Another first time in the world of sports
By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.
BEFORE the start of the 2022-2023 NBA season, world basketball analysts did not give so much importance to the Denver Nuggets quintet despite the presence of the much-improved Serbian basketball superstar Nikola Jokic in the team. Well, you can’t blame them since based on the Nuggets records, the Nuggets were title-less since it joined the NBA professional league 47 years ago. But “expect the unexpected” as the aphorism says, and the surging Nuggets shocked the world sports enthusiasts by overpowering the three-time NBA champions Miami Heat, 4-1, convincingly in the best-of-seven championship series which concluded last Tuesday (June 13, PH time).
We, fervent basketball aficionados, watched on TV how the underdog and first-time finalists Nuggets scored an overwhelming conquest over the highly favored Heat and shocked the world’s basketball fanatics, including this writer. Yes, based on my vision and analysis, it was the surging six-foot-eleven, the 284 pounder Serbian center Jokic (pronounced as Jokits in Serbia) who did most of the damages against their opponents this season that helped his team tremendously and catapulted them to enter this year’s title-battle against the more championship skilled Heat to win the elusive tiara.
I doff my hat to the Nuggets for their never-say-die stance this season. Undeniably, there were Nuggets stars who played in their own ways led by Jamal Murray and contributed a lot for the victories as well, but it was the 28-year-old Jokic whom I saw played exceptionally in the entire season. Short of describing him as a “jack of all trades, he rebounds well, an unselfish passer, scores well in the shaded spot which is his forte, and even in the three-point area which only very few pivot-men in basketball can do in NBA’s history.”
Jokic had been playing with the Nuggets since 2015 and acquired the “All-Rookie First Team” in 2016, his very first award in NBA. Aside from being a three-time “Player of the Year” in 2018, 2021 and 2022, Jokic also achieved the NBA’s prestigious “Most Valuable Player” award twice, 2021 and 2022 and lastly, the Finals’ “Most Valuable Player”. I cannot blame Jokic’s head coach Michael Malone if he aims for a repeat next year as a defending champion and a title contender with Jokic and Jamal Murray at the helm, like what happened to the Los Angeles Lakers, then spearheaded by Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
Yes, nothing is impossible just like when the Golden State Warriors won their first of their four recent titles in 2015. Yes, that’s Nuggets head coach Malone big wish which perhaps his foes described it as ‘impossible dream.’ Let’s just wait and see.
As expected, confetti finally showered on the Nuggets court in Denver, a scene that eluded them for almost half of the century. “There’s always first time in life,” as the axiom says and happened twice to Serbian athletes last week: with Serbian tennis ace and many times grand slam winner Novak Djokovic who won the 2023 French Open title for a men’s –record 23rd Grand Slam title by defeating Spanish icon Carlos Alcaraz, 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1, a feat that broke the 22-22 Grand Slam title tie with co-holder Europe superstar Spanish Rafael Nadal and the defending champion of the French Open.
The twin world title victory for the Serbians, a first time in the world of sports, is amazing.
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK: He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. EPHESIANS 4: 10
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