It was a pretty clean dress rehearsal for the defending NBA champion Nuggets on Tuesday.
A 115-107 win over the Suns in which forward Michael Porter Jr. was the only starter held out.
Then again, what does Finals MVP Nikola Jokic and his Denver teammates really have to prove in a preseason opener against Phoenix?
That will come in a few weeks when the games count, and they officially become the hunted. For now, however, they are still the model.
One that the Bulls would love to try and mimic.
The Bulls will get more looks than usual at the Nuggets this season, hosting them Thursday at the United Center, heading to the Mile High City for a Sunday night tilt, and then the two regular-season meetings.
The link between the teams runs much deeper than that.
Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas learned the front office ropes with the Nuggets, hired on as an assistant general manager back in 2013. When he left for the Bulls gig in 2020, he didn’t come alone, bringing assistant GM Pat Connelly.
Besides front office ties, there’s also a common methodology centered around patience and continuity.
Karnisovas was there when the core of this current championship group was banging its head on the playoff wall.
In the 2018-19 campaign, Denver fell in the conference semifinals. The following year the slip was in the conference finals. Then they seemed to go backward, losing in the semis in 2020-21, and the first round a year later, despite having one of the premier players in the world in the middle with Jokic.
But rather than blow it up they made tweaks, breaking through last year when Jokic & Co. held up the Larry O’Brien Trophy and finally got their championship parade.
“I was obviously happy for the Nuggets organization for winning a championship and it’s obviously an example for us to follow,’’ Karnisovas said recently. “But we have a lot of work in front of us.’’
That “work’’ has centered around keeping the core of Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, and Nikola Vucevic intact, while adding the right pieces around them to help elevate the trio.
The Bulls felt they had that when they landed Lonzo Ball, and 35 games into the 2021-22 season it looked like they were right. But three left knee surgeries later, and Ball hasn’t played since.
Yet, Karnisovas hasn’t pushed the detonator on his core, despite just one playoff series reached — a quick 4-1 first-round dismissal by Milwaukee in a best-of-seven.
Patience learned by what Denver did? He didn’t deny that.
“I think the big thing is to make adjustments,’’ Karnisovas said. “The league is changing every year. And besides building through the draft, you have to be looking at opportunities in free agency. And then there are opportunities with trades. That approach never changes.’’
It all sounds well and good, but what about the elephant in the room. Well, in this case, the Joker.
The Bulls don’t have a Jokic. Heck, they don’t even have a big-game guard like a Jamal Murray.
There’s a fine line between continuity and crazy, and Karnisovas could be stepping over that if this Bulls season is once again very underwhelming.
The hope is that won’t be the case, and that’s why further tweaks were made this offseason, including the offensive mindset.
“I think we have certain players that can be utilized the way they do it,’’ Vucevic said of the Nuggets. “Obviously I’m not Jokic and I’m not saying I’m like him, but there are definitely things I can do at a high level that can help us and players on this team that can play the way they utilize with the Denver Nuggets. And it’s hard to defend when you play them.’’
The Bulls will get a first-hand look at that. Four of them to be exact.
