Author: Derek Kessinger

Then on Tuesday night it was another Barton miss as time expired — this time a 3-point attempt against the San Antonio Spurs. Multiple Nuggets passed up shots from the interior and/or open looks, including the hero on Thursday, Harris, to give Barton the final shot.

Disappointing as these losses were, there is another narrative.

Barton still had the confidence to take that last shot, and that he wants the opportunity again.

As Barton told the Denver Post after the Spurs game, “It’s just building me up. Moments like this, you’ve got to go through them to grow up. I’m happy I can even be in the NBA going through these types of things — things I dreamed of. I love it. I’ll be back.”

Barton is, figuratively speaking, the youngest 27-year-old in basketball. While most players would be in their prime at his age, Will Barton seems to still be defining himself as a player.

The development may have been delayed by how he was used in the past. When Barton came over from the Portland Trail Blazers three years ago, it felt like he had untapped potential.

We see how dominant he can be at times. He single-handedly beat the New Orleans Pelicans in overtime in December. Other nights, he has missed many shots down the stretch and contributed significantly to losses. Still, for a team that loses a lot of close games, I’d rather have a player who wants the ball at the end.

Consider that Will Barton isn’t the team’s star. That’s Nikola Jokic. He’s not the future heir, Jamal Murray. He’s not the perennial veteran, Paul Millsap. He’s not the smooth Harris, but maybe he’s the real finisher in the Nuggets’ rotation?

When you look at that final shot from the Spurs game, others had the opportunity to take the ball into their own hands but Barton took the shot. Jokic rebounded; he passed it to Murray who passed it along to Harris and then Lyles. With time running out, the ball came back to Barton. Barton was willing to take the shot. Isn’t that the kind of guy you need on a team?

The best players in basketball history, the Michael Jordans, talk about being able to have a short-term memory on those big shots. You miss more than you make, after all. Barton seems to have that ability to a fault. He always shoots first, no matter how many he’s missed previously.

To manage a player like Barton, a coach has to be aware of his strengths and weaknesses. Some of the responsibility to control these situations relies on coach Michael Malone understanding Barton’s flow. He’s a very streaky player, but it’s something that can be contained by the coach. Former coach George Karl had to monitor J.R. Smith very closely depending on if his shots were going in. Luckily for the Nuggets, Barton is more in control than Smith.

Barton needs those reins pulled in some nights. The other part of the loss to the Celtics was that Malone chose not to call a timeout even as the ball fell into Barton’s hands. From far away down the court, he made a run for it. There was no chance anyone else was going to take that shot. It missed badly.

In the right situation though, that confidence could be a huge asset. As Will Barton finally nears his potential, perhaps part of his role is as the finisher. If he’d found the ball in his hands in the final seconds against the Thunder on Thursday, I’m sure Barton takes the shot. Maybe that one falls in and he’s the hero instead of Harris.

It doesn’t take a lot of work either. No editorial meeting needs to be held to setup a debate for who the Broncos should take at quarterback. On my side, I can write a self-important piece about what a waste of time the Senior Bowl is and take a few jabs about Vance Joseph’s infatuation with winning practices. The piece will do fine and you will move onto watching Kirk Cousins highlights and I will wait for the All-Star breaks to end in the NHL and NBA.

And the truth is, neither strategy is wrong. People love the Broncos because of the stakes, the history and the emotional connection to the team. If someone like me wants something to be as important as an exhibition game, I need to help build up that emotional history with these other topics. To me, that is the challenge facing this Denver media market.

How do we make these other sports stories mean something? How do you tell them in a unique way? These franchises with less history and no need for a quarterback — what will help readers connect with them? It takes some thought and that’s how I wish I’d spent my time on this piece.

Instead, I caught senioritis over this battle for the next great Broncos quarterback.

Is it Nikola Jokic’s fault? He is supposed to be the superstar, but he’s been inconsistent. Some of that may be injury—he hasn’t been the same player since coming back from being hurt in December. Still, we’ve seen flashes of the old Jokic. I’m just not sure he’s being used in the right way.

