.9 points, 13.3 rebounds and 10.3 assists) on average in the 15 playoff games this year, the sports press in his country describes him as “a magical Serbian, the man who pushes the limits”.