Three-time league MVP Denver center Nikola Jokic has been an absolute battering ram in summer competition.
Expert predicts how Nuggets' Nikola Jokic will finish in EuroBasket 2025 originally appeared on The Sporting News
Three-time league MVP Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic has been an absolute battering ram in the NBA.
The 6-foot-11 big man has been the best player in the league for the past several seasons.
Across 70 healthy contests for the 50-32 Nuggets last year, Jokic became the first big man to average a triple-double across a full season. Jokic averaged 29.6 points while slashing .576/.417/.800, plus 12.7 boards, 10.2 assists, 1.8 steals and 0.6 blocks a night.
Is Jokic on the Cusp of Glory Again This Summer?
As he did last summer during the 2024 Paris Olympics, Jokic is poised to add another notch to his exceptional international CV in between NBA seasons. The 30-year-old has led his native Serbia to two Olympic medals thus far — silver at the 2016 Rio games and bronze last year — and is now hoping to break through with a gold at EuroBasket 2025.
Zach Harper of The Athletic, for one, thinks he can get there — anchoring a surprisingly NBA-rich roster.
Beyond Jokic, Serbia also includes L.A. Clippers guard Bogdan Bogdanovic, Miami Heat power forward Nikola Jovic, Oklahoma City Thunder rookie guard Nikola Topic, and Washington Wizards power forward Tristan Vukcevic.
Beyond the five current players, five more have NBA pedigrees, too: Marko Guduric, Vanja Marinkovic, Vasilije Micic, Nikola Milutinov and Filip Petrusev.
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Still, Serbia has only medaled once during its EuroBasket run with Jokic, earning a silver medal in 2017 — Serbia fell to Luka Doncic and Goran Dragic's Slovenia in the title game. Most recently, the club fell to Italy in the Round of 16 three years ago.
Harper predicts that all that NBA experience will power the program to a gold medal this summer.
"They have 10 players who either made the NBA, are currently in the NBA, or were draft picks at some point," Harper writes. "They have the best player in the world. There is so much top talent on this squad that there really isn’t a reason to expect anything less than a gold medal."
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Category: Basketball
