But a new book has insight on Jokić that even the most dedicated Nuggets fans won’t know. Former Denver Post Nuggets beat writer Mike Singer was so invested in the effort that he left his job to write Why So Serious? The Untold Story of NBA Champion Nikola Jokić, which comes out on December 3.
According to Singer, there is a lot about Jokić’s early life in Serbia that people don’t know. By going to the town of Sombor, where Jokić is from, Singer gained knowledge about the enigmatic athlete few have had the chance to discover — and he’s sharing those discoveries in his book.
“It's a deep dive into Nikola in ways that he has never put out publicly in any capacity,” Singer says. “He's generally pretty insular and doesn't like to share a lot, so I talked to his family. I talked to his first teammates, his first coaches, a lot of his Nuggets teammates, former Nuggets teammates, a lot of people who knew him when he was a kid.”
Singer grew up in Cleveland — where his high school often faced off against St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, the academy that LeBron James attended — and was obsessed with basketball at a young age. He studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin before covering Marquette University basketball for CBS Sports and the Chicago Bulls for CSN Chicago, later becoming the national NBA editor at USA Today. He finally landed in Denver to write for the Post in 2018.
In the Mile High, Singer quickly realized the Nuggets beat wasn’t nearly as saturated as the Bulls beat had been; oftentimes he was the only Denver reporter whose publication sent him traveling with the team.
“I can't tell you how quickly I realized that this was on me,” he recalls. “I had to basically produce a ton and ask a bunch of questions.”
While the pandemic was tough, Singer says he grew as a reporter by learning how to find stories in Zoom press conferences or by calling people around the Nuggets organization to chat since he wasn’t traveling.
“Mike is a really great people person. He's really great at connecting with people," Post sports editor Matt Schubert says of Singer.
Singer says his goal was to be accountable, trustworthy and fair to his sources. The relationships he built are evidenced in the book: Former Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly and current GM Calvin Booth both talked with Singer for Why So Serious?.
The Nuggets were so impressed with Singer's nose for information that they hired him away from his life as a journalist, announcing in September that he would be the team's new Director of Intelligence and Strategy. According to Singer, the book was finished before the Nuggets reached out and was not impacted by his new role, and it was a total surprise to him when the team approached him. Singer says he can’t say much about his new position, but it has to do with keeping up with “what’s going on throughout the league.”
That was Singer’s job as a beat reporter for years, anyway. That, and trying to “advance the Nikola Jokić story.”
“How do you tell a story when he doesn't necessarily want to share it?” Singer asks. “There's only so many times he's going to give me the time of day. I usually shot for, like, two to three one-on-one interviews throughout the year, and if I could turn those into feature stories, then it was a huge win.”
But Singer always knew the real Jokić story wasn’t in the United States. It was in Serbia, where the generational star was born and goes to decompress in between seasons, so when ESPN’s Brian Windhorst approached Singer about writing a book during the Nuggets' championship run in 2023, Singer was excited by the possibility.
Windhorst told Singer there was “interest on the publisher side” if he wanted to write a book about Jokić. Satisfied with his time as a beat writer as the team he covered was playing for a title, Singer had also just become a father.
“I was very proud of that, but I didn't need to do it again, and I certainly didn't need to do it again with my daughter,” Singer says. “I basically said, 'I’m going to leave the paper, go write this book and see what happens.' I went to Serbia last summer and just kind of said, ‘Screw it.' I'm going to see what I can learn about this dude in a way that hasn't been told here.”
The result is Why So Serious?, a title Singer says is a nod to both the Joker, Jokić’s nickname, and Jokić’s disposition, which is stubborn and sarcastic but still completely sincere.
According to Singer, Jokić likes to give people a hard time, especially people he likes.
“He would butt heads with his dad, he would butt heads with coaches,” Singer says. “There is stuff in there about him butting heads with [Nuggets coach] Michael Malone that has never been reported. He was stubborn, but he always was super, super competitive, and a very, very genuine and sincere person. I don't think he is able to be disingenuous.”
Singer says a section of the book reveals Jokić questioning whether the fame and attention for lifting a franchise to its first championship and playing basketball in a way the world has never seen is worth it. But in Jokić fashion, many passages showcase the center’s mischievous and sarcastic nature.
“He won't verify that he’s being sarcastic. You have to piece it together,” Singer says. “So you leave a conversation questioning, ‘Was he messing with me or was he not?’ And he loves when the person he's talking to lives in that gray space. He loves it. He loves when he's messing with people and it's ambiguous what his intent is.”
Thoughts From Childhood Friends, Family and NBA Rivals
Singer says traveling to Serbia was the key to the book. There he hung out with Jokić’s agent, Misko Raznatovic, and visited the famed horse track where Jokić enjoys his time during the off-season. Sombor, Jokić’s hometown, is an intimate place, according to Jokić’s scribe and new co-worker.“I'm sitting by the river where I'm pretty sure he learned to swim and would hang out when it was hot, and I'm sitting there with his first coach and some of his oldest teammates, and the teammates are in the river, and you can just get a sense of how small of a city and how tight-knit the community is,” Singer says.
Jokić’s dad wrote Singer a five-page handwritten note answering questions about his son for the book, which is just one of the many exclusive people whose voices are included. Singer says he also had the help of Serbian journalist Marko Ljubomirović, whose efforts to translate during interviews made the book “30 to 40 percent better."
One of the most impactful interviews was with the late Dejan Milojević before his passing last January. Milojević was the coach of the Serbian basketball team Mega Vizura, where Jokić played before being drafted to the NBA. Also in the book are words from at least thirty other NBA players, including MVP and two-time champion Kevin Durant, whose opinions of Jokić were so thoughtful that they became an entire chapter.
“Mike just has this great network of people that he keeps building and building and building that allows him to find all of these unique, hidden stories from people that were around Nikola,” Schubert says. “What you get is this really complete picture of Nikola.”
The only people whom Singer really wishes he could've persuaded to contribute are Jokić’s brother, Strahinja, and his wife, Natalija. Jokić himself sat down with Singer for the book, however.
The book ends with the 2023-2024 season, when the Nuggets lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round of the playoffs. Even those who closely followed that season, and Jokić in general, will learn from the book, according to Schubert.
“It's apparent from the very first chapter that this is all new stuff," he says. "It's really good. It's well written. The pacing is great. It moves quickly.”
Even non-readers may enjoy the “jaw-dropping” photos included in the book, including the cover photo, by AAron Ontiveroz of the Post.
The book is being translated into Japanese, Serbian, Italian, Slovenian and Chinese, but the only reader Singer is dying to hear from is Jokić, whom he gave an advanced copy.
“It was really cool. I said, ‘I have something for you,’ and I pulled out my book bag, and he was like, ‘Oh! The book!” Singer says. “I gave him a bottle of rakija with the book, and I said, ‘You're gonna need this.’ He enjoyed that. It wasn't really true, but I still think he appreciated it. … I really only care about one person. If he likes it, I don't care if anybody else likes it.”
Singer says he hopes to coordinate an event at Tattered Cover to celebrate the book’s release in December, but details aren’t firm yet.
“I feel very lucky on a lot of different levels, and I realize how unique my situation is. I'm not taking it for granted,” Singer says.
Why So Serious? The Untold Story of NBA Champion Nikola Jokić by Mike Singer will be released on Tuesday, December 3, but the book is available for pre-order on multiple platforms.
