If not Denver, where does Jokic land in 2023?

[Mavrelous]

Chicago is a great market for Serbs, tho. After Belgrade, Chicago has the 2nd largest population of Serbs in the world, with around 350.000 ethnic Serbs living there.

More than Sweden and Switzerland?

Those are countries, but I'm still pretty sure that Chicago has more ethnic Serbs than either of those two.

Mega cities and their suburbs are pretty much countries.

[Pachinko_]

Europe probably. I think he's running out of **** to give in the NBA.

[Wolveswin]

Destination that is real option, and will sound like homer, but Minnesota.

Wolves will have 70M+ in cap. They can sign Jokic plus another star that wants to join Jokic. If Jokic doesn’t have a buddy in mind (Bogdan?), and Wolves + Jokic doesn’t attract a big name player, fallback is retain Russell (at much lower number than he plays with now).

Jokic doesn’t need a big market — maybe even prefers it.

Paired with Towns shooting at PF and Edwards on the perimeter.

Jokic
Towns
Bogdan or McDaniels or JV
Edwards | (Beasley if retained on TO)
Russell or other Max FA

I will add, although highly doubt Jokic is the “play GM” type star, Wolves with Edwards as one of the most valuable players still on rookie deal in 2023 (Luka paid, Zion paid), Wolves present this as an option to Jokic as well.

Enough cap to free agent sign Jokic to max.

Edwards + Beasley (expiring) + All Wolves 1sts Owned for a star of Jokic’s choosing. Many options possible with Edwards+ as centerpiece.

[Lunartic]

He's coming to Chicago, book it.

[Wolveswin]

He's coming to Chicago, book it.

I just don’t see why Bulls? Getting past any city stuff..

With LaVine max, Bulls don’t have the cap. Unless they trade away some contracts like Williams and Caruso. And to get that cap, it’s letting one of their best players in Vucevic walk for nothing (can’t be traded for any salary or used in S&T if Denver wants him).

DD will be 34. And Ball as teams 2nd best player by then (no offense, Ball is balling).

Surely Jokic would find some place with more talent on roster.

[MoneyTalks41890]

Mavs make the most sense to me if it’s not Denver. And if MPJr stays hurt and Murray doesn’t return to form that Denver team looks a lot less promising with future picks tied up.

[pro24]

He's coming to Chicago, book it.

I just don’t see why Bulls? Getting past any city stuff..

With LaVine max, Bulls don’t have the cap. Unless they trade away some contracts like Williams and Caruso. And to get that cap, it’s letting one of their best players in Vucevic walk for nothing (can’t be traded for any salary or used in S&T if Denver wants him).

DD will be 34. And Ball as teams 2nd best player by then (no offense, Ball is balling).

Surely Jokic would find some place with more talent on roster.

This is why they weren't included in the poll.

[ItsDanger]

Toronto, we'll actually pronounce his name properly.

[nanokooshball]

Chicago is a great market for Serbs, tho. After Belgrade, Chicago has the 2nd largest population of Serbs in the world, with around 350.000 ethnic Serbs living there.

More than Sweden and Switzerland?

Those are countries, but I'm still pretty sure that Chicago has more ethnic Serbs than either of those two.

The Chicago Metro area actually has more people than Switzerland and Sweden.

[Whopper_Sr]

If not Denver then Toronto is where I'd want him to end up in.

[Ron Swanson]

I don't understand why people get this notion of Euro or international players having some sort of weird "ethnic loyalty" or preference when it comes to which NBA franchise they'd theoretically want to play for. Started with this whole rather hilarious Masai/Giannis thing cuz Nigerian blood.

Jokic is Serbian. Luka is Slovenian and played for a pro team in Spain. What other than "they're both Eastern European" makes them close or good friends? I agree with most people in saying his personality makes it seem like he doesn't care about big cities, and if I had to guess, he'd only leave Denver if he really felt like he couldn't win a championship there. Not just blindly go to LA or Miami because he likes beaches.

[QingJames]

I don't understand why people get this notion of Euro or international players having some sort of weird "ethnic loyalty" or preference when it comes to which NBA franchise they'd theoretically want to play for. Started with this whole rather hilarious Masai/Giannis thing cuz Nigerian blood.

Jokic is Serbian. Luka is Slovenian and played for a pro team in Spain. What other than "they're both Eastern European" makes them close or good friends? I agree with most people in saying his personality makes it seem like he doesn't care about big cities, and if I had to guess, he'd only leave Denver if he really felt like he couldn't win a championship there. Not just blindly go to LA or Miami because he likes beaches.

Nobody was saying the connection between the two guys was "Nigerian blood." It's because Masai was influential in getting Giannis into the league in the first place.

[hauntedcomputer]

Denver giving two-way contracts to the Jokic Brothers just to be safe.

[Lunartic]

He's coming to Chicago, book it.

I just don’t see why Bulls? Getting past any city stuff..

With LaVine max, Bulls don’t have the cap. Unless they trade away some contracts like Williams and Caruso. And to get that cap, it’s letting one of their best players in Vucevic walk for nothing (can’t be traded for any salary or used in S&T if Denver wants him).

DD will be 34. And Ball as teams 2nd best player by then (no offense, Ball is balling).

Surely Jokic would find some place with more talent on roster.

Lavine is better than anyone Jokic has ever played with

Ball is a very good point-guard and shooter and elite defender

Jokic has the connection with the FO

Chicago is a large market and would provide more opportunities for making money while having less pressure/hostile fans than some other large markets.

