The Nuggets won a title in the superteam era by focusing on continuity instead

Homegrown will always win out in the end.

This is the on-site version of FTW’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Robert Zeglinski. 

I appreciate that the city of Denver waited almost half a century for the Nuggets to finally win an NBA championship. To get the monkey off one’s back and see your favorite team win it all is a wonderful feeling of relief and joy. But I’m actually most impressed by the Nuggets’ faithful patience in their NBA squad over the years.

First and foremost, I think the Nuggets’ central figures should be commended. One, for taking their time. And two, for believing their road eventually had something special waiting at the end, no matter the inevitable roadblocks. In the NBA’s superteam era — where it feels like superstars are joining forces together every year in pursuit of hopeful greatness — these Nuggets stuck to their script.

I’m not surprised their key cogs were rewarded for it with a historic title.

At courtside, there’s Mike Malone. Once a renowned assistant turned maligned head coach who couldn’t get the previously bumbling Sacramento Kings to work, Malone was hired by the Nuggets in 2015. He’s been instrumental in developing their team culture every step of the way ever since. Despite some bumps in the road — Denver won a mere 33 games in Malone’s first campaign — he’s had nearly a decade to build the organization up to this uncommon climax.

And I can’t emphasize enough how rare that is. After Malone, the NBA’s next longest-tenured coach is Taylor Jenkins, who started with the Memphis Grizzlies… in 2019. Compared with his peers, Malone had all the time in the world to turn the Nuggets into a powerhouse, and they never blinked.

Next is Jamal Murray.

A former top-7 NBA Draft pick, it’s not shocking to see Murray become a difference-maker. However, it took the star point guard four seasons before the term “Bubble Murray” was coined as he became the ideal partner for Nikola Jokic. But then Murray tore his ACL and lost the better part of two years of his career. Two missed playoff runs. Two lost opportunities at championships. Two years where the Nuggets were content to let Murray take his appropriate time in recovery.

Not only because they clearly cared about him, but they also understood the wizardry he’d be capable of if he could get healthy. The Nuggets could’ve just as easily cut their losses and tried to play the free agent game. They could’ve tried to find someone, anyone else, that could complement Jokic. Instead, they waited for Murray, knowing he already worked so well in tandem with the league’s best player. Their belief in him paid off.

No story about these Nuggets is complete without Jokic. He is not only Denver’s leading catalyst but the preeminent example of what it means to develop homegrown players and give them confidence.

Some Nuggets scouts might profess otherwise, but no one in their right mind initially saw Jokic — a seemingly unathletic second-round pick out of Serbia — becoming this good. No one saw him slowly morphing into a legitimate No. 1 option for which opponents have zero answers. But the Nuggets’ coaches did. That’s why they played him at center. That’s why they gave him so much offensive responsibility. That’s why they let him comfortably grow at his own pace — because the potential was always there, and they had a plan.

And here Jokic is — the first center to win NBA Finals MVP since Shaquille O’Neal as the definitive heart and soul of a champion.

In a way, I might even argue the Nuggets did build a super-team. But they didn’t buy one. They built it from the foundation up.

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