The visiting locker room at FedEx Forum in Memphis is just big enough to accommodate a traveling NBA team and just small enough for the tangy aroma of Buffalo wings to creep into every inch of space.
In the jubilant aftermath of Denver’s 25-point comeback win in January of 2019, that scent emanated from the stalls of most Nuggets players as they devoured dozens of juicy wings — a postgame tradition that accompanies every visit to Memphis.
While his teammates inhaled the messy, well-earned indulgence, Nikola Jokic sat content, cross-legged at his locker room stall, picking away at his own postgame meal: chicken and rice.
“To understand Nikola’s mind, he’s the kind of guy if he tells you, ‘I’m gonna do something,’ and he looks in your eyes like, ‘I’m gonna do this,’ he will,” said Felipe Eichenberger, the Nuggets’ head strength-and-conditioning coach.
Jokic’s unbending discipline has fueled his rise, from late second-round pick to three-time All-Star and, this season, to MVP candidate. It took years of dedication in the weight room, commitment to recovery and adherence to a strict diet to get to this point.
And at the heart of his motivation is a unique bond between Jokic and Eichenberger — a burly Serbian and a brawny Brazilian who formed a partnership that also blossomed into a deeply personal friendship.
“I don’t want to eat bad just because I know it’s not just me,” Jokic told The Denver Post. “It’s him, too. I don’t want to disappoint him.”
***
Eichenberger vividly remembers the first time he got Jokic in the weight room.
Then the Nuggets’ assistant strength coach in 2015, Eichenberger was assigned to Jokic, Denver’s unheralded second-round pick from the year before, and tasked with getting him loose.
“That was a very interesting moment,” said Eichenberger, evaluating Jokic’s fitness level and gauging expectations.
When Jokic first arrived in Denver, his core planks — at best — lasted 30 seconds, Eichenberger recalled.
“This is a guy that’s coming to the NBA,” Eichenberger said. “He can’t do this. It’s scary, right? But then I explained to him, ‘This is personal. Here’s what you need to do. Let’s work on it.’ And he was all about it.”
Over the first few years of Jokic’s career, he deferred to Eichenberger’s expertise at restaurants, letting his strength coach order the food. Now six seasons in, visibly leaner, inarguably bouncier and able to do core planks “forever,” Jokic knows exactly what foods Eichenberger approves of.
After kicking his Coca Cola habit – a gallon a day before making it to the NBA – Eichenberger said Jokic hasn’t touched a soda in five or six years. It was a draft day resolution Jokic made to himself, Eichenberger said.
“To transform his body into where he is, to prove everybody quietly, that’s just amazing to me,” Eichenberger said. “If I could show people how hard working this guy is, it’s mind-blowing.”
Nobody has been closer to the process than Eichenberger, which starts to explain the depths of their relationship.
The reason both refer to each other as brothers, extending an open-door policy to one another’s family, is because of the mutual trust they’ve established.
“He’s my family,” Jokic said. “I’m really honest with him. He understands me. He knows when I’m lying. It’s funny. … We’re not hiding nothing from each other.”
There were the simple moments where Eichenberger delivered healthy food options to Jokic’s apartment or taught him how to make protein shakes or explained the science behind a particular exercise. Jokic said he appreciated Eichenberger’s curiosity and how it always extended into their conversations. But there were other conversations, too, on the hundreds of carpools together to DIA, where Eichenberger gradually convinced Jokic of the dedication necessary to be great.
“He gives 100% of himself to help me,” Jokic said. “It’s something that I can see, I can feel, he really cares about me. That’s why I think I will never be able to thank him (enough).”
Both defer credit to the other for Jokic’s fitness gains, but there’s a refreshing honesty when the two communicate.
“When you get to a point where he is, he’s an All-Star, people just (think) he’s untouchable,” Eichenberger said. “I’m not that way. Since Day 1, I’m like, ‘Hey man, you gotta step up on your workouts,’ or, ‘Hey, man, your diet is (crap), we gotta change.’ … Even if he was mad, I told him, ‘I’m not here to be your friend. I’m here to make you better.’ We can be friends after.”
