Jaded Nuggets fans, time to come home: These players deserve your support

As owners and custodians of the Denver Nuggets organization, do the Kroenkes deserve Nuggets fans’ loyalty and support?

The short, yes-or-no answer to this question is, of course, entirely subjective, and depends largely on how much one feels they have helped or harmed the team.

More importantly, however, the real answer is that that is the wrong question.

It is abundantly evident is that over the past several years a significant mass of Nuggets supporters who felt anywhere from disappointed to outright betrayed by Josh and Stan Kroenke — or in some cases just got fed up with legitimately bad basketball — jumped ship from their fandom to varying degrees. In many cases, they never returned; in others, they nominally and unenthusiastically kept tabs on the Nuggets but never got back that loving feeling.

And I am certainly not here to argue that there were not some very valid, and genuinely heartfelt reasons for this. Because there clearly were.

Let’s face it: The two years following the upheaval in the aftermath of the George Karl firing and Masai Ujiri departure (also known as “The Brian Shaw Era”) were pretty damn rough for all Nuggets fans, even the most unwaveringly loyal.

After a decade of stalwart, if not spectacular success, Denver’s abrupt nosedive into the mires of mediocrity understandably took its toll on a fan base long accustomed to a steady diet of pretty-darn-good teams that consistently made the playoffs and remained competitive in the tough Western Conference. True greatness may always have eluded the team in those years, but it remained close enough within reach to keep dreams of rings and glory alive.

Now if we are being entirely honest, the writing on the wall — written in the code of Carmelo Anthony’s express desire to shine in the limelight of New York City — that the end of the Melo Era was nigh was there all along. And the now storied 57-win season on the heels of his departure was akin to the horizontal air-running of Wile E. Coyote, as he realizes the cliff he just ran off of is now far behind him. As exciting as that season was, the sustainability of its success was, in all likelihood, unsustainable, and a significant drop-off was imminent.

But even providing that was the case (though I know some will disagree on that count), what nobody had foreseen was the extent to which the Kroenkes and subsequent general manager hire Tim Connelly were about to make a difficult situation worse through a series of dramatic (and erratic) decisions immediately following that season.

It seemed highly unlikely they had any clearly articulated vision or blueprint for the team’s future beyond keeping the Nuggets marginally competitive enough to put butts in seats. Or if they did, it was not a plan they were able or willing to clarify publicly.

And the results left essentially no fans happy.

Rather than going in on a full rebuild which would have yielded higher draft picks and more playing time for developing young players, they initiated an incomprehensible combination of severe changes epitomized by the George Karl firing, and conservative half measures like the J.J. Hickson signing, and assembled a squad, led by a coach who ultimately proved to be incompetent (or at least a terrible fit for their roster). This would neither satisfy win-now fans hungry for perennial playoff appearances, or fans who would have bought into a full-on rebuild (Denver’s version of “The Process”).

So a lot of fans got pissed off for a lot of pretty damn solid reasons. And for many, the bad blood and hard feelings linger on. And that is understandable to a point.

But it has been a long time, and oh how things have changed.

So I am here to say: It’s time to get over it, jump firmly with two feet back on the Nuggets bandwagon, and support the truly exciting squad of hard working, high character players that Connelly and his front office have assembled.

Over the past several years, including in recent weeks and months, I have seen a recurrence of themes which alienated Nuggets fans raise. I’m summarizing and paraphrasing here, but the sentiments all come from interacting with fans who are either pretty jaded on the organization, or have just lost interest and enthusiasm:

• Why should I support this team when they blew it up for no good reason?
• Why should I pay money to the Kroenkes when they’re not willing to spend it to build a contender?
• After betraying us fans by firing George Karl, they don’t deserve our loyalty.
• I’m fed up with the incompetence of this organization — too cheap to pay Ujiri to keep him on board, thought a coach like Shaw was the right fit for what should be a fast-paced Denver offense, etc.

I want to acknowledge first and foremost that these reactions are coming from a real place, from thoughtful fans who have been passionate about supporting the Nuggets, and genuinely felt spurned. This is especially true for longtime season ticket holders who have a hard time forgiving pulling the rug out from under a team that — even if they weren’t championship contenders — were dependably winning over 45 games and making the playoffs every season, and were always fun to watch (if sometimes frustrating).

