Kevin Pelton, ESPN Senior Writer
NO PERSON IN North America got a better look at Nikola Jokic's game before the 2014 NBA draft than Roy Rana.
The former Sacramento Kings assistant, now coach of the Egypt national team after long working with Canada Basketball at the youth level, served as coach of Jokic's "World" squad at the 2014 Nike Hoop Summit in Portland, Oregon -- one of 10 times Rana coached in the event.
Although international scouts such as Rafal Juc of the Denver Nuggets had been able to watch Jokic's development after he averaged 7.1 points and 5.0 rebounds in the 2013 FIBA U19 championships, for many NBA executives, the week of practices leading up to the Hoop Summit was their first extended look at the future two-time NBA Most Valuable Player.
DraftExpress referred to Jokic as "the star of practice the week leading up to the game." And based on Jokic's hot 3-point shooting in those practices, fellow World star (and future Nuggets teammate) Emmanuel Mudiay joked to ESPN draft analyst Jonathan Givony that "I've got Dirk [Nowitzki] on my team."
Despite his front-row seat, Rana wasn't as impressed.
"I would tell you that [Jokic] wasn't a guy that was going to step on the court like [Bismack] Biyombo did in my first Hoop Summit [in 2011], and you were wowed by him because of athletic ability or any type of major impact," Rana told ESPN. "[Jokic] didn't have a major impression either way.
"He was just kind of there."
And Jokic was "just kind of there" two months later, when the Nuggets selected the 6-foot-11, 284-pound center with the seemingly inconsequential second-round (No. 41) pick in the draft.
What has transpired after Jokic went unceremoniously in that 2014 draft is one of the most unexpected and dominant careers in NBA history, which now includes a title and Finals MVP Award.
Although the league's global search for players and increased emphasis on player development has to some degree democratized the influx of talent, true superstardom remains the near-exclusive province of players drafted inside the first 14 picks awarded via the draft lottery.
Even after an NBA Finals matchup against a Miami Heat team led by 2011 No. 30 pick Jimmy Butler, supported in large part by a fleet of contributors who were undrafted, Jokic -- famously, or infamously, selected in the second round during a commercial break -- stands alone:
Jokic is the greatest draft overachiever in league history.
This is the story of how his NBA potential escaped the league's talent evaluators a decade ago -- including, by his own admission, the one who actually drafted him -- in part because Jokic's skill set was (and still is) one-of-a-kind.
THERE HAVE BEEN players drafted later than Jokic who have become key NBA contributors, even all-time greats.
Since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976, seven players taken after pick No. 41 have made All-NBA teams, as well as undrafted standout Ben Wallace (1996). No. 57 pick Manu Ginobili (1999) and No. 60 pick Drazen Petrovic (1986) even became Hall of Famers, as did Wallace.
Generally speaking, there has been a ceiling on how valuable late picks can become. None of the three Hall of Famers drafted after Jokic have made an All-NBA first team. In fact, just three other players taken outside the first round since the merger have accomplished that feat: Dennis Johnson (No. 29 in 1976), DeAndre Jordan (No. 35 in 2008) and Marc Gasol (No. 48 in 2007).
All three of them each made a single All-NBA first team, meaning Jokic alone has as many first-team selections as all other players taken outside the first round in postmerger NBA history.
When looking at MVP voting, Jokic is an even greater outlier. Setting aside Moses Malone, a coveted prospect out of Petersburg (Virginia) High School who surely would have been drafted had he entered, no MVP winner before Jokic had been taken later than the No. 15 pick (both Giannis Antetokounmpo and Steve Nash went 15th).
Besides Jokic, no player drafted after No. 15 has accumulated even a half a share of career MVP votes, per Basketball-Reference.com's metric that looks at the percentage of all possible votes a player receives in a given season. And no second-rounder since the merger, apart from Jokic, has totaled 10% of possible MVP votes across their career.
With back-to-back trophies to his name, plus a runner-up finish this season, Jokic already has 2.7 MVP shares -- 20th most in NBA history.
When MVP shares are plotted by draft pick for all players drafted since 1976 to receive at least one vote, Jokic is truly by himself.
This raises the question: Was Jokic's success predictable?
THE NBA EXECUTIVE who can take credit for drafting Jokic -- former Nuggets president of basketball operations Tim Connelly, now in the same role with the Minnesota Timberwolves -- has also acknowledged he underrated Jokic's potential.
