Nuggets’ Nikola Jokić: ‘When I Finish My Career, I Really Wish Nobody Knows Me’ | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić, who spends summers watching his horses race, is ready give up his fame once his NBA career is over.

“Being famous, some people like it, some people don’t,” Jokić told teammate Michael Porter on Thursday’s episode of his podcast, “Curious Mike” (h/t Awful Announcing.) “When I finish my career, I really wish nobody knows me. I wish my kid or kids in the future… remember me as a dad. I think that’s gonna be my goal in life.”

Jokić’s comments come around the 8:00 mark of the video below.

“I really don’t like this life because, at the end of the day, we are just basketball players. We are just good at what we are doing,” Jokić said. “But the media is something that is around us, and of course, we are getting paid because of the media, because of our popularity.”

That popularity results in what Jokić described as people “taking their phones out and trying to record” him in public.

“I think that’s really, I’m going to say, rude,” Jokić said. “It’s not that I’m out showing myself. I’m just who I am.”

The 28-year-old spends his summers in his home country of Serbia, building his horse stable, Dream Catcher. He said earlier this season he plans to continue doing so after he retires from professional basketball.

“I love it,” Jokić said in October, per the Denver Post‘s Bennett Durando. “It’s my passion. It puts me outside of this thing.”

Jokić’s horses may still draw crowds in Serbia, but it is nothing compared to the attention the big man got after leading the Nuggets to their first championship in franchise history.

Those accolades are likely to continue as Jokić puts himself on pace for his sixth consecutive All-Star season by averaging 26.5 points, 9.2 assists and 12.3 rebounds through 31 games with the Nuggets.