A gray sky flittered rain upon Denver all day, and understandably so, since at dawn the Nuggets’ JaVale McGee hopped onto Timofey Mozgov’s shoulders, snatched the sun from the sky and shoved it inside the Pepsi Center.
Oh, it was a sunny Monday in there. Yes, indeed. On the annual media day, every team is a contender, every player is primed for his best season and it’s like some “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” sing-along production, with an animated super mascot Rocky and a dancing Dick Van Dyke in a throwback jersey of Nick Van Exel.
The Nuggets, bless their hearts, think they’ll be good this season. And while I’m quite sure that a healthy Nuggets team will fare better than the banged-up boys did last season, I see this as, once again, a first-round-and-out team at best.
Is the accomplishment, though, Denver just making the playoffs? It sort of sounds that way.
OK, it’s a fun goal, but amid all the sights and sound bites of media day — Danilo Gallinari’s healthy! Kenneth Faried won gold! Arron Afflalo is back and better than ever! — I just kept thinking here we go again.
Once again, we’re hearing that a Ty Lawson-Gallinari-Faried nucleus can win a playoff series. Once again, this is the season Denver takes a step up.
PHOTOS: Denver Nuggets Media Day
I’m just a little disheartened that the step being talked about is Denver going from an injury-riddled 36-win team to a seventh seed. And then, before you know it, it’s media day in 2015, and we’re hearing — the Nuggets played the Thunder tough in the playoffs! This is the season they really, really, really take the next step!
I hope I’m way wrong. Here’s hoping that this team of good-hearted guys, and a stand-up coach, is playing deep into May. The fans deserve as much. But this is a conference in which the team with Dwight Howard and James Harden finished fourth last season.
“I think skepticism is natural, doubt is natural — you have to earn respect,” said Afflalo, who grew as a player in his first stint in Denver and returns after a solid 18.2 points-per-gameseason with Orlando. “We have to perform and jell as a group for fans and media to give us the respect we feel about ourselves. Even the best teams have to go out and get it done. We can’t ask for respect — we earn it. …
“There’s always excitement around this time of the year. It’s when those first obstacles come, the stretch of bad quarters and games come — how do you handle it?”
The Western Conference is the SEC of the NBA. The Spurs. The Thunder. The Clippers. The Rockets. Who else? The Trail Blazers. The Warriors. The Mavericks maybe? The surging Suns?
Afflalo, to his credit, pointed out that it’s not about how you start, it’s how you grow. This reminds me of the Broncos sticking to their development of the run game. It might not help you too much in September, but if it’s a reliable fallback by late fall and can help you win playoff games.
“It’s imperative that we figure out (how to win in the playoffs),” Afflalo said. “Our whole mind-set should be based on getting better so in playoff time, we can get to the second round and beyond. The confidence is in the talent that we have — the unknown is the mind-set, the approach. It depends on guys’ abilities to understand their role, take on a certain perspective to get the job done — then it can definitely be done. That’s my confidence.”
Afflalo’s passion seeps into every sentence. Always has. He will be an important player for this team, possibly even the team’s leading scorer, and he also yearns to play defense. So, wait, is he similar to the Andre Iguodala addition in 2012-13, when Denver won 57 games?
“Why not us? We were there a couple years ago,” Nuggets general manager Tim Connellysaid Monday. “If there’s one thing we feel organizationally is — we have a chip on our shoulder. We felt that last year was not a real fair appraisal where we are. With the return of the healthy guys and getting a guy like Arron, the excitement level is off the charts.”
Look, Denver will be better this season. But at what point will this nucleus reach its ceiling? Or has it, and we don’t even know it?
Benjamin Hochman: bhochman@denverpost.com or twitter.com/hochman
