The Signs Were There: We Should Have Known The Nuggets Were Going To Be A Dominant Championship Team
Trying not to overreact the day after the Nuggets won the Finals, but it's also hard not to. They were a dominant team that deserves to be talked about that way. I don't care who they played, you can't control that, especially as a 1 seed. Not their fault the 2 seed were the Grizzlies. Not their fault the Heat came out of the Eastern Conference. They dominated the playoffs anyway you look at it.
But in order to be dominant you need more than just two stars like they have. Yes, Jamal Murray is a star while Nikola Jokic is the ultimate superstar. You need guys who understand their roles. You need guys to come in and fill a need. That's what the Nuggets had this year. Guys like KCP and Bruce Brown filled out the roster perfectly.
But the signs were always here. It started on Draft night when they took Christian Braun late in the first round:
Viral moment number 1 right there. Braun was key for them too! He had that massive game 3. He had a really nice game 5 getting 7 points and just providing some minutes off the bench. Sure his mom may have stolen the show on Draft night, but Braun was an important piece to the title run. Step 1. Decent run for Braun too:
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Step 2 was having the uber-confident Michael Porter Jr. turning into the 3rd option on the offensive side of the ball. Again, should have seen that coming with this moment in college:
Who cares if he only played 3 games and dealt with back problems? When you're a shooter, you gotta keep your eye always on the target. You can't get distracted. You can't worry about your misses. So if you're on the bench while Mizzou is at Kentucky, gotta point out that blonde. That's a man who knows how to keep moving forward. Paid off. Slow start to the Finals? No problem. Game 5 he goes and gets 16 and 13. That first half he had kept the Nuggets alive as they battled foul trouble.
Step 3 is getting the veteran leadership. Enter DeAndre Jordan. This is a man who has been through it all and gave us one of the funniest tweets of all time:
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If a man can handle a hostage situation and an emoji war, surely he can help Jokic get over the hump. Who cares that he didn't even play outside of those few minutes in the first half of game 5? He was the vet in the locker room that the Nuggets needed. He helped get Jokic to become a bigger leader. It's about the team from 1 through 12.
Speaking of change, how about Thomas Bryant? The man provided one of the funniest pictures of all time and now has a ring:
Andrew D. Bernstein. Getty Images.Again, not a guy who played, but a guy you need. Irrational confidence to call, nay demand, the ball in the paint as LeBron tries to break the scoring record is felt. You bring a confident guy in like that, it goes around the room. All of a sudden everyone feels like they can hit shots.
All this talk before the Finals started about ratings was dumb as hell. You're going to watch a title series. You're going to watch an awesome team, that was the Nuggets. Hell, they may have been the most unintentionally viral team in the league. You have Nikola Jokic just wanting to ride horses and being drafted during a Taco Bell commercial. You had Jamal Murray's uh Instagram thing a couple years ago (if you know, you know). You had the role guys with their moments.
The team, the team, the team. The signs were always there we just missed them.