Most teams in the league try to cater to their star players’ strengths. The Nuggets are trying to force Jokic to make up for weaknesses the rest of the team has. That problem was on display in the Nuggets’ loss the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday. Jokic found himself playing power forward as a way to adapt the lineup to center Mason Plumlee. Jokic struggled in this role. On the previous night, he thrived at center.

It begs the question: What are the Nuggets doing?

The Nuggets cannot afford to waste a season squandering player development in favor of fitting a system. If that means moving Murray off the ball and playing Plumlee less, they need to make those sacrifices.

This team has clearly lost all of its momentum from their mid-December run; Denver often seems tired, which is a strange problem for a team with a lot of depth and youth.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, coach Michael Malone is still trying to figure out how to trust his team, but part of that has to be him putting them in the best situations. If the team is not conditioned for the regular season in January, how can they battle for a playoff spot in March? The problems now may be mental and physical, but the coaching staff needs to help them adapt.

The Nuggets had their last ‘good win’ on December 23rd, when they beat Golden State on the road in a low-scoring affair. At the time, it felt like the Nuggets might be ready to elevate themselves to compete with the second-tier of Western Conference playoff teams.

It’s been a disaster since then. Perhaps the Nuggets felt like they had arrived on the scene after that game. January has proven that this Nuggets’ caravan might not even be on the right road.

Being the best forward on a hockey team is not like being a quarterback. Very rarely can a player simply take the puck into his own hands and lead a charge. The best analogy is probably a player like Nolan Arenado. The Colorado Rockies’ third basemen can have a huge impact on the game, but must rely on the rest of his team’s play. MacKinnon can only take the Avalanche as far as the talent around him allows. Just ask Ovechkin, who has never seen the Eastern Conference Finals with the Washington Capitals.

What MacKinnon does do is take up attention. He’s becoming the focus of other teams’ game plans. This opens up the ice for the rest of the team—young players like Alexander Kerfoot and Tyson Jost have better matchups on the ice.

If a second line emerges, then the Avalanche have the offensive firepower to compete with anyone. The one-two punch of Forsberg and Sakic during the Stanley Cup years has proven to be a winning formula in Chicago and Pittsburgh. Being able to roll out multiple lines that threaten to score every night is the best way to use MacKinnon.

MacKinnon has also shown the ability to win games. In his one playoff series, as a rookie in 2014, MacKinnon had an overtime goal and an overtime assist. He has 21 game winning-goals in his young career. He’s 22 years old.

Watch MacKinnon the next time you’re at the Pepsi Center. He may be the greatest show on ice in the entire NHL. With the Avs trying to prove they’re more than a three-ring circus this year, MacKinnon has become the ringmaster. Fans have spent years looking up into the rafters to see the retired jerseys and waiting. They were waiting for Nathan MacKinnon.

This principle, coupled with the infuriating consistency with which the Nuggets lost games earlier in the season, caused Malone to shorten his bench. To gain access to the court, players had to deliver defensively. This meant favoring center Mason Plumlee and minor league call-up Torrey Craig over Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray in several close-game situations.

With this strategy, the results still led to losses and frustration for Malone. The Nuggets had a stretch in mid-December where they lost control of four games late, winning only once, in overtime, against the New Orleans Pelicans.In those games, Malone essentially stopped rotating guys for the last five minutes. This led to a tired group. In my mind, the solution was to find rest for players earlier in the game. In Malone’s mind, it meant committing to an even tighter group from the bench.

Malone started playing only eight guys, a move that even the best college coaches would look at as overkill. It had positive effects to start — they limited the Golden State Warriors to 81 points and the Utah Jazz to 83 points — but the fatigue caught up to the rotation. Malone admitted as much this week.

“I own the fact that I have played 7-1/2 guys, and let’s be honest, it’s been pretty good to us,” Malone said this week, “but after that Philly game, when you see how tired our guys are, I can’t continue to do that.”

He went back to the bench more in the Nuggets’ last game, a 134-111 win over the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday night. Widening the bench definitely paid dividends. Malik Beasley’s play in the final seconds of the third quarter — a made free throw and a last-second bucket from a Jokic inbounds pass — helped the Nuggets run away with the game.

