By Stefan Djordjevic/ info@eurohoops.net
In the summer of 2017, Denver Nuggets star player Nikola Jokic decided not to play for the Serbian national team in the upcoming Eurobasket in order to better prepare himself for the upcoming NBA season.
That decision certainly paid off as he improved drastically and paved the way to signing a five-year maximum contract with Denver Nuggets earlier this summer. On the other hand, some fans didn’t take that decision well and blamed him for not helping Serbia in the competition.
Although Jokic had a good amount of support also, some of the negativity reached him and it was enough for the young player to doubt himself: “The guys on EuroBasket deserved to represent Serbia. They played in the final of the European Championship and an atmosphere was created that I was the main culprit for not playing. I received a lot of negative messages. I assumed that not a very large percentage of people were against me, but I felt bad,” Jokic opened up to Darko Plavsic in the book ‘NBA Serbia’, per Sportklub.
It was so hard for Jokic that even the thought of completely giving up crossed his mind: “I took it so hard, so far as to tell myself: ‘I won’t play anymore!’. All kinds of nonsense came to my mind, but then I completely disconnected from everything so I wouldn’t listen to all kinds of stuff.”
Photo Credit: FIBA