DENVER — Ben McKee was looking to fill the lull between the Denver Nuggets sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers and the NBA finals.
So he decided to share his favorite story about spotting Nikola Jokic a few years ago.
His tweet inspired a long thread of other stories.
“I was at Walgreens waiting with my wife for a vaccine and I look over and there’s this really tall dude hanging out looking at diapers kind of shifting around looking and clearly needed some help and I was like that’s the MVP,” McKee told 9NEWS. “Seeing him it was like “Oh, buddy, you need help just like I do.”
He tweeted that story this weekend and within a few days had quite a few other stories of average every day Jokic sightings.
One man spotted Jokic six years ago at Cherry Creek Mall walking with a giant pretzel. Another told a story of a skee ball match with the super star at Dave and Buster’s.
Jose Rocha’s wife shared the story of how he scored a selfie with Joker and an autograph. He said he bumped into Joker at the team store at Ball Arena, where Jokic walked in to buy one of his jerseys for a relative who was visiting from out of town.
“He’s a lot taller than me so he kinda had to scoot down and take a picture with me but he was just the nicest guy,” Rocha said.
Garrett Holtz spotted Joker at Cherry Creek Reservoir.
“I looked over to my left and I just thought is that who I think it is,” he recalls. “It’s a really, really huge person.”
“He’s sitting in a lawn chair, beach chair kinda thing. It’s probably a normal sized lawn chair but it looks like this tiny little thing because he’s sitting in it because he’s a 7-foot-tall behemoth.”
McKee said these close encounters help prove why fans love Jokic so much – he’s a really likeable guy who hasn’t allowed fame and fortune to go to his head.
“I think people are people… regardless of whether they’re the best basketball player in the world or they’re me,” he said. “I think in any other sports market – you wouldn’t necessarily have that connection or that even I see them walking at my park or I see them in my grocery store looking for the things I’m looking for.”
Have you spotted Jokic or have a tip about another news story? E-mail 9NEWS reporter Steve Staeger at steve@9news.com.
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