When looking at a Nuggets roster that seemed to have too many talented players at the beginning of the season, Malone’s requirement that everyone play strong defense has led to not having enough guys playing significant minutes.

The trust issues Malone has with his team are completely reasonable in a sport where faith wins on many nights. Malone was an assistant coach for teams with Steph Curry and LeBron James, and he knows what it’s like to be able to trust players to make the right decision. When James isn’t making his shots, he decides to make another play. When Nuggets guard Will Barton isn’t making shots, he keeps shooting.

Malone has to decide when to go back to players on a cold streak or those who are playing a one-dimensional game. He has to decide when to trust Plumlee’s defense, even when his offense becomes a liability. He has to decide when to roll the dice on Jamal Murray’s point guard skills over other options. He has to decide just how many minutes he wants to play Gary Harris, who has hovered near 40 minutes on many nights recently.

When Malone makes the wrong decision, he has to trust that the locker room will support him. Malone seems to have gained this trust from most of the team, a fun group that seems to like playing together. However, that trust is not unlimited, and Malone needs to ensure he doesn’t abuse it.

This year, it took a while for Malone to see Trey Lyles’ immense upside, which echoed Jokic’s situation last season; he didn’t start until December. Last week, Malone made comments putting down Kenneth Faried’s game publicly when the longtime Nugget already has to be frustrated with his lack of playing time. Add in the rotation issues in close losses, and trust really becomes key to the Nuggets making a playoff run.

As Malone vows to trust his players more, Nuggets fans must hope the players continue to trust Malone.

My hope for 2018 is that we can start to transform how we follow sports. We can’t go back to sports being a safe haven from the rest of the rotting discourse, but perhaps sports can start to lead a reformation.

Sports and political talk developed in tandem. Sports coverage became debate and outrage first. Then, political coverage started to resemble the sports coverage. Now, political coverage has infected sports coverage.

The problems started with an adherence to a 24-hour news cycle (the precursor to What’s Trending). Of course, there was less sports news than there were hours in the day, which meant that opinion became king in that environment. You took a side and then entered into an argument — first the talking heads — then the sports communities on the internet. The noise outweighed the information at times. You developed your camps and then stuck with them. This is what happened in politics too.

Sports are not going to solve the political turmoil of our time, but maybe we can start to address sports’ place in society as a part of the media. If we start tackling the issues that infect sports, perhaps strategies can develop to start real conversations in other areas again.

So how do we begin to move discussions forward?

Change What Drives Sports Coverage

This seems counterintuitive, but the internet needs to stop being the engine for all other sports coverage (websites, podcasts and radio shows). Right now, what’s trending on social media fills ESPN’s daytime programming. Full segments of radio shows are based on something seen on social media.

We need to remember that Twitter is a smaller conversation, rather than a larger one. In a society that used to have an exchange of ideas controlled by front pages and network television, it makes sense to look at Twitter and Reddit as the front page of the internet. Searches on Google seem like a roadmap, but they are not the full story.

I’ve tweeted nearly 29,000 times, so I understand that it takes a certain amount of arrogance to be a prolific tweeter. At times, it takes an unfiltered feel for the keyboard. It’s less about having dialogue with others and more about having a discussion with yourself. All of this noise causes real conversations to sink below the loudest, outrage-filled voices.

A majority of people do not tweet, and they choose the level they would like to interact within the internet. They also have opinions outside of the internet sphere. Why are we catering coverage to these people based on the internet?

Instead, we need to give more power to creative individuals and quieter voices. The producers and editors need to be at least partially detached from the internet to spark interesting conversations. It will cost some clicks, but as we continually see on the internet, the current model isn’t sustainable. The more creative we get with our content, the more engaging it can be.

Ask Better Questions

For the third year in a row, the big question for Denver sports will be: Who is the Broncos quarterback? The inherent problem with this subject is that only John Elway can answer it. Yes, there are some interesting ways to have that discussion, but those conversations have happened.

