Raznatovic Confirms Panathinaikos Bid for Jokic Was Real
Nikola Jokic's manager confirmed that Panathinaikos really did offer to buy out the final year of his Denver contract. The Greek club says it will try again next summer.
When Panathinaikos owner Dimitris Janakopulos said on the “Euro Insiders” podcast that he wasn’t joking, he immediately added how to check: call Misko Raznatovic and ask him. Someone actually did. On August 11, Greek outlet Athletiko got one sentence out of Jokic’s manager, and that sentence pulled the whole story out of the drawer where summer rumors sit.
“What Janakopulos said is true,” Misko Raznatovic said.
No figure, no hedging, no explanation. The offer for Jokic was real.
What exactly did the Greek club send
Dimitris Janakopulos described on the podcast a move nobody in European basketball had ever attempted: a club from Athens buying out the final year of the world’s best player’s contract to pull him out of the NBA. He sent the offer to two addresses, Denver and the player himself.
I tried to bring him in this summer. You think I wasn’t serious? Ask Misko Raznatovic…
I sent a very serious offer to both Denver and to him personally. They turned me down…
Panathinaikos’ owner said all of this on the same podcast, before Raznatovic confirmed it had actually happened. Janakopulos also described how the response from Colorado sounded, in the version later reported by ESPN.
It took them a few seconds to say: Who? Greece? Where? What? Bye.
Why the rejection took a second
Because on the other side sits a contract with no equal in Europe. Jokic has two seasons left with Denver worth $121.8 million. The second of those, the 2027-28 season, is a player option worth $62.8 million, meaning the decision belongs to the player, not the club.
Then comes the reason the Nuggets don’t even entertain offers from Europe. Starting July 2027, Jokic becomes eligible for a five-year extension worth $359.5 million. By ESPN’s Bobby Marks’ math, that would be the largest contract in NBA history. No European club, not even the one that won last season’s EuroLeague, has a budget where that number could so much as move.
Where would he even play
A question Janakopulos raised himself, then answered himself. Panathinaikos already has three centers under multi-year contracts:
- Gerson Jabusele
- Matijas Lesor
- Mustafa Fal
That clearly doesn’t bother him. In the same interview he called Jokic the best player in the world and the player of his dreams, and said he would try again once Jokic is able to decline his player option.
I will bring him in next year. He is my dream…
It took them literally a second to turn me down, but we’ll wait for next summer
This isn’t the first time he has called Denver. Last summer he tried to pull Jonas Valanciunas out of the same team, and that didn’t work either. The Lithuanian center stayed in the NBA.
What comes next
The next window is already set, and it isn’t far off. Next summer, Jokic for the first time enters a position where the decision is entirely his, since the option for the 2027-28 season belongs to him. Only then would a call from Athens reach someone who can actually listen without asking the club first.
Realistically, even then Panathinaikos’ only competition is a supermax worth $359.5 million. But in one summer, Janakopulos managed to get both Denver and Raznatovic to talk about his offer seriously, something nobody from Europe had ever done before. Next time he calls, the phone probably won’t hang up after a few seconds.