"Obviously, we didn't know he was going to be what he is, or we wouldn't have taken him 41," Connelly told ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk in 2020, when Jokic led the Nuggets to the Western Conference finals in the Orlando bubble before winning his first MVP.
"We would have taken him [at No. 1]. We would have traded up because the way he is playing is as good as anybody in the NBA."
It's worth remembering Jokic wasn't the first center Denver added in the 2014 draft. He wasn't even the first the Nuggets got from his own league, the Adriatic Basketball Association.
Having agreed to a trade with the Chicago Bulls to make their picks at No. 16 and No. 19 as part of a deal for Doug McDermott, drafted 11th, the Nuggets took Bosnian center Jusuf Nurkic. Five months older than Jokic, Nurkic averaged eye-popping stats of 11.7 points and 5.7 rebounds in just 16.6 minutes per game during his second season in the ABA.
Playing more minutes for development-oriented Mega Basket, Jokic averaged 11.4 PPG, 6.4 RPG and 2.0 assists in 25 minutes per night in his ABA debut campaign.
When I rated 2014 draft prospects based solely on their translated statistics at the time, Jokic ranked fifth in the class -- but third among centers playing in Europe. Nurkic was third and Clint Capela, taken 25th overall by the Houston Rockets, was second. I chose to highlight Capela as the potential "steal of the draft."
Given his physical maturity, superior per-minute stats and their greater investment in him, the Nuggets opted to sign Nurkic immediately while leaving Jokic in Serbia to continue his development. Still, Denver deserves praise for being willing to double up on the center position.
"All those things you are seeing now, you saw it on a younger and lower level," Connelly said in 2020. "You never are certain how things are going to translate, you are never certain if the guy can make it in the world's best league. His game wasn't entirely that different. It is just cleaner and more developed now. He has always been this really funky, effective player."
Too funky for everyone to see how Jokic's game would evolve to dominate the NBA.
PLAYING ON A loaded 2014 World squad that included Capela, future 2015 No. 1 overall pick Karl-Anthony Towns and two other Kentucky-bound lottery picks who would also eventually join him in Denver (Trey Lyles and current Nuggets starting point guard Jamal Murray), Jokic had five points on 1-of-3 shooting in 15 minutes.
Despite that talent, the World team lost 84-73 to a USA Basketball squad of high school seniors led by the Duke-bound trio of Tyus Jones, Jahlil Okafor and Justise Winslow.
"If you look at it now," Rana said, "his usage should have been much higher, but it's a guard-dominated game. Those All-Star events are guard-dominated games and your bigs are usually screeners and they're rollers. If they can shoot it, maybe they pop a little bit."
Back at Mega Basket as a draft-and-stash for the Nuggets, Jokic broke out in 2014-15. He averaged 15.4 points, 9.3 rebounds and 3.5 assists to win MVP of the Adriatic League. Jokic, who turned 20 in 2015, parlayed that performance into a four-year, $5.6 million contract with Denver.
Injuries to Nurkic, an All-Rookie second-team pick the year before, helped Jokic start 55 games in his first NBA season (2015-16). By midway through the next season, the Nuggets committed to Jokic as their center of the future, dealing Nurkic to the Portland Trail Blazers before the trade deadline.
During Game 1 of the 2023 Finals, commentator Mike Breen relayed the story about how Jokic once told reporter Lisa Salters that all of the early scouting reports that questioned his athleticism "were true." Perhaps they were right about his talents then, but Jokic has taken his game to an MVP level after improving his conditioning and toning his body in the NBA, with a notable change appearing when he returned for the bubble resumption of the 2019-20 season.
Even with the benefit of hindsight, it's easy to see now that the obsessive focus on Jokic's athleticism -- something I too brought up repeatedly in my early analysis of his game -- blinded NBA talent evaluators to the value of his unique skill and playmaking for his size, strengths that have made Jokic into a true superstar.
He has added the Magic Johnson Western Conference finals MVP Award, an NBA championship and Bill Russell Finals MVP Award to his résumé.
To Rana, Jokic's NBA success should be a lesson for everyone.
"I still think that we make the same mistakes," Rana said. "We overlook talent because what we value is in some ways traditional: athleticism, size, strength, the particular way a player looks as opposed to really honing in on skills and seeing whether those skills will transition.
"It's a good reminder for us and we need to be reminded of it more often: that guys who don't necessarily run the fastest or jump the highest can be incredibly impactful players. ...
"He's reminding us of that every night."
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