So when it comes to the Broncos (and other sports), how do we ask new questions and reward content that takes new approaches in the coming year? How do we compare other sports moments and teams to the Broncos to grow our knowledge as a community?

Also, within these better questions, how do we transition to better answers?

Treat Sports with Nuance

This is where sports coverage gets complicated. The problem is not just in the questions, but in the way we answer them. There is very rarely one answer, but the sports arguments seem to require that one answer is right and every other answer is wrong. To uncover the gray areas in discussions, the media must be willing to have conversations. This takes thought, research and the ability to listen.

Imagine a conversation about the national anthem protest instead of just a series of debates. Imagine finding nuance in efforts to bring awareness to inequality. Imagine being vulnerable to the discussions needed about the treatment of women in sports (which is going to become a bigger topic in 2018).

It’s scary and vulnerable and not the masculine cocoon we have created around sports, but it moves people forward. It opens up access to sports. It adds an audience and a community.

Build Communities

We need new coalitions of sports fans. It means including more voices in the everyday conversations around sports coverage. It means building a community where the quieter voices have the confidence to speak.

This will surely turn some people off, because when we really start working consciously to protect the people in our community who receive hate and are drowned out — the people who want to make the most noise will leave.

That’s okay. One, because I am not naïve enough to believe that the entire sports community is going to change to this model. Two, because I think it will lead to better questions and more nuanced conversations.

Have Space for Fun

Terry Frei brought up this idea, but what if a sports show hung up on anyone that wanted to talk about the Broncos when other topics were being discussed?

What would be the harm if we took the sports world as a fun place?

The calendar rotation itself is not able to change anything, but what if we started to take things into our own hands? Being willing to have a conversation is a start — something to look forward to in 2018.

While out on the ice, there arose such a clatter –
Landeskog with his third goal, we called it a hatter!
Away through the neutral zone, rode MacKinnon in a flash
He could not be stopped with a hook, hold or slash.

The star on Boulder’s Flatirons started to glow
As Tad Boyle yelled at his Buffs’ offense, “Go!”
When what to our wonder, a freshman appeared,
McKinley Wright the Fourth, to bring the crowds’ cheers.

While out in Fort Collins, the green and the gold
Fell in another bowl game — it sure does get old.
But out on the court, they battled their foe,
The Buffs couldn’t keep up and the Rams won the show.

Up high in the press box, the Duke sat dismayed
We knew in a moment, it was the great John Elway.
More rapid than horses, his directives came,
He shouted each one, but results were the same.

Now, Paxton! Now, Trevor! Now Kelly and Brock!
But each one fell down and they left him with shock.
And from the front office, he awaited the call,
He needed a quarterback to defeat them all.

While his chosen coach, Vance Joseph, looked for a way
For wins on Christmas Eve and before New Year’s Day.
What his future held here in Denver, he still did not know
But he had “the time of his life” in that first Monday show.

As for the Nuggets, they were more than a joke
With offensive fire, but defense of mirrors and smoke.
The man of the hour was the Serbian Sensation,
And at six-foot-ten, he ruled Nuggets Nation.

And from quite a distance, a Blue Arrow flew
Murray fired threes — and made some of them too.
Will Barton was good, Chandler steady, Harris able
And if Millsap comes back, playoff hopes might be stable.

With planned renovations and a restocked bullpen,
The Rockies counted the days to Spring Training again.
Their skipper, Bud Black, was sharp as a whip
And with all their young arms, next year just might click.

Nolan Arenado’s bat still swung like an MVP,
His defense, you just had to see to believe.
While the great Charlie Blackmon was more than a beard,
He covered the outfield; his work habits revered.

2017 was not the year Denver fans dreamed
It held no playoff wins and had a bad football team.
The Avalanche were awful; the Nuggets were sad.
The Rockies showed promise, but the Broncos? Just bad.

I say it again, because how should we go on?
The Broncos were bad! Have we lost faith in John?
For football is king in this hipster cow town,
But maybe 2018 brings new cheers around.

