Post-championship interviews often come with a lot of athlete exuberance, excitement for upcoming parades, and even sometimes cursing. When it came to Nikola Jokić’s remarks after he led the Denver Nuggets to their first-ever NBA title Monday, though, none of that was the case. Jokić instead seemed just happy to be done, excited to get home to Serbia to see his horses, and annoyed that he couldn’t do so as quickly as he would like thanks to the parade being scheduled for Thursday. Here are some clips of that:
Nikola Jokic: "The job is done, we can go home now" pic.twitter.com/fQVku1Uzy7
— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) June 13, 2023
"On Sundays, I have my horse racing" ☠️
Even after being crowned champion, The Joker is only worried about one thing 🤣🏇 pic.twitter.com/n3VmVZzk3I
— NBA TV (@NBATV) June 13, 2023
Nikola Jokic finding out when the parade will be, and saying he wants to go home 😂 pic.twitter.com/8umJGSiu8m
— Shane Young (@YoungNBA) June 13, 2023
This led to a very funny “Local Man Thought Monday Was His Last Day Of Work, Learns He Has Something To Do Thursday” Uproxx headline from Robby Kalland, who also outlined the process behind that on Twitter:
Not sure I've ever been more pleased with a headline/photo combination in my career: https://t.co/YB4hlA7zFP
— Robby Kalland (@RKalland) June 13, 2023
A little peek behind the curtain of me, @billdifilippo, and @BTRowland realizing we had no supervision and could do the dumb headline (although I'm sure @martinrickman would've said yes anyway) pic.twitter.com/aSDruKp3wF
— Robby Kalland (@RKalland) June 13, 2023
And Kalland added another good meme there:
"they don't even know i'm thinking about horses"
"nikola is definitely just thinking about his horses" https://t.co/kAaNqlr4vI
— Robby Kalland (@RKalland) June 13, 2023
This also brought up some thoughts of Poochie from The Simpsons:
Nikola Jokić after winning a NBA title: pic.twitter.com/ZkRNNIWD9g
— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) June 13, 2023
Jokić also offered another incredible line, as per Bleacher Report’s Andy Bailey:
"Nobody likes their job. Maybe they do. They're lying." – Nikola Jokic
— Andy Bailey (@AndrewDBailey) June 13, 2023
That’s a very Charles Barkley–esque attitude towards the end of the NBA season. But, despite his comments, Barkley has stayed pretty involved on some media fronts since then, including with NBA TV, on the NHL on TNT, and on podcasts. And, similarly, Jokić (seen at top with his daughter Ognjena) is probably going to show up for the parade despite these comments. And he did show some post-game exuberance with his team, including in the locker room and with throwing Jamal Murray into a training pool:
A championship swim! 😂🏆
Jokic throws Murray in to the pool! pic.twitter.com/plu43RzE2v
— NBA Canada (@NBACanada) June 13, 2023
But it is certainly interesting, and unusual, to see this kind of muted championship celebration from a star like Jokić. And it made for some unusual media moments.
[Uproxx]
