Greek basketball owner makes attempt to buy Nikola Jokic out of final year of Nuggets contract

Somewhere in Athens, a Greek businessman is plotting his next move. Somewhere in Denver, the Nuggets are laughing.

Dimitrios Giannakopoulos, the owner of Greek basketball club Panathinaikos, revealed on the “Euro Insiders” podcast this week that he made a “very serious proposal” to buy Nikola Jokic out of the final year of his contract with the Denver Nuggets and bring the three-time MVP to play basketball in Greece. The Nuggets’ response? “It took a few seconds to say, ‘Who? Greece? Where? What? Bye,'” Giannakopoulos recalled.

To his credit, the man is undeterred. Giannakopoulos said he plans to try again next summer when Jokic becomes a free agent, apparently believing he can convince the Joker to decline a $63.8 million player option and trade Ball Arena for Athens. “The one player which is a dream of mine, and I haven’t signed, I will sign next year,” Giannakopoulos said. “Let’s wait until next year.”

There’s just one small problem with that plan: Jokic will be eligible to sign a five-year, $359.5 million extension with Denver in July 2027 — a deal that would be the largest in NBA history. Jokic himself has said publicly that his “idea and desire” is to stay in Denver for the rest of his career, and that he’s delaying his extension purely for financial reasons, not because he’s secretly shopping for a Greek condo.

This isn’t even Giannakopoulos’ first attempt to poach a Nuggets player. He tried to lure center Jonas Valanciunas to Greece last summer and had people convinced a deal was in the works — until it wasn’t.

So relax, Denver. The Joker isn’t going to Greece (at least for now). But you have to admire the audacity of a man who looked at the best basketball player on the planet and said, “Yeah, but have you seen our Mediterranean climate?”