Nikola Jokic has come a long way since former Summer League coach didn't know his name

Ahead of what many expect to be an epic clash of titans between the Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Semifinals, there is an underlying connection between presumptive three-time NBA MVP and a member of his opponent's coaching staff, Micah Nori.

Nori is the lead assistant for the Timberwolves. But earlier in his career, he worked for the Nuggets under current head coach Michael Malone from 2015-18, overlapping with a young Jokic.

During Wednesday's live segment of The Starting Lineup on SiriusXM's NBA Radio, Nori was a guest speaker. He and hosts Frank Isola and Brian Scalabrine discussed Jokic ahead of the Wolves-Nuggets postseason rematch from last season. And he shared a funny story that simultaneously illustrated how far the superstar big man has come since being drafted with the No. 41 overall pick of the 2014 NBA Draft during a Taco Bell commercial that introduced their quesarito to the menu.

In 2015, when Nori joined Malone and the Nuggets' staff, he assumed the position of head coach for Denver's Summer League squad, which featured a 20-year-old Jokic. Isola asked him what his first impressions of a young Joker were, to which he revealed he didn't even know his name at the time.

"To this day, he [Jokic] still sends me gifs of Forrest Gump running cross-country because he said that's what he did that first Summer League... we had Emmanuel Mudiay, Gary Harris, and Jusuf Nurkic -- who was the focal point," Nori said before admitting "he didn't even know Nikola's [Jokic] name."

"That shows you how good of a coach I was," Nori jokingly stated, virtually acknowledging that he and the Nuggets didn't know what they had in Jokic originally.

It all comes full circle with Jokic, at the height of his powers as the consensus-best player in the Association and already considered an all-time great, preparing to face off against Nori -- the man who got a courtside seat to the beginning of his illustrious career, and the Timberwolves in a best-of-seven series with a trip to the Western Conference Finals on the line.