Nuggets star Nikola Jokic went from 'being drafted during a Taco Bell commercial' to the NBA 'witnessing greatness'
Jun. 11—Randy Foye was watching the NBA draft at his home in New Jersey in June 2014 when it came time for the Nuggets to make a selection.
For several minutes, he wasn't sure what had happened.
"He was drafted during a Taco Bell commercial," said Foye, then a guard for the Nuggets. "I was watching but I didn't even know who we had drafted."
The selection was center Nikola Jokic with the No 41 overall pick in the second round. His name appeared on a scrawl below a Taco Bell ad during a break in the ESPN broadcast.
Foye, who didn't notice the scrawl at the time, eventually figured out who Denver had selected, and a year later he got to see Jokic in person. The center, then 20, joined the Nuggets for the 2015-16 season as Foye's teammate.
Foye retired after the 2016-17 season and is now president of Friends of Nova, which works with athletes at his Villanova alma mater on NIL efforts. With Jokic, 28, being a two-time NBA MVP and one game away from leading the Nuggets to their first championship, Foye looked back at how it all began in Denver for the 6-foot-11 native of Serbia.
"I knew he was good but I didn't know he was going to be this good," said Foye, who played with the Nuggets from the start of the 2013-14 season until being traded in February 2016. "I'm not going to sit here and say. 'I thought greatness was written all over him.' .... But I thought he would be a starter in the NBA who would have a long career."
Of course, nobody predicted then that the second-round pick would reach the heights he has attained. With the Nuggets leading the Miami Heat 3-1 entering Monday night's Game 5 of of the NBA Finals at Ball Arena, Jokic is averaging a head-turning 31.8 points, 13.5 rebounds and 8.0 assists in the series.
"I thought he was a good player," forward Danilo Gallinari, also Jokic's teammate in 2015-16, said of the center as a rookie. "I honestly didn't think he was going to become the best player in the world. He was a player that foreshadowed a lot of technique and his skill set was unique for a big man. ... I think at the beginning, his court vision and his passing ability, those are the two things that you could see right away."
Gallinari, who played for Denver from February 2011 through the 2016-17 season and sat out 2022-23 with Boston due to a knee injury, has been rooting for Jokic and the Nuggets during the Finals. So has Foye, although he also has been cheering for his former college teammate, Heat guard Kyle Lowry, to do well.
"You have to tip your hat to (Jokic)," Foye said. "He doesn't have a ton of athleticism but his work ethic and being humble put him in a position back then to be where he is now."
Foye said Jokic "wasn't polished" as a rookie but showed a "high basketball IQ" and the skills he had learned in Serbia were quite evident, such as his work in the pick-and-roll game. Foye, who was 32 when Jokic was a rookie, served as a mentor and took an instant liking to the big man.
"One of my roles was to help the younger guys prepare and to stay ready," Foye said. "We were really close. He worked hard. But he joked around. We worked out at the end (of practice) and he would mimic me by taking two dribbles and shoot like me."
Gallinari also developed a close relationship with Jokic and they have continued to talk regularly over the years after Gallinari moved on to other NBA teams. He said Jokic was a "funny guy" as a rookie but that he's opened up even more since then.
"I'm sure that he talks way more now, but he didn't talk much back then," Gallinari said. "When we were going on the road, he didn't really get out of his room. I'm sure he goes out of his room a little more now. I remember he was playing a lot of video games, just staying in his room. But he was just a nice, young kid. Loves basketball."
Nuggets coach Michael Malone, then in his first season on the job, remembers Jokic arriving to play in July 2015 at the Las Vegas Summer League while not being in the best of shape. But that changed in a hurry.
"He realized at that point in time that I got to get in better shape and I have to lose weight," Malone said. "He did that, like, right away. I think that was a sign for me that this kid is serious about this."
Still, Jokic didn't play much early in his rookie season and averaged just 5.4 points and 3.9 rebounds in his first 10 NBA games. But then he broke loose with 23 points and 12 rebounds on Nov. 18, 2015 against a San Antonio team that had Tim Duncan and LaMarcus Aldridge on the front line.
"That was, for me, kind of when that light bulb went off saying, 'Wow, what he just did, who he did it against, on the road against this team coached by (Gregg Popovich), this kid has a chance to be a special player,' " Malone said.
Gallinari also pointed to the game against the Spurs.
"That's when honestly teammates and everybody started to really think that, 'OK, this kid could be good,' " Gallinari said. "I remember I told him, 'You had this game now. Since you did it once, you got to do it every game now."'
It then was suggested that Jokic does now put up big-time stats every game.
"He listens to the advice," Gallinari said with a laugh.
Gallinari will be glued to the television Monday in Boston when the Nuggets can win their first championship in the 56-year history of the franchise. That includes nine seasons in the ABA and the past 47 in the NBA.
"I am very happy for him, especially knowing his background, where he's from and knowing him as a person, knowing his family, his (two) brothers, and seeing the process as a young kid from Serbia coming to the league." Gallinari said. "It's great to see. ... Now, we are witnessing greatness."
Foye will be looking on in New Jersey, where nine years earlier he watched the NBA draft but didn't pay close enough attention during a Taco Bell commercial.
"(Jokic's) a great kid," Foye said. "I'm so happy for him. He's probably going to go down as one of the top five or six bigs ever to play and the best ever from Europe. Nobody can cheer against that guy."
