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**I Love My Home**
*Inspired by Nikola Jokić*
There’s something powerful about the place you come from. For Nikola Jokić, that place is Sombor, Serbia—a quiet town nestled in the northern plains, where the mornings smell like dew-soaked earth and the rhythm of horse hooves echoes down cobbled streets. In Sombor, dreams don’t yell; they whisper. And Nikola always listened.
From the cracked concrete court behind the elementary school, where rusted rims swayed in the wind, to the warmth of his family’s small kitchen where laughter was the main dish, Sombor was more than a hometown—it was a heartbeat. Even now, under the glitter of NBA arenas and international stardom, that steady rhythm of home is what grounds him.
Nikola wasn’t built like the others. He wasn’t fast, wasn’t flashy. His game was unhurried, deliberate—like the way Sombor moved through the seasons. Locals would say he played like the Danube River: slow and winding, but impossible to stop once it got going. And maybe that’s why, even as a boy, people believed in him—not because he boomed with confidence, but because he carried with him the weight of something real.
He’d walk home from practice with his brothers, sneakers slung over his shoulder, arguing about horses and strategy, basketball and life. It wasn’t about being famous. It was about being present. In Sombor, that meant knowing your neighbors, feeding the dogs in the alley, and never forgetting where you buried your first jumper.
When the scouts came calling, it was Sombor that taught him how to stay calm. When the plane took him to Denver, it was Sombor that helped him breathe through the pressure. And when the championships came, it was Sombor that made him want to go back home, hop on his carriage, and trot through the quiet streets with the wind in his hair and not a single reporter in sight.
People often ask him what drives him. It’s not money. Not fame. It’s a dirt path behind his house. It’s the stable with his horses. It’s the apricot tree his grandfather planted, still blooming near the fence. That’s the root of his greatness—his unshakeable bond with the simple, the grounded, the true.
He wears Sombor like an invisible jersey, stitched into every pass he throws, every rebound he snatches. It’s a reminder that greatness doesn’t always come from grandeur. Sometimes, it comes from a place where nothing is expected of you—except to be yourself.
**“I love my home.”**
Because home is not just where you start.
It’s where you stay, even when the world calls you somewhere else.
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