Four-Time NBA All-Star's Rare Insight Into Potential Nikola Jokic Retirement

Jokic has been a top-two player in the league for half a decade now, but the wildest part is that he never seems to be enjoying it. Jokic is a very rare NBA superstar in the way that he is always happier when doing something other than basketball. Whether he is out clubbing in Serbia or home with his horses, Jokic's favorite thing to do is not play basketball.

This has been a topic of discussion for years now, as Jokic barely celebrated even when the Nuggets won the championship in 2023. This has led many fans to think about when the three-time NBA MVP will decide to retire.

DeMarcus Cousins reveals that Nikola Jokic contemplated retirement

Four-time All-Star DeMarcus Cousins played his final handful of NBA games with the Nuggets, being Jokic's backup for part of his second MVP season. Cousins recently told a story on the Straight Game Podcast about how Jokic told him he thought about retiring before signing his last supermax contract extension.

"He really don't give a f*** about this s***," Cousins said about Jokic. "He doesn't care, at all. This is like his second or third favorite thing to do. Maybe third or fourth. It's most games where he's dropping one of these crazy stats, and he probably doesn't even want to be there. And that's the scary part about all of it.

"When I was with Denver, our lockers were next to each other... I'm like 'your [extension] gonna be crazy.' And he's like, 'you know, I honestly think I might retire after this contract.' I said, 'and leave $300 million on the table? ...You out of your motherf****** mind.' "

Jokic's latest contract extension kicked in at the start of the 2023-24 season, so Jokic nearly retired right after leading the Nuggets to their first championship in franchise history, but he would have been just 28 years old. Of course, the Nuggets are glad that the best player in the NBA did not retire early, and now Jokic is benefiting from it tremendously with a lucrative contract.