{"id":490702,"date":"2026-02-19T18:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T18:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/490702\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T18:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T18:39:10","slug":"nikola-jokic-reaffirms-nba-commitment-and-outlines-potential-retirement-range","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/490702\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikola Jokic reaffirms NBA commitment and outlines potential retirement range"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Johnny Askounis\/<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurohoops.net\/en\/nba-news\/1934051\/nikola-jokic-on-loving-basketball-career-length-denver-nuggets-nba\/maillot:info@eurohops.net\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> info@eurohoops.net<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nikola Jokic has set his sights on a second NBA championship with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurohoops.net\/basket\/denver-nuggets\/?lang=en\" title=\"Denver Nuggets\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"auto-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Denver Nuggets<\/a> over all else, including his well-known passion for horse racing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI care a lot,\u201d he explained in an interview with Malika Andrews on ESPN\u2019s NBA Today. \u201cI think if you don\u2019t care for winning, you\u2019re not supposed to be in this sport. I think just my personality is maybe a little bit different, or I accept victories and success in different ways. But I care about basketball, I love to play, and I enjoy competing. I just accept success or defeat differently\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The Serbian superstar was specifically asked to compare the emotional highs of horse racing to his famously understated reaction to winning the 2023 NBA Championship and Finals MVP. \u201cNBA championship right now,\u201d he stressed when asked what tops his list of priorities.<\/p>\n<p>Reaffirming his commitment, Jokic reflected on a major left knee injury earlier this 2025\u201326 Regular Season that forced him to the sidelines for several weeks, the longest absence of his career.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was actually really interesting, because I\u2019ve never been injured before and it was a completely new kind of moment in my career,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m so used to playing, so used to being on the floor that I felt like I was missing out\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, the Sombor native projected a career length of several more years, responding to a question about superstars like LeBron James stretching their runs into their forties.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo be honest, I think I\u2019m going to play basketball until I can play at a high level. Because I enjoy it, I love to play. So, I think I\u2019m going to play until I can no longer perform on a high level and still be healthy,\u201d he mentioned.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Through 39 appearances this season, his dominating displays have produced 28.7 points, 12.3 rebounds, 10.7 assists, 1.4 steals, and 0.8 blocks per contest.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurohoops.net\/latest-news\/?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Read the latest News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Johnny Askounis\/ info@eurohoops.net Nikola Jokic has set his sights on a second NBA championship with the Denver&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-490702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}