For Ognjen Stojakovic, or Ogi, assistant coach for the Denver Nuggets and Easton Muay Thai Green Shirt, coaching is a way of life.

The Serbian professional basketball coach, who coached Serbia’s National Team at the Paris 2024 Olympics and helped them win silver at the FIBA world cup in 2023, first came to the US in 2013 to join the staff of the Denver Nuggets.

Though Ogi had coached back in Serbia for 10 years prior, this moment marked the start of his professional basketball coaching career, starting from the lowest position and over 11 seasons working up to his current role on the team. 

Previously, Ogi worked as a youth system coach for a team in Belgrade – a system through which some of Serbia’s best players have passed through, like Serbian World Cup Team’s Filip Petrusev, Vanja Marinkovic and Dusan Ristic. His years within this system led to recommendations that caught the attention of Tim Connelly, the Nuggets’ then-new GM who reached out to Ogi and invited him to Denver.

“At the time,” says Ogi, “the Nuggets were drafting a lot of players from that region — like Jusuf Nurkić and Nikola Jokić. They needed someone who knew how to work with those players, and I was the right person at the right moment.”

The former Yugoslavian region (now broken up into Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia) has produced the most NBA players outside of the United States, with Serbia ranked second in the world in basketball, right behind the US. (A feat, considering they only have seven million people.)

“The entire region is very talented,” says Ogi. “Basketball is like a religion there.”

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Starting on the mat

Though Ogi began playing basketball at 11 when his family moved from Bosnia to Belgrade, Serbia, his first sport was karate in first grade. 

His father also trained in karate much of his life, but Ogi began training somewhat by accident. A karate coach saw him wrestling in front of school with a friend and invited them to practice.

From first until third grade, he did karate, but when his family moved to Serbia, in front of his house was a basketball court. Ogi and his brother would play any chance they got, and eventually Ogi went to school for sport and physical education, where he once again did martial arts. 

There he took two semesters of martial arts, including karate, boxing, wrestling and judo. After college, he began doing some Japanese Jiu Jitsu – taught by a body guard in the neighborhood  who started to teach the guys some body guard tricks.

When he came to the US, he trained Jiu Jitsu at another school for two years until Nuggets’ strength and conditioning coach Claus de Souza and Artūras Karnišovas (Nuggets GM from 2017 – 2020) introduced him to Easton Denver where Ogi started Muay Thai.

The art of coaching

Whether it’s basketball, Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, or any other sport, the conceptual core of coaching remains the same: a mixture of teaching and coaching.

“You cannot separate those two things,” says Ogi. “If you teach players or fighters how to think, teach them everything you know, then coaching is the easiest part.”

You work with players on individual skills and tactics, tuning into their needs and goals to guide them toward achieving those objectives. 

This involves understanding how and when to apply moves based on factors like body type, speed, agility, or specific tactical situations, while ensuring those actions align with the team strategy.

Ogi describes it as finding parallels between individual and team sports. All skills should connect to the tactics, with clarity on when and why certain moves should be used. Teammates need to understand each other’s thought processes and reactions to predict and cooperate effectively in different situations.

Ogi uses a couple different analogies to describe his approach to coaching.

“My father is an engineer,” he says. “When he wants to build something, everything depends on the materials. If you use wood, there’s this kind of wood and that kind of wood. Do you use metal or something else? You know what you want to achieve – that’s the most important thing. Then according to the materials you have, you build it.”

Similarly, a doctor needs to first identify the problem, then figure out how to treat it. Like a doctor diagnosing and treating gradually, Ogi believes in pacing players’ development to avoid overwhelming them early on. This translates into taking a nuanced approach to the kind of methods you may use in coaching – both in your drills and your approach.

Balancing future potential with immediate needs

The greatest challenges of his career have also been some of the most exciting parts – solving the puzzles of how each individual ticks in order to understand how best to work with him. 

Ogi’s coaching philosophy involves balancing future potential with immediate performance needs. Whether working with rookies or veterans, he tailors his approach based on each player’s stage in their career, ensuring long-term growth without sacrificing current contributions.

Every player needs something different. It’s Ogi’s job to break the code and figure out what that is – like learning how to work with wood versus working with metal. This ranges from long-term goals and projections to as short-term as tomorrow’s game.

The challenge lies in seeing how they react, how to find the right dose of the drills and the right intensity to understand who they are now, and who they’ll be five years from now. 

“That’s the most important part of the job,” says Ogi, “to anticipate what they will become and to push them in that direction. If you know the goal, you’ll find the road.”

On an everyday level, Ogi works with players individually, tailoring his approach based on where they are in their careers, their energy levels and their specific needs.

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Tailoring training on the court 

Coaching a rookie looks different than working with a seasoned vet. If Ogi projects a young player to evolve in a certain direction in 4-5 years, he implements drills and training that will develop those skills. The tricky part is balancing what the player will need in the future with what they need right now to earn minutes on the court and contribute immediately to the game. 

This requires a nuanced approach that balances long-term growth with immediate needs. For instance, players who spend significant minutes on the court – say, 30-35 minutes per game – need to feel fresh and prepared for each game. In these cases, Ogi keeps their training session short, around 20 minutes.

He focuses on maintaining their foundational skills, like shooting and free throws, ensuring they’re ready for game day without overexerting themselves. This is especially important as energy is key to performing well during long stretches of the season.

On the other hand, for a less experienced player who only gets around 5 to10 minutes on the court, or no playing time at all, workouts could last 30 to 40 minutes. Ogi will focus on shooting drills, situational plays, and competitive drills to help them improve. 

The key here is progress – each minute on the floor counts, and even rookies should be working on the right things to improve their performance, even if it’s not immediately reflected in game time.

By working with the players’ needs and potential, Ogi helps build up skills and polish talent so they can better support the whole team. With veterans, he ensures they stay at peak performance without risking burnout, while with younger players, he focuses on sustained growth and readiness for the future.

While Ogi’s primary focus remains on basketball, he credits martial arts with teaching him discipline and dedication early on. 

“Most importantly, martial arts teaches you to stand with two feet on the ground,” says Ogi. “You have respect for everyone but are not afraid of anyone.”

This skill, the confidence to respectfully stand your ground and not be afraid, will transfer to whatever you do in your life and take you far – from sports to economics or politics.

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