I never understood the whole "they don't have the cap!" argument two years from now - can you provide a couple modern day examples of a superteam that was unable to form simply due to a lack of capspace? 3-team trades are a thing. If the Bulls need to jettison DDR or Pwill or Vuc in order to pair Lavine/Ball/Jokic , it's entirely worth it. Jokic is a top-3 player right now, you trade almost anyone to acquire him.

He's going nowhere on the Nuggets because of the albatross MPJ and Murray contracts and pairing up with elite scorers and defenders in Chicago isn't a terrible move.

A team with a combo of:

Ball
Caruso
Lavine
Ayo
Jokic

is best or second-best in the East (depending on Kyrie) and would be a legit title contender.

[Godymas]

he wants to run it with Denver and be the star of that org. Realistically he has a great shot of winning with just Jamal Murray in the playoffs. If MPJ comes back and is even 75% of what he was last year then Denver become immediate favorites to win. If in 2023 Denver is screwed financially because Jamal Murray and MPJ keep suffering injury after injury resulting in complete ruination of their careers, that is what would cause Jokic to leave Denver. Even then a guy like Jokic who never even anticipated getting to this height in his career might just be happy staying in Denver. To be honest the mountainous terrain probably feels familiar because of growing up in Serbia.

If he goes anywhere I believe it would be to team up with Luka. It would be disgusting. Jokic is great at stretching the floor and has a shot for every part of the floor. Luka can basically be Harden and start driving to the rim and kicking it out to Jokic who can either shoot or pass. The offense would be absurd.

[jc23]

"My sources are telling me he wants New York or LA, make no doubt about it this dude is big time"

-Stephen A Smith 2 years from now

[wegotthabeet]

How's his relationship with Masai?

Masai got Jokic Greek citizenship. it's happening. book it.

[Wolveswin]

He's coming to Chicago, book it.

I just don’t see why Bulls? Getting past any city stuff..

With LaVine max, Bulls don’t have the cap. Unless they trade away some contracts like Williams and Caruso. And to get that cap, it’s letting one of their best players in Vucevic walk for nothing (can’t be traded for any salary or used in S&T if Denver wants him).

DD will be 34. And Ball as teams 2nd best player by then (no offense, Ball is balling).

Surely Jokic would find some place with more talent on roster.

Lavine is better than anyone Jokic has ever played with

Ball is a very good point-guard and shooter and elite defender

Jokic has the connection with the FO

Chicago is a large market and would provide more opportunities for making money while having less pressure/hostile fans than some other large markets.

I never understood the whole "they don't have the cap!" argument two years from now - can you provide a couple modern day examples of a superteam that was unable to form simply due to a lack of capspace? 3-team trades are a thing. If the Bulls need to jettison DDR or Pwill or Vuc in order to pair Lavine/Ball/Jokic , it's entirely worth it. Jokic is a top-3 player right now, you trade almost anyone to acquire him.


He's going nowhere on the Nuggets because of the albatross MPJ and Murray contracts and pairing up with elite scorers and defenders in Chicago isn't a terrible move.

A team with a combo of:

Ball
Caruso
Lavine
Ayo
Jokic

is best or second-best in the East (depending on Kyrie) and would be a legit title contender.

That’s just it (roster wise), Jokic doesn’t want his incoming team to be stripped just for his arrival. He wants to come in and he is the final piece with stars in place around him.

Let’s take my Wolves for example. They have 71M in cap space. They can get that number to 80M by moving JV, and a couple end of roster players (no one Jokic would miss).

Jokic will be signed for like 45M? Wolves can have close to max for a 2nd mid level star or a couple players to supplement Jokic, Towns, and Edwards. And as mentioned in my post above, Wolves have Edwards plus all of their 1sts if Jokic wants to play GM for another star (that package means almost anyone).

I admit Chicago is a better city destination — but Jokic isn’t that kind of star. He doesn’t need a big market. With that said, roster construction will be #1, #2, #3 and so on of importance, city highlights WAY down the list for Jokic.

I will add, if LaVine is Jokic’s main roster attraction to Chicago, Wolves offer Edwards + Beasley (expiring) or Russell (S&T) for LaVine.

Jokic
Towns
Brogdon (MLE or via FA) | McDaniels
LaVine
MLE Vet or FA

Jokic can have both LaVine and Towns shooting in Minnesota.

[juanc]

I don't understand why people get this notion of Euro or international players having some sort of weird "ethnic loyalty" or preference when it comes to which NBA franchise they'd theoretically want to play for. Started with this whole rather hilarious Masai/Giannis thing cuz Nigerian blood.

Jokic is Serbian. Luka is Slovenian and played for a pro team in Spain. What other than "they're both Eastern European" makes them close or good friends? I agree with most people in saying his personality makes it seem like he doesn't care about big cities, and if I had to guess, he'd only leave Denver if he really felt like he couldn't win a championship there. Not just blindly go to LA or Miami because he likes beaches.

The players from ex Yugoslavia countires are actually (good) friends. The older generations are still anti neighbour countires, becouse of the war and everything that happened after Tito died, but the younger generations are more and more close(and specially the athletes, basketball players, I recomend you to watch the documentary "Once Brothers",it'll helpyou to understand the brotherhood)

Also Luka is half Serbian, and if you have one drop of Serbian blood you are basically like a "brother" to every Serbian on the planet(I think that the fellow serbs on this forum can confirm that)

And here are some pictures of the Joker and the Don






I think they'll end up playing together sometime during their carrers(maybe even from 2023)

[otmshank1]

How's his relationship with Masai?

They once had breakfast at the same diner, though not at the same time. Jokic to Raps confirmed.