Basketball is the primary sport choice for few people outside of the USA, especially in Europe where soccer takes priority. For Jusuf Nurkic, the concept of basketball was non-existent as he focused on his life in his village and tending to his family farm. He recently claimed he didn’t know about the sport until the age of 14, meaning he rose from never having played to getting drafted in the NBA within just five years.
“It’s a funny story. I didn’t practice basketball or any sport until 2009. One day, a man from my village showed up at home and basically said that I could be a really good basketball player. But at that time, I didn’t know anything about basketball, but I decided to give it a shot.”
“I went to basketball practice and started learning the rules, how to run, jump, and make certain moves. Five years after I first picked up a basketball, I was in the NBA. It was like a crazy fast story. To go from no sports to the NBA is uncommon. But that’s basically the way it happened.”
Nurkic was discovered by a Bosnian sports agent at the age of 14 which led to him playing basketball across the Balkan states, such as Croatia and Slovenia, before he generated enough interest from NBA teams that he declared for the 2014 Draft.
The Denver Nuggets drafted Nurkic with the 16th overall pick, but the team hedged its bets by also selecting a center named Nikola Jokic with their second-round pick.
Nurkic remained the Nuggets starting center until 2016, when Jokic finally supplanted him, forcing Denver to trade him to the Trail Blazers. Nurk averaged 7.5 points and 5.9 rebounds over the formative years of his career before he embraced his prime on the Trail Blazers as Damian Lillard’s co-star.
He averaged 14.4 points, 9.8 rebounds, and 2.8 assists over seven seasons, being constantly plagued with injuries before getting traded to the Phoenix Suns last summer. He averaged 10.9 points, 11.0 rebounds, and 4.0 assists in his sole season with the Suns and is expected to retain his spot on the franchise for the 2024-25 season.
Nurkic’s career is pretty remarkable for someone who was destined for a rural life in Bosnia until he was discovered as a potential basketball talent. Now, Nurkic has made $129.3 million over a fruitful NBA career that should go on for a few more seasons. While he didn’t develop into the kind of player Jokic did, Nurk is still one of the better centers of the modern generation.
He blends all sorts of skills into a frame we haven’t seen before. His passing is solid among centers in the NBA, while few can match his skill or hustle while rebounding. if he can’t have a stronger year than what we saw last season, the Suns might have no choice but to move him into additional depth pieces for the franchise.
