Jusuf Nurkić's basketball career started with a newspaper story about his dad. He didn't play organized ball until he was 14, left Bosnia as a kid to learn the game in a Slovenian town, and became a first-round pick six years later. Since then he's lost a starting job to Nikola Jokić, set Portland on fire, broken his leg on live TV, fallen out with a coach in Phoenix, and told anyone who'll listen that Utah is the best place he's ever played. He's also the most outspoken player on this roster.
A policeman, a newspaper, and a phone call
Nurkić was born in 1994 in Živinice, in Bosnia and Herzegovina's Tuzla Canton, and grew up in the nearby village of Svojat. Former classmates told N1 he helped his parents with farm work and was always the tall kid in gym class ("his sneakers were made-to-measure in the eighth grade," one said). His father, Hariz, is a police officer.
Then came the famous part. Agent Enes Trnovčević read a news report about a huge Tuzla policeman who'd handled a fight with 14 people, tracked the officer down, and asked whether he had a son. Nurkić told the story himself to Nuggets.com in 2016:
"I started when I was 14 in Slovenia and an agent in Europe found me. My dad is a police officer who's 6'10" and 400 pounds. [The agent] saw that my dad had a fight with 14 people in the newspaper, [saw] how tall he was and how much he weighed. He asked if he had a kid. It's a true story. It's kind of a crazy story."
Trnovčević had contacts in Laško, Slovenia, so that's where Nurkić went. He stayed about three and a half years with Zlatorog Laško's youth teams and learned to speak Slovenian, per RTV Slovenija. He told them (translated from Slovenian) that some people in Laško "believed in me more back then than in my native country," and that at one point he even expected to play for Slovenia's national team, "but life writes novels."
From there he signed with Cedevita in Zagreb, Croatia, in 2012, with a loan to Zadar to get minutes. In his last season at Cedevita he averaged 11.7 points in just 16.6 minutes in the Adriatic League, per Nuggets.com, and that was when he first believed the NBA was realistic: "I never thought [I could make it to the NBA] until my last year with Cedevita."
Draft night and the Jokić logjam
Chicago took Nurkić 16th in the 2014 draft and sent him to Denver that night. He made the All-Rookie Second Team after averaging 6.9 points and 6.2 rebounds in 17.8 minutes. The problem was the other young big in Denver: a second-round pick from Serbia named Nikola Jokić.
Michael Malone even tried them together late in Nurkić's second season. But injuries (a partially torn patellar tendon cost him the start of his second season) opened the door for Jokić, who never gave the job back. Nurkić was unhappy with his role and pushed for minutes, per RTV Slovenija, and in February 2017 the Nuggets traded him to Portland for Mason Plumlee.
Our take: losing a starting job to a future three-time MVP is about the most forgivable thing that can happen to a center.
Bosnian Beast and Nurk Fever
He showed up in Portland with a nickname from Denver. Asked about "The Bosnian Beast" in his first days there, he told the Portland Mercury: "They give it to me for some reason. I'm going to show them why."
He did. In 20 games with the Blazers that spring he averaged 15.2 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks. Portland was 23-33 at the All-Star break and went 18-8 after it to grab the West's eighth seed, per the AP. The week he had 28 points and 20 rebounds against Philadelphia, coach Terry Stotts summed up the buzz: "Nurkic fever? Why not?" A small fracture in his right leg mostly kept him out of the playoff sweep by Golden State, but "Nurk Fever" stuck. He brought it back himself before the 2018-19 season, telling CBS Sports, "I mean, the Nurk Fever is back."
That 2018-19 season was the best of his career: 15.6 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 3.2 assists in 72 starts.
The broken leg, and the bubble
On March 25, 2019, in a double-overtime win over Brooklyn, Nurkić came down from a putback attempt and his left leg gave way. He'd already scored 32 points with 16 rebounds, per ESPN. It was a compound fracture of the tibia and fibula. The arena went quiet except for chants of his name as he was taken off on a stretcher. "It made me sick to my stomach," Damian Lillard said, and Stotts called it "devastating." Portland made the conference finals that spring without him.
He didn't play again for 16 months. The pandemic pushed his comeback to the Orlando bubble. He averaged 17.6 points and 10.3 rebounds in eight seeding games while his grandmother was in a coma with COVID-19 back in Bosnia. She died on Aug. 15, 2020, the day Portland played Memphis in the play-in. Nurkić put up 22 points and 21 rebounds and told reporters, per the AP via NBA.com: "please take care of yourself, wear a damn mask if you need to wear it." Of playing that night, he said, "She made me play, I guess," per CBS Sports.
He stayed in Portland through 2023 and signed a four-year, $70 million deal in 2022. When the Blazers finally traded Lillard in September 2023, Nurkić went to Phoenix in the same three-team deal.
