It was March 25, 2021, and he was stuck on a bus at the Tampa Bay airport with his teammates. One of his favorites, Gary Harris, was getting traded, and Jokic didn’t have it in him to start thinking about the return yet. “I remember saying goodbye to Gary,” he said, “and I cried because I was so sad. We had a little bit (of a) good connection, and we played really good.”

The scene feels straight out of a time capsule now, as if it were specifically designed to document an unusual moment in NBA lore. For one, Tampa doesn’t have a team. It never has. But it did have a tenant for one season. Travel regulations between the U.S. and Canada related to COVID-19 had rendered it a logistical nightmare for the Raptors to go back and forth across the border. The Toronto franchise was setting up shop in Florida to wait out the pandemic.

Then there was the timing. The NBA trade deadline is typically in early February, but the 2020-21 season was running on a different schedule. It started around Christmas. It ended at 72 games, not the usual 82. And it featured a late-March cutoff for swapping players. Down was up, left was right.

Enough for Aaron Gordon to forget his five-year anniversary.

“This week?” he reacted last Friday when approached for an interview about it. “Was it really?”

Gordon was home in Orlando in 2021, waiting for news. He had requested a trade from the Magic after playing more than six years for the team that drafted him fourth overall. He knew he was about to have a new home. He just didn’t know where it would be. He had no idea he would find basketball nirvana in Denver, downsizing his game and joining forces with Jokic to deliver a city its first NBA championship.

“All Aaron ever did was win,” said his agent, Calvin Andrews, who has known Gordon for most of his life. “That’s all he did. So I know how important winning was to him. So when we had the conversation about Denver, the conversation was like, ‘Don’t you want to get back to winning?’ … OK. Then you might have to play a certain role with this organization in order for them to win. He’s like, ‘I get it. I’m all in for that.’ And that’s what happened.”

‘Who can defend the monsters of the league?’

Five years later, Denver’s acquisition of Gordon has aged like wine, even if Gordon himself has aged into his 30s with rickety hamstrings and calves. For a franchise that has made several consequential blockbuster trades in its 60-year existence — most recently the infamous Carmelo Anthony saga in 2011 — it’s this smaller-scale deal that catapulted the Nuggets to new heights.

Their net rating this season is 11 points better per 100 possessions when Gordon is on the court than when he’s off it. Nobody else on the roster has an on-off impact exceeding five points on both offense and defense. Over the years, he’s shape-shifted from power forward to point guard to backup center as needed, while solidifying himself as a fan favorite at Ball Arena. Few in the NBA have occupied the liminal space between stardom and role player-dom as gracefully as him. He’s too good to be considered a supporting cast member, if not decorated enough to have his name on the marquee most nights.

The Nuggets got him by sending Orlando a package headlined by Harris, a locker room cornerstone who had started 325 games over seven seasons. It also included rookie guard RJ Hampton and Denver’s 2025 first-round draft pick, which was conveyed as the 25th selection last summer. Gary Clark accompanied Gordon to Colorado.

“I was kicking it with my homies,” Gordon recalled to The Denver Post about the day he was traded. “And Denver wasn’t really on my radar. Well, it was on my radar, but it was like Houston, Boston and Denver. … Got the call from Denver, and one of my homies was like, ‘Bro, you guys are gonna win a championship.’ I was like, ‘What? For real? You think so?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, you’re about to fit in.’ I said, ‘OK, cool.'”

He wasn’t sure whether to buy it. He hadn’t given as much thought to the Nuggets as he had to the Celtics. He was more familiar with Boston as an opponent. He was intrigued by the potential fit there. But both teams had lost in the conference finals in 2020. Both were pursuing a win-now move to bolster their cores.

The Nuggets’ search for a glue guy who could raise their defensive ceiling dated back to the previous trade deadline, when they came close to acquiring Jrue Holiday from New Orleans, according to league sources. Their interest in Holiday, a lockdown 6-foot-4 guard, was partially driven by the idea that Steph Curry was still the league’s preeminent offensive threat. Even as Curry recovered from a broken hand during a gap year for Golden State, rival teams felt scarred by the dynasty that had dominated the last half-decade. If the Nuggets were going to take the throne out West, they wondered whether they would need to prioritize adding someone who could chase Curry around screens.

“But more often than not, you were gonna face the guys who were 6-6 to 6-9 who could handle, pass, shoot from three levels,” said current Nuggets co-general manager Jon Wallace, who was a lower-level front office employee under Tim Connelly and Calvin Booth at the time. “That’s what you were gonna see more on a night-to-night basis.”

Holiday never got across the finish line in 2020. He went to Milwaukee in the offseason instead, providing the finishing touches on a championship Bucks team. Jerami Grant left the Nuggets in free agency, wanting a more prominent role offensively than they could promise him. Their focus had shifted more singularly toward bigger wing defenders by the 2021 deadline. The front office canvassed the league for trade candidates on expiring contracts or rookie-scale deals. Someone who could keep Denver young.

“We kept saying, ‘Who can defend the monsters of the league?’ The Kawhis, the LeBrons, the Paul Georges, so forth,” Wallace said. “Luka (Doncic) was first coming into his own. … It was like, who can thread that needle of that size, that strength, but still having the mobility to move laterally to cut guys off?”

Internal metrics gathered by then-vice president of analytics Tommy Balcetis and the front office suggested Gordon could be the answer. Purely from a basketball standpoint, he made perfect sense. But as the Nuggets closed in on him as a top target, they also dwelled on one wild-card variable. The loss of Grant had left behind a residual sting.

Would Gordon embrace a smaller role after functioning as the Magic’s primary scoring option? “It seemed like they were always fighting for, ‘Who’s the man? Who’s gonna be the man in Orlando?’” former Nuggets assistant coach Popeye Jones told The Post last season. “Everybody wanted the ball.” Those concerns became the focal point of Denver’s internal debates.

A dirty-work job for a star

Meanwhile, as Gordon weighed whether or not he wanted to request a trade, he told his agent that he felt like the prime of his career was slipping away in Orlando. That was the red flag to Andrews that it was time for Gordon to go.

“It wasn’t about, ‘Can I score 20 points a game?’ We tried that, and that didn’t work,” Andrews said. “And he was tired of kind of being a hamster, you know? And just spinning and spinning and trying to make things work, and it’s just not working. So maybe we’ve gotta do something a little different. Maybe you’ve gotta play a little differently.”

The Nuggets, in particular, would demand a stylistic adjustment. They made that clear to Gordon’s camp during the process. There would be less dribbling, less pick-and-roll. More read-and-react offense, more split action, more movement without the ball. It was decided by then: Jokic was Denver’s system. He was about to win his first MVP trophy. He needed a lob threat in the dunker spot and a frontcourt partner who could cover for his deficiencies as a defender. