![]() That would clear the way for him to hit unrestricted free agency. After signing a two-year, $13 million deal, he has a player option that he’s expected to decline. Will the Nuggets be able to keep Brown? That’s the question. That’s built organically, from within, and eight years in the making.” You look at a young kid like Christian, and the trade for Aaron Gordon, and the draft pieces - the Jamal Murrays, the Nikola Jokićs, the Michael Porter. So if you look at the experience of KCP and Bruce. I thought Bruce Brown was a huge, huge pickup in free agency. “And that’s what he’s been,” Malone said. They wanted him to be a major piece of what would turn into a championship run. They wanted him to play every perimeter spot. Malone and Booth assured him he wouldn’t be. Brown didn’t want to be used the way he had been used in Brooklyn. He wanted the chance to be a guard and even a point guard. Brown had been used last season as a small-ball power forward and center with the Brooklyn Nets. ![]() The phone call went out the next morning. We didn’t think we would have a chance at him.” “We had him in a different salary bracket. ‘We didn’t expect him to be available on the second day of free agency,” Booth said. They watched him getting into the paint off the dribble and making plays for himself and others. He and Booth quickly agreed that Brown would be their target. Malone was barely off the plane when he called Booth. I’m seeing how he’s driving and kicking and making plays for people. So I pull up his games against Boston in the playoffs, and I’m seeing how he’s guarding Jayson Tatum. “And in my mind, I’ve always liked Bruce - his versatility. He saw a guy he could plug into his rotation on both ends of the floor. His impact all over the floor couldn’t be measured in a box score. We talked about watching last year’s NBA Finals (between Boston and Golden State), and how everybody on the floor could shoot the ball and guard multiple positions.”īut Brown jumped off the screen. We have to get some better defensive players. So we talked about how we’ve got to get bigger. And even then, there’s no guarantee you get to this point. “So while that window is open, we have to do everything we can to surround Nikola Jokić with the pieces that are going to allow us to be a championship-caliber team. ![]() “I remember having a conversation where we said, ‘Listen, we have a special, unique player, and that window is only open so long,’” Malone remembered to The Athletic. He wanted to know that they were on the same page. Malone was in full support of the move to elevate Booth, but that endorsement came with certain strings attached. ![]() “How are we going to get over the hump?” Malone asked Booth back then. ![]() But as Malone remembers it, it was even more important that Booth had the answer to a crucial question about what lay ahead. He had the acumen, the attitude and the institutional knowledge to keep this highly successful program going. But when Connelly decided to join the Timberwolves last summer, signing a five-year, $40 million deal that offered the kinds of riches that the Nuggets never would, it forced a discussion that would ultimately shape the 12 months to come.īooth, a former NBA journeyman who had been an assistant general manager under Connelly for six seasons, was instantly elevated to the top position by team president Josh Kroenke. with the 14th pick out of Missouri in 2018, as well as the trade with Orlando for Aaron Gordon in March 2021, and you have the core that propelled this championship run. Yet as they had learned in recent years, from the two second-round postseason exits to the 2020 Western Conference finals, when they fell short against the Lakers in the NBA bubble, those two stars would never be enough unless they found a way to build a grittier, more versatile, more complementary roster around them.Īdd in the drafting of Michael Porter Jr. They trusted in this dynamic duo of Jokić and Murray that would prove to be one of the most formidable in the history of playoff basketball when it mattered most. The list goes on.īut they resisted that urge. Just as it had been all those other times when rumors would fly about stars who might come their way. And in today’s NBA, where the Super Team model had long since become the preferred way of their world, the prospect of swapping Murray for the then-disgruntled Cleveland Cavaliers point guard in the summer of 2017 was certainly intriguing. Not even close.įrom the time former top Nuggets executive Tim Connelly brought Jokić to town from Serbia in 2015 by way of the second round, and Murray from Kentucky a year later with the seventh pick, the phone would ring with tantalizing possibilities involving high-profile players. This was hardly the only time the mid-market franchise faced a fork in the road. ![]()
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