Domantas Sabonis arrived at the door of the visitors' locker room and pushed it open, hoping that the player he most wanted to meet hadn't already departed. What he found behind the door was a mostly empty locker area, save for one very large man who was hunched over and staring at the floor with his elbows resting loosely on his knees.
Nikola Jokic looked up when he heard somebody enter. His face registered no surprise when he saw who was standing at the entryway, even though the sight of an opposing player entering the wrong locker room was extremely uncommon. Rather than greet the visitor, Nikola went back to staring at the floor.
"Good game, man," Domantas said, extending his hand for a brotherly hand-clasp which Nikola accepted with some hesitation.
"Thanks."
"I guess there's another foreign big man getting triple-doubles now, huh?" Domantas joked, hoping to put the wary Serbian at ease with his lax demeanor.
Nikola didn't laugh, nor did any trace of humor cross his face. "I know where you're going with this, and I'm not really in the mood for any more rivalries at the moment," he said with such weariness in his voice that Domantas wondered what kind of harrowing experiences the Serb had already experienced. In fact, Nikola's complete unwillingness to engage in rivalrous banter threw Domantas off his game enough that he began to reconsider his plan.
"I just wanted to compliment you," Domantas went on, continuing his facade of friendliness. "One triple-double was hard enough, I don't know how you get so many of them."
Nikola shrugged. "Me neither."
"However you do it, it sure doesn't help that you're fat and slow and have a bad haircut," Domantas said with a smirk as he imagined his own perfectly-combed coiffure. "Lithuania has once again proved its superiority over Serbia, not just in the field of sport, but in the physical attractiveness of its people as well."
Nikola sighed. "If you're gonna physically attack me, just get it over with, I gotta get on the team bus before it leaves without me." He stood up and held his arms wide to prevent his prone body to Domantas. "That's why you're here, right? To exact revenge on me with your fists to assuage your internalized self-doubt? That's fine. When players compare themselves to me and inevitably fall short of the high bar I've set for passing, jump-shooting big men, I understand how frustration could be the only outcome."
Domantas stood there for a few seconds, too stunned to move. It would have been very easy to punch his rival in the face right then. Nikola was making no indication that he would fight back in any way. But he couldn't. "I'm not frustrated at all," he stammered in response. "I just wanted to assert my dominance over you because I got a triple-double and you didn't."
"And you feel better now, right?"
Domantas nodded quickly. "Yeah. I totally do." He got out his phone and looked at it to avoid having to look at Nikola's exasperated expression any longer. "Anyway, I've got, uh, there's a bunch of girls blowing up my phone and I, uh, need to go have sex with them. Good luck with your fatness. I'll be here in Indiana getting more triple-doubles and stuff. Yeah."
Feeling like the encounter hadn't quite gone as planned, Domantas left the visitors' locker room wondering why he had made the journey in the first place.
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