I have shared many of these concerns and criticisms, and they should not be brushed off lightly. (I think people who know my writing on the Nuggets know that I am not an apologist or sycophant of the Nuggets organization — a recent example outlining my skepticism of the front office can be seen here.) So none of this is to gloss over any of that history.

Josh and Tim have made mistakes — some of them quite significant. But to be fair, it also needs to be recognized that they have done a lot of things right.

And it is worth keeping in mind that they were themselves rookies, probably taking on a larger responsibility than they were truly prepared for initially, with a steep learning curve ahead, navigating which would require a fair amount of trial and error.

Now, when we look at where the Denver Nuggets are at this moment in the organization’s history, it is clear that they have arrived at an especially promising juncture, which only appears to be headed for bigger and brighter places.

Could they have been in an even better position?

Almost certainly (the link to my piece above gets into the Nurkic trade, the 2017 draft, and letting Gallinari walk for nothing, as missteps which cost opportunities for improvement).

But are they in a very solid, and probably even great position now and moving forward?

Undeniably. While I would still maintain that Kroenke and Connelly had not yet developed a clear vision for building the team with a cohesive roster and identity soon on the heels off the Karl firing, they not only found their way to establishing just that (with a little help and good luck in the form of Nikola Jokic), but have successfully followed through and executed that vision as well.

The Nuggets’ improvement in purely basketball terms is reflected in nearly making the playoffs last season, in their earning the praise and admiration of the national NBA media, in the increased number of nationally televised games they will play this season, and in the various expert predictions which across the board project Denver returning to the postseason for the first time in five years.

But perhaps even more importantly from a fan perspective, this team is just so easy to love, and really damn fun.

The beautiful, selfless, team-oriented, ball-sharing, high IQ style of the Nuggets offense reflects the qualities — both in on-court skills and in personal character — of the players who comprise the team’s roster. If one word sums up the philosophical vision this team is built around, it is “culture,” and the organization is now steeped in it.

The front office has made a concerted effort to carefully select players with strong work ethics, humble team-focused attitudes, and positive, cooperative mindsets. This not only has facilitated a strong, supportive locker room culture, but also expresses itself on the court in players who are willing to work hard and buy into a system where the team is prioritized over the individual (not an easy accomplishment in today’s NBA).

In turn, this facilitates the creation of a style of basketball which is truly a joy to watch. The abundance of playmaking and ball-sharing, the willingness of players to pass up good shots in order to find great shots for teammates, the movement and flow swirling around the most creative and exciting passing big man in the league — Nuggets basketball is as exciting and fun now as it has ever been.

They have a great bunch of dudes who are working their tails off to execute a team concept they believe in and, importantly, are actually executing successfully.

The road Nuggets fans have taken to arrive at this team has not been easy, no doubt. But you do not deserve to be deprived of the enjoyment of this new era of Denver basketball because of the bad taste left by past mistakes. There have indeed been plenty of mishaps along the way, and there may be more, but it is time to move beyond these like the team itself has.

A clear, positive, and (hopefully increasingly successful vision for this team has been implemented. And despite the various ways the organization may have gone astray, they are in the process of proving that one of their strengths is course correction which has — with some zigging and zagging — steered the ship in the right direction.

Much like Gary Harris, they had a rough start, but they have been getting better. (Mostly.)

And that includes bringing together a quality crew of stand-up players who are chomping at the bit to get the Nuggets back to the playoffs and do the team right by Denver.

On Nuggets media day, Vic Lombardi interviewed Kenneth Faried, who spoke of the crowd at Pepsi Center:

“I want to grab the fans and really have them be feeling free to come to our games and support us. Because forget me, I want the team to win, and that helps the team, just all of us, y’all giving us that energy, that feedback, that “Hey, yeah, come on, we’re about to make a push, we’re going on a run, oh my god” erupting in the arena. That’s amazing.”

“Amazing,” in fact, is not too strong a word to describe the transformation of this Nuggets team from one that was hard to watch in the Shaw era, to one that is indispensable viewing now. And we have reached a point where fans should be sincerely eager to give this revamped team the strong, proud backing they are hungry for.

Forget the Kroenkes. These players deserve the support and loyalty of Nuggets fans — all Nuggets fans — as a team and a brand of basketball that is truly worth cheering for.

So if you are among those Nuggets fans who have taken a four-year hiatus for whatever reason caused you to step away, there couldn’t be a better time to come back home and be a part of what genuinely is something special in Denver basketball.

Don’t miss out.

Originally published at nuggetsden.wordpress.com on October 18, 2017.