Congratulations to the 2023 NBA Champion Denver Nuggets!
I’m a total bandwagoner, having never watched a Nuggets game in the eleven years I’ve now lived in Colorado. My first Nuggets watch was the first playoff game this year. And I watched every game the rest of the way.
My timing was pretty good.
What has stood out the most to me in the interviews and press I saw and read last night and this morning following the Nuggets win is how their journey to the top required tremendous patience and a focus on their edge.
And more patience. More sharpening of the edge. And then a little more of both after that.
The Nuggets organization knew they were building a winner. But it would take time. Time for the stars to develop. Time for injuries to heal. Time for missing pieces to be added. And time for the stars to align.
And while the rest of the basketball world was focused on sexier teams on the coasts, the Nuggets were quietly building a juggernaut – a nearly 10-year overnight success story that began taking shape following the drafting of Nikola Jokic from Sombor, Serbia (where?) in 2014 and Jamal Murray from Kitchener, Canada (where?) in 2016.
What gave the Nuggets the fortitude to press forward? [Read more…]