TORONTO — Happy holidays, Nuggets fans. One stocking stuffer suggestion for your loved ones: a DVD or Blu-ray of Nikola Jokic acting in a commercial.
In a rare display of public persona beyond basketball, the two-time NBA MVP appeared alongside second-year wing Peyton Watson in a pair of advertisements for Hotels.com that made the rounds on social media this week and will air on television during the slate of Christmas Day games. The Nuggets host the Warriors in one of five holiday matchups.
Jokic and Watson filmed the commercials while in Los Angeles for a pair of preseason games against the Clippers in October, Watson told The Denver Post. The teammates were paired for the sponsorship in part because they share the same agency, Excel Sports Management.
“I think they wanted to do something with a vet and a younger guy, so they just suggested me,” Watson said. “It was cool. We were trying our best just to take it seriously. Me and Joker, we were out there clowning all day. But there was times when we got serious, and we displayed a little bit of acting.”
Despite his reputation as arguably the best player in the NBA right now, Jokic has also been one of the league’s most reclusive superstars in terms of making commercial appearances and sharing details about his life. He doesn’t have social media accounts, and the only other English-language commercials he had filmed before this were in 2017, for the Colorado used car dealership EchoPark Automotive.
Those advertisements featured short clips of Jokic telling corny jokes in his signature deadpan, usually while inside or outside a rental car. The new Hotels.com commercials make use of his acting chops (or lack thereof?) slightly more, as he and Watson wander hotels having conversations.
“I’m pretty good,” Jokic said when asked to assess his acting ability.
In one, he and Watson stroll through a lobby with a pony on a leash between them. Jokic insists to Watson that the hotel is pet-friendly then chastises the 21-year-old for calling the animal a horse.
Count Nuggets coach Michael Malone as guilty, too.
“I have not seen the commercial,” Malone said Wednesday. “But I heard about it. Something about a donkey? Is there a donkey involved? A pony? Sounds like a scene out of ‘The Hangover,’ or something like that. … I’ll have to go see that.”
“I wasn’t expecting (a real pony) at all, but you know, they do it big time on them sets,” Watson said. “It was definitely a good experience.”
The jury’s out on whether Watson’s emotional stability was actually still intact after the filming experience. The shoot took 10 or 11 hours and “countless” takes as he and Jokic tried to keep it together, according to Watson.
“P-Wat almost lost it,” Jokic said. “Because it was a long day. But it was a good commercial.”
The other commercial shows them walking around a hotel pool as Jokic explains to Watson the similarities between pool seating and basketball game tickets. Watson, ultimately, was relegated to “the bench,” sitting awkwardly with his feet in the pool while Jokic lounges.
“I’ll give him a 10, man,” Watson said. “He doesn’t (usually do ads), and he did amazing for what I saw from that day.”
The ads check off two of Jokic’s most passionate interests outside basketball: horses (er, ponies) and pools. The Nuggets center has often expressed hints of apathy toward certain topics of public intrigue — NBA career legacies, individual awards, media hot takes. In other words, the stuff of American sports commercialism. As for an actual commercial, did Jokic care to watch?
“Yes,” he said. “I mean, I was in it.”
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