Phoenix, Charlotte, and wanting respect
The first Phoenix season was solid: 76 starts, 10.9 points, 11.0 rebounds, 4.0 assists. On March 3, 2024, he grabbed 31 rebounds against Oklahoma City, a Suns franchise record, per ESPN.
The second season fell apart. New coach Mike Budenholzer moved him to the bench and then out of the rotation, and Nurkić didn't hide how he felt. "We don't have a relationship," he said in January 2025, per Fox Sports, citing the Arizona Republic. "So, it's fine. For me, just be a pro and do the best I can." Phoenix traded him to Charlotte on Feb. 6. In his Hornets debut he said on the broadcast that as a player he wants to feel wanted and as a person he wants to feel respected, and that he'd found that in Charlotte.
Bosnia's big man, online and off
Nurkić is the face of Bosnia and Herzegovina's national team. At EuroBasket 2025 his own coach, Adis Bećiragić, said before the tournament that he was "out of shape and can barely run," per Jazz On SI. Then he had 18 points and 10 rebounds in an 80-77 win that handed Giannis Antetokounmpo's Greece its first loss, per Jazz On SI. Bosnia went out to Poland in the Round of 16 ("we were right there," he told Eurohoops).
This summer, in a World Cup qualifier in Tuzla on Aug. 28, he had 25 points and 14 rebounds in about 22 minutes as Bosnia beat Italy 78-76. Per FIBA, it was Bosnia's first win over Italy, ever.
Off the court, he's generous and combative. In May 2020 he donated 125 tonnes of food to families in need in Bosnia through Pomozi.ba, which said he'd given before but always anonymously, per N1. He's also been fined $40,000 for taking a heckling fan's phone and throwing it into the stands in Indiana in 2022, per ESPN, and he has never been shy about firing back at critics.
Why Utah
Utah traded Collin Sexton and a 2030 second-round pick to Charlotte for Nurkić on June 29, 2025, per Hoops Rumors. Both players were on expiring deals. He was supposed to back up Walker Kessler, but Kessler tore his labrum five games into the season, per KSL, and Nurkić became the starter.
He was better than expected: 10.9 points, 10.4 rebounds, and a career-high 4.8 assists in 41 games. From Jan. 20 to 24 he became the first Jazz player ever with three straight triple-doubles, per the Deseret News. The third came in a 31-point loss to Miami, and Will Hardy kept it in perspective: "While Nurk is playing really good basketball, we just lost by 30." In February, surgery on a badly deviated septum ended his season. "He has gotten hit in the face four or five times this year," Hardy said, per the AP.
He came back as a free agent on a two-year, $22 million deal, below what many expected, per the Deseret News. "I want to come back," he said. "I love everything about the state and the team." In an interview with SofaScore, he went further, per Jazz On SI: "They're the best organization I've played for in my 12-year career." Our take: after years of friction with coaches, that line is the best part of his Utah story.
At media day he was all in on the rookie. He told The Salt Lake Tribune:
"I've never seen in my 13 years a kid coming into the league and be that mature for his age. When I see a person like that and a player like that, I really want to help him."
Mo Bamba added that Nurkić sees "a lot of Dame" in Darryn Peterson, per SLC Dunk. From Lillard's longtime center, that means something (more in Let Him Cook and our media day takeaways).
Then the bad luck came back. He played 11 minutes in the preseason opener against Denver in Boulder (4 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists) and came out of it with a partial plantar plate tear in the second toe of his right foot. The team will re-evaluate him in four weeks, per NBA.com, so he'll miss at least the first eight regular-season games.
Role
When he's healthy, Nurkić is the starting center and a hub on offense. He sets huge screens, rebounds, and runs plays from the elbows; his 4.8 assists last season were the most of his career. He also shot 35.2% from three on 1.7 attempts a game, which helps Jaren Jackson Jr. and Lauri Markkanen. The weaknesses are just as clear. The Deseret News called him a defensive downgrade from Kessler, and he shot 54.9% from the free-throw line last season.
While he's out, Jaxson Hayes starts at center (see the Spurs preseason win), and the Spurs beat Utah 13-9 on the offensive glass without him.
2026-27 prediction
He's back in November and starts again, because nobody else on the roster passes or rebounds like he does. But he's 32, he's coming off a foot injury, and Hayes will have had a month of starts. We expect 55 to 60 games, about 9 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 assists, with his minutes trimmed in close games whenever the free throws aren't falling. He's on the last real contract of a long career, and we think he plays like it.
Sources: N1, NBA.com (Nuggets), RTV Slovenija, Portland Mercury, AP via ABC7, CBS Sports, ESPN, CBS Sports, AP via NBA.com, CBS Sports, ESPN, Fox Sports, ClutchPoints, Jazz On SI, Jazz On SI, Eurohoops, FIBA, N1, ESPN, Hoops Rumors, KSL, Deseret News, AP via NBA.com, Deseret News, Jazz On SI, The Salt Lake Tribune, SLC Dunk, NBA.com, and Deseret News.