There will be reason for Serbian basketball fans to celebrate after the NBA Finals regardless of the result.

For the second straight year, a Serbian will lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Nemanja Bjelica helped the Warriors past the Nuggets on their way to the championship last season. This season, there will be a Serbian named Nikola on the championship stage. Denver’s Nikola Jokic is the odds-on favorite, -300, to win Finals Most Valuable Player. Miami rookie Nikola Jovic hasn’t played regular rotation minutes in his first NBA postseason.

“It makes me proud, for sure,” Jovic told a small group of reporters on the Ball Arena court during Wednesday’s media day. “Because we are kind of a small country.”

While the duo is unlikely to share much time on the court together, they’ve started to establish a relationship off the court. The two shared a seafood dinner during Denver’s visit to Miami during the regular season.

“I just met him, so it’s not like we’re that close, but I feel like I can see him as a big brother, because of how calm he is, how he’s trying to just teach me everything he knows,” Jovic said.

“He’s a great person. He told me how this league goes, how I should put my work in and believe in myself and stuff.”

The 19-year-old was still in his amateur career when Jokic left Serbia for Denver in 2015, so he’s mostly watched the two-time MVP’s rise from afar. While he doesn’t do many commercials at home, it’s hard to ignore his impact in Serbia.

“I think I only saw one of his commercials in Serbia, and that was for the national team. He’s not one of those guys that do commercials like that, but he’s big. He’s big, especially for young guys that play basketball,” Jovic said. “We are proud of him.”

The admiration flows both ways. Jokic said a former coach at Mega Basket, a Belgrade-based club where both players developed their games before their NBA days, introduced them.

“Good guy, good person,” Jokic said. “I saw he’s getting bigger, so we’re going to see if he’s going to get (an) opportunity to play. … He has a lot to offer.”

Jovic, a 6-foot-9 power forward, appeared in 15 games for the Heat in the regular season after Miami took him with the 27th overall pick in last year’s draft. The Nuggets hosted Jovic for a pre-draft workout, and he thought he performed well.

“They took good care of me,” Jovic said of Denver’s staff at the workout.

The Nuggets selected Christian Braun six picks before Jovic was selected. While Jokic and Jovic haven’t teamed up yet, they could in the future as members of the Serbian national team. By that point, one of them will continue a trend of Serbian NBA champions.

“Representing Serbia, whichever way it is in the Finals, I’m happy about it,” Jovic said. “I’m happy for him.”