So from City and County lights, to the Mountain ski lifts
May Santa bring snow and our sports teams some gifts.
We’ll need some more playoffs, our teams need some light:
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!

The goal of the game against the New Orleans Pelicans was to beat the formidable towering duo of DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis. They also had to keep their eye on sharpshooter Jrue Holiday.

Things started out poorly. The Nuggets trailed 33-20 after the first quarter as they struggled both defensively and offensively.

Credit the crowd at Pepsi Center on Friday night. They seemed to know something the media did not. They knew that this game was a proving ground. The crowd was loud and swelled to peak levels, even without being a sellout. The Nuggets fought their way back against the Pelicans over the next three quarters. It was an atmosphere that has been lacking at Pepsi Center since the Nuggets fired George Karl.

Without the two stars of the team healthy, the emergence of other Nuggets players continued to take shape. The long-term hierarchy of players after Jokic is still yet to be determined on the court, but Jamal Murray, Gary Harris and Will Barton continue to put up performances that transform the Nuggets into a formidable foe.

Murray and Harris helped the Nuggets fight back. Then, Barton took over in overtime for a Nuggets win. Barton made a shot so unbelievable it caused the net to appear unhinged from the hoop.

The Nuggets’ weakness, defense, was also covered up on the night by strong efforts by center Mason Plumlee and rookie Torrey Craig. Craig was just called up from the G League and then started the game. Throw in a quality game from continually rising star Trey Lyles and it was the kind of marque performance that has fans excited.

Yes, the Pelicans are not one of the West’s elite teams, but they possess a pair of stars with higher profiles than anyone (for now) on Denver’s roster. It was a win the Nuggets needed.

The NBA has emerged as the most interesting professional league in terms of matchups. Just because we feel like we know the ending it doesn’t make the games less interesting. The Golden State Warriors will probably face LeBron James in the Finals, but all of the movement around this fact continues to cause intrigue.

The NBA’s summer movement was what the NFL dreams about. The enthusiasm outside of the games was interesting, but so are regular-season matchups. It’s what the NFL was five years ago and now the NBA is taking away the spotlight in terms of interest for the sports world.

Knowing how the San Antonio Spurs play against the Houston Rockets or how the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers will play each other brings real passion to the sport. With the league still focused on a battalion of stars, it feels like superheroes facing off.

NBA fans want to see how the Warriors will take on Karl-Anthony Towns, Jimmy Butler and the Timberwolves. They want to know how the retooled Russell Westbrook Thunder look against the John Wall/Bradley Beal Wizards.

This is the area that the Nuggets now find themselves in. They are a team where NBA fans want to know how teams will match up against the Jokic Nuggets (we’ll get to the second player in a moment).

A Sports Illustrated article talked about how NBA nerds love the Nuggets since the arrival of Jokic. They’re really starting to manifest as a team that people want to watch every night.

In a Western Conference where the top 10 teams all have interesting elements, the Nuggets fit into that echelon. They’re built to make a playoff run this year and have a lot of young, interesting elements.

The floor right now for the Nuggets is falling out of the eight-team playoff field and facing some major restructuring in the offseason. The ceiling for the Nuggets (and this is a reach) is the fourth seed in the West. They could even try and win a series.

All of these elements were not possible a year ago, before Jokic was inserted into the starting lineup and emerged as one of the league’s rising stars.

Jokic is still developing, as is this team. The house money is on Murray becoming that second star, but the Nuggets supporting cast continues to make it interesting. On any night, Barton or Harris can be the best player on the court. Trey Lyles is becoming more interesting. Add Kenneth Faried, Wilson Chandler and Millsap’s return and the star power is always bubbling below the surface.

The thing that makes the Nuggets interesting is this collective talent. It’s that they can play each team differently because there isn’t one formula for success. That’s why a December home game can mean something in Denver, Colorado.

On Friday Night, this potential led to the Nuggets taking down Anthony Davis and Demarcus Cousins. That name — Nuggets — is starting to mean something in the NBA again.

There really is hope that this team is a refreshing restart.

