Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic retested negative for the coronavirus in Serbia, but travel issues and the timing of the requisite testing made it difficult for the All-Star to join the team for its flight to Orlando, Florida, a source confirmed to ESPN.
The Nuggets departed Denver for Orlando on Tuesday, but the team would not confirm who was on the team flight.
A source said Jokic is healthy. However, the center had to produce two negative coronavirus tests in Serbia before traveling to the United States. And then he was required to produce two more negative tests before flying to Orlando with the team. A source said the timing of everything made it difficult and too tight of a fit for Jokic before the team departed on Tuesday.
Nuggets head coach Michael Malone said last week that the team was working on getting Jokic back to the United States in time to join the team flight to Florida.
“Nikola feels great,” Malone said last Wednesday. “We are working on getting him back here. Next Tuesday we depart for Orlando; the hope and expectation is that Nikola Jokic will be with us on that plane. From everything that I have heard and talked to him, he feels great, he feels fine and is excited to get back.”
The Nuggets closed their team facility over a week ago after two members of the team’s 35-member traveling party tested positive for the coronavirus, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported last week. Wojnarowski and Brian Windhorst also reported on June 23 that Jokic tested positive for the coronavirus while in Serbia and that his return to the United States was temporarily delayed.
Players or staff members who have not tested negative for the coronavirus in the two days prior to the Nuggets’ flight on Tuesday will travel to Orlando on their own once they produce two negative tests.