In the fall of 2017, the then still relatively obscure Nuggets graciously opened their doors to Sports Illustrated for a magazine feature based around a simple premise: How does a team go from fun story to title contender?
Over the course of a few days, SI asked as many people within the organization as possible—from then president Tim Connelly to then newly signed All-Star Paul Millsap—to answer that question.
It took five more seasons—filled with ups, downs, departures, MVP debates and more—for Denver to fully realize the potential it first flashed when the team was simply a respite for late-night NBA League Pass watchers. Still the Nuggets had a resolute belief even back in 2017, when Nikola Jokić was only in his third year and Jamal Murray was just 20 years old, that they could reach the mountaintop, a mile high above the rest of the NBA.
Here’s what the Nuggets were saying nearly six years ago, what they got right and how Denver ended up as champions. Let’s take a trip down memory lane.
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Perhaps the funniest, most ironic thing said during SI’s stay in Denver came from Jokić. At the start of 2017, the Joker had been the Nuggets’ starting center for only a little over half a season. Previously part of a big-man pairing with Jusuf Nurkić, Michael Malone made the decision to start Jokić alone in December ’16. Immediately, the Joker became something of a cult hero, specifically for his savant-level passing. Malone compared his ability to involve teammates to LeBron James. Jokić, on the other hand, had a self-deprecating answer when asked how he became such an incredible passer.
”If I could score 40 every game, I wanna score 40 every game,” Jokić said in 2017. “I can’t, so I need to pass the ball, get everybody involved.”
Well, if you need any proof why his nickname is the Joker, you only need to look at what Jokić did during his Finals MVP run. He averaged 30.0 points a night on nearly 55% shooting from the field. He recorded two 40-point games, including one in the Finals. He also dropped 53 on the Suns in Round 2. And his scoring didn’t come at the expense of getting others involved, as he still averaged 9.5 assists during the postseason. In fact, he remained so good at passing, opponents were even accused of trying to let him score so as to not let Jokić beat them with assists. Clearly, there were no good options.
If anyone did see this Jokić run coming, it was Malone. The Nuggets’ coach was unequivocal and unflinching in his support of his young players back in 2017, and even dropped this gem.
“I coached Steph. I coached Klay. I coached Draymond,” Malone, a former Warriors assistant, said. “And at that time, [the Warriors] didn’t have superstars. Steph Curry is a superstar now. Guys like Nikola, guys like Gary Harris, guys like Jamal Murray, they have to go through the growing pains.”
While Harris was eventually traded—in a hugely important move that brought back Aaron Gordon—Malone could not have been more right about Jokić and Murray. They went through figurative and literal growing pains and came out as superstars en route to the 2023 title.
Both suffered escalating playoff defeats. In 2018, Denver was eliminated from the playoffs on the last day of the regular season in a win-and-you’re-in game against the Timberwolves—a team led by, of all people, Jimmy Butler. In ’19, the Nuggets dropped a Game 7 at home in the second round to the Trail Blazers. And in the ’20 bubble, they fell to LeBron and Anthony Davis in the conference finals.
John W. McDonough/Sports Illustrated
The next two years, Jokić won MVP twice, but didn’t have his running mate Murray for either playoff run due to the torn ACL he sustained in 2021. Denver fell to the Suns in the second round in ’21, and lost in five to the Warriors in ’22.
During their title run, the Nuggets got revenge on almost everyone, beating Minnesota in the first round, the Suns in the second, LeBron and AD in the conference finals and Butler in the Finals.
The losses were not exactly part of the plan, but the Nuggets brass knew even in ’17 there would be steps to success.
“We’re not delusional. We don’t think we’re a championship team tomorrow,” Connelly said. “I don’t see any of those teams that are that level now that have skipped steps. The majority of teams that enjoy a level of sustainable success have done it the hard way.”
Denver absolutely reached a level of sustainable success in a difficult manner. And it’s not the only thing Connelly was prescient about. He noted two things to SI that have especially stood the test of time.
1. “The development of [Jokić] has been so rapid it’s forced us to adjust how we build our team.”
How the Nuggets have built out the roster during Jokić’s personal ascension is a master class in how to build around an MVP. Though Harris and Millsap ultimately did not make it through to the championship team, they played integral roles during their stints, helping Denver make two 3–1 comebacks in the 2020 bubble.
Connelly traded Harris for Gordon at the 2021 deadline, and AG proved to be a vital piece next to Jokić and Murray. When Miami overloaded on the Nuggets’ stars, for example, it was most often Gordon making the defense pay with his movement off the ball. Meanwhile, the front office drafted role players Michael Porter Jr. and Christian Braun in ’18 and ’22. Calvin Booth, assistant GM in ’17, replaced Connelly as president of basketball operations last summer. He traded longtime Nugs Monte Morris and Will Barton to acquire Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. He also signed the steal of free agency, Bruce Brown.
All the moves were centered on maximizing Jokić. And they worked to perfection.
2. “These guys cannot develop unless we have a coaching staff that’s willing to be patient.”
If there is a lesson from this Nuggets run—outside of lucking your way into the league’s best player—it’s patience. Malone himself is grateful for the leeway the organization has given him. He told SI in March 2022 many coaches would have been fired after losing the virtual play-in game vs. Minnesota in ’18. Instead he was given the chance to stick around, and the decision paid off.
But no patience has come to fruition like Malone’s.
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He let Murray especially play through mistakes. The decision to make Murray a starter in 2017 was controversial, as Denver cut veteran Jameer Nelson right before the start of the season. Nelson was viewed as the steady hand who could help a team seemingly ready to win. Malone and the team stuck with Murray, even at the possible expense of short-term success.
That patience would be tested multiple times. And Malone always rode with his young guard.
In 2019, in his second playoff game, Murray started 0-of-8 as Denver was in danger of going down 0–2 to the Spurs. Malone didn’t bench his guard, and he responded with 21 points in the fourth to lead a comeback win.
When Murray worried he would be traded after tearing his ACL, it was Malone who assured him the team would stick with him, even as Jokić racked up individual awards while falling short in the playoffs.
During the Finals run, no one batted an eyelash when Murray unleashed 23 in the fourth vs. the Lakers in the conference finals after a slow start, or when he rebounded from a poor Game 2 to drop 34 on the Heat in Game 3.
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The Nuggets could not have predicted the exact path they would take to a championship. Some of the pieces that seemed so important in 2017—Harris, Millsap and Connelly in particular—couldn’t (or in Connelly’s case, chose not to) stick around for the title run. For many of the people who were in the organization at the time, though, what happened in ’23 is not something they dreamed up after taking advantage of Denver’s legalization efforts, but instead the culmination of what the team saw and believed in its young core, specifically Jokić.
The headline of SI’s piece that ran in December 2017 was “The Internet’s Favorite Team Is Still Loading.” Well, the Nuggets are no longer some League Pass quirk reserved for the most studious of tape crunchers. They are now a fully realized juggernaut, with the best player in the world, arguably the best duo in the sport, and they’ve captured the attention of both fans and the league.
If you were paying close attention, then you’d know some people knew this day was coming for many years.