This year’s roster has already provided great games from senior George King. Senior Tory Miller-Stewart was finally maturing into a strong inside player before he broke his foot. Former Denver East High School guard Dominic Collier looks like he could finish off his Buffs career with his best season yet.

There’s Serbian Lazar Nikolic, who says that he defies the stereotypes of Europeans by being able to jump and play defense. Namon Wright, a junior transfer, is a strong scorer that can take over games. Going down the roster, the underclassmen all do things well.

And so far, everyone is likeable. This is a team to get behind.

It’s often weird being a CU college basketball fan. The measure of success cannot be a National Championship and varies based on talent level from a .500 record to a NCAA Tournament appearance.

What I love about being a CU fan is that you really become invested in the stories and the players. You follow guys through their formative years. It’s not always just about greatness, but is also about the value each player adds to the experience of watching the team.

It’s refreshing to start over. I don’t have expectations for this team yet, but I’m excited to have new guys to root for.

NHL owners had to be put off that the Avalanche had so much, while bad management hurt most other teams in the league.

The league claimed to bleed money, which was coupled with the poor management of most teams. They were — somehow — not able to compete with a mid-market team from a Cowtown in the Rocky Mountains, so they set out to annihilate the Avalanche. Not only did they change the way the NHL does business with a salary cap, they withheld information on contract details to Joe Sakic and Rob Blake so that the financial strain was even worse.

How did the Avalanche respond?

They didn’t, really. They continued to stock the roster with veterans and “old school” NHL guys. They faltered in the draft and traded away assets. While the rest of the NHL was learning how to budget, the Avalanche were cashing in each cap dollar as a payday loan –the pain always pushed into the not too distant future. The work never got them out of the second round of the playoffs. The roster debt further sunk the team. They hit rock bottom in 2009, ’11 and ’13. Last year they were the worst NHL team to take the ice in the shootout era.

After each fall it seemed they’d surely learn their lesson. They would start recommitting to prospects and move away from old NHL players. They would going to get fast and build talent within the organization.

They actually looked poised to do this twice in the last decade. Unfortunately, they made the playoffs both times (2010 and ’14) and suddenly cashed in for a chance at a Stanley Cup, destroying the young culture. It took last year to really hit rock bottom and force Sakic, the club’s Vice President and General Manager, to find a new way or lose his job.

The moves of the last eight months speak to this new strategy. Sakic kept a coach, Jared Bednar, known for developing young talent in the AHL. He chose to fill the roster with young guys so that they could gain experience instead of signing declining veterans. He pulled off a trade of Matt Duchene for six prospects and a goalie.

This is a new Avalanche strategy. It’s not about sacrificing the future for the present. This strategy isn’t the aptitude over attitude problem some organizations fall into at times when they only focus on advanced stats. It’s not even an old-school guy wanting to reclaim his glory days. It’s how you build a team in the salary cap era.

It also is infecting other parts of the organization.

They’re utilizing the investment in the entertainment department. We’re talking Jumbotrons, on-ice projections, high-quality speakers and lights. They’ve enabled their talent on TV, in media relations and in the arena. The one remaining entertainment step would be to try to match the excellent quality of the Colorado Rockies’ Twitter account.

Additionally, the marketing department is more flexible than it’s ever been. They never cultivated a great strategy after the glory days. At times, they seemed to want to make the ticket buying process harder, rather than easier. Now they’re offering a host of promotions and deals to get people into the arena. Investment in new fans now will bring home real dollars when they have playoff success.

This Avalanche renaissance only pays off if the talent develops and the wins follow. They have to stay this course and not leap out for a short-term trade. They have to continue to invest in new fans and broaden their reach in Denver and across the entire Front Range.

Of all of the recent rebuilds, I like this foundation the best. They’re winning home games. On top of Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon, they have forwards like Mikko Rantanen, Tyson Jost and Alexander Kerfoot. Plus, 19-year-old Sam Girard, acquired in the Duchene trade, an exciting young defenseman.

The key to success in the NHL now is patience. For a game that’s fast, the Avalanche finally seem ready to take the scenic view.