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:
https://twitter.com/NBATV/status/1668478356957052928?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1668478356957052928%7Ctwgr%5E0fac7ff1c8c30396adb0bb509df14b0f33e934b4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fuproxx.com%2Fdimemag%2Fnikola-jokic-nuggets-parade-thursday-reaction-video%2F
https://twitter.com/YoungNBA/status/1668472366236614657?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1668472366236614657%7Ctwgr%5E0fac7ff1c8c30396adb0bb509df14b0f33e934b4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fuproxx.com%2Fdimemag%2Fnikola-jokic-nuggets-parade-thursday-reaction-video%2F
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:
And Kalland added another good meme there:
This also brought up some thoughts of Poochie from The Simpsons:
Jokić also offered another incredible line, as per Bleacher Report’s Andy Bailey:
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:
https://twitter.com/NBACanada/status/1668472208711208960
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]