Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets may have made their championship run look easy, but the two-time MVP says it was only made possible by the team’s past struggles.
After the Nuggets defeated the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals on Tuesday night, Jokic spoke about the importance of failure. He said he believes failing is necessary in order to figure out how to succeed. Jokic mentioned how the Nuggets lost in the first round of the playoffs last year.
"If you want to be successful, you need to be bad, then you need to be good. Then when you're good, you need to fail. Then when you fail, you're going to figure it out… There is no shortcuts. It's a journey."
Nikola Jokic on the journey to an NBA titlepic.twitter.com/0jrVPAAEG1
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) June 13, 2023
“I think the experience is something that’s not what happened to you, (but) what you’re going to do with what happened,” Jokic said. “There are steps that you need to follow. There are no shortcuts. It’s a journey.”
Jokic joined the Nuggets in 2015. The team missed the playoffs in each of his first three seasons. Denver then reached the Western Conference Finals in 2020, but they started going backwards after that. They lost in the semifinals the following year before being bounced in five games by the Golden State Warriors in the opening round last season. Jokic believes all of those shortcomings were productive.
What stuck out about Jokic’s response was how similar it was to what Giannis Antetokounmpo said about failure after the Milwaukee Bucks lost in the first round. It is hardly a coincidence that the two MVPs have such similar mindsets.
