Nikola Jokić shooting a free throw in his Denver Nuggets jersey

Basketball & Modern Heritage

Nikola Jokić’s Sombor — the making of a legend

Sombor · Vojvodina

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CATEGORY: Basketball & Modern Heritage
COUNTRY: Serbia
REGION: Sombor · Vojvodina
DURATION: 1 day

ABOUT THIS ATTRACTION

Sombor gave basketball the most unlikely superstar in its history. Nikola Jokić was born here on 19 February 1995, learned the game on the asphalt under the apartment blocks, played his youth basketball for SO Koš and KK Mega, and left for Belgrade as a teenager. The Denver Nuggets drafted him 41st overall in 2014 — a pick so low that the announcement aired during a commercial — and he repaid them by becoming the lowest-drafted player ever to win MVP, then Finals MVP, and the first player in NBA history to lead a single postseason in points, rebounds and assists. Every off-season he comes home: he plays 3-on-3 with his childhood friends on the renovated court by his old school, tends his harness-racing horses at the family stable, and — always — avoids the spotlight. His career honours read like a Hall of Fame résumé already: NBA champion and unanimous Finals MVP (2023), three-time NBA MVP (2021, 2022, 2024 — the first non-American to win it three times), eight-time All-Star, six-time All-NBA First Team, Western Conference Finals MVP (2023), Olympic silver with Serbia (Rio 2016) and bronze (Paris 2024), ABA League MVP (2015), and the only player besides Oscar Robertson to average a triple-double across multiple seasons.

HISTORY & BACKGROUND

The story behind it

More here soon — the road is still being mapped.

WHAT TO SEE

What to see here

The four-storey Jokić mural on his old school, OŠ Dositej Obradović (Pece Petrovića St.) — see the dedicated stop below.

The court by the school, remodelled at Jokić’s own expense, where he still plays 3-on-3 every summer with his friends from SO Koš.

The Jokić-family harness-racing world: the family stable and the renovated town hippodrome (leased by Jokić in 2020), where his horses race under the KK “Vojvođanin” banner — his first racehorse was Dream Catcher, bought while he was still a teenager.

Kafanas around the centre where Finals games run past midnight — in June 2023 the whole town watched Game 5 on a big screen at 3 a.m.

His off-day circuit by bike: the gym he rebuilt for KK Joker, the hippodrome to check his horses, then the canal beach at Štrand — everything within ten minutes of his boyhood apartment.

MAP & LOCATION