And Jokic, dissatisfied when not extracting every ounce of his potential, embraced the challenge.
***
About three years ago, at the start of Jokic’s All-Star run, he and Eichenberger adopted a practice of lifting after games.
Eichenberger explained that as Jokic’s role within the team grew, he needed to account for the increased workload. It didn’t matter the exertion over the prior four quarters — or in one notable playoff game, four overtimes — they would lift.
“It’s not like you’re a point guard or a fifth guy,” Eichenberger said. “You’re gonna be fighting underneath the basket every single day, you need this. And the only way to do this … is if we work out after the game, we can load you more and you can get a lot more done than just lifting the day after.
“He wanted in. It was about three years ago. He really hasn’t missed a scheduled workout since.”
(Jokic won’t take credit, but following his lead, there are now a handful of Nuggets players who lift after games with Eichenberger and Claus Souza, Denver’s assistant strength coach – the “Brazilian mafia,” as they’re affectionately known).
Over the course of three separate trips to Serbia, Eichenberger built equity with Jokic. The first time he went with Nuggets coach Michael Malone, he was struck by how friendly the people of Sombor were, how walkable the city was. He also couldn’t help but sense how eager Jokic was to please his guests, ushering them from hearty meal to hearty meal.
But from a trainer’s perspective, he took note of how woefully inadequate Jokic’s exercise equipment was.
“This is a lot of talent here, and how can we make this happen?” Eichenberger asked. “The main thing that he tells me is, ‘I love home. I’m gonna be home for the summer … We gotta make it work where I am.’ I was like, ‘Cool.’ So that first trip, the first year, was like, ‘We gotta change a lot of stuff here otherwise you’re not going to be able to perform.’”
Subsequent trips, with adequate equipment, were more seamless. And on each occasion, though ostensibly work colleagues, they grew closer.
“He’s someone, not because of basketball, but because of how human and genuine he is, I love having him around my kids,” Eichenberger said.
“If you want to ride with someone, he’s the guy,” Jokic said. “If you want to accomplish something, he’s the guy.”
Following a slow start last season, Jokic told ESPN he’d lost 20-25 pounds adhering to a workout regimen Eichenberger devised for him. The actual amount Jokic lost in-season was far greater, according to Eichenberger, respecting Jokic’s privacy.
“We know what (the number) is,” Eichenberger said.
As Jokic pummels the rest of the league, racking up triple-doubles, dropping 40-point games and leaping into categories alongside NBA luminaries, he’s quick to dole credit to the man behind his development.
“Maybe if it was someone else, I would not be there and work out after games,” Jokic said. “Maybe I will not go hard every time in the weight room. I will not take care of my body that much. He deserves a lot of credit, just to motivate me every day. It’s something that I really appreciate.”
***
Jokic doesn’t do social media. It’s another quirk and one more reason the Joker is unlike any other superstar in the NBA.
Yet recently Eichenberger sent Jokic a screenshot of seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady. A few years ago, Brady shared a picture on Instagram wearing his NFL combine shirt. The caption included, “This is what they said about me then,” rattling off negatives about his body, strength and athleticism.
That same image wound up on Jokic’s phone.
“I said, ‘Man, listen, just a reminder,’” Eichenberger said. “‘A guy that can’t jump or can’t do this, they’re saying all these things about this guy, and look at where he is now, just like you.’”
A sixth-round pick in the NFL (like Brady) is roughly equivalent to a second-rounder in the NBA. Jokic went 41st in 2014.
“To be honest, he’s saying the last three, four years, ‘Let’s do it, let’s win the MVP, let’s win a championship,’” Jokic said of Eichenberger’s Brady message. “He’s the guy who really thinks that we can do it. He just likes to see the big things happen.
“We were talking together, like, my body is not built to be athletic, whatever, but my coordination is so good that I put aside all the bad things that I cannot jump, I cannot run fast,” Jokic said. “But my coordination is really good. He really likes the big things. He thinks that I or we are really capable of doing big things.”
Jokic’s pronoun usage was important. It’s never one man’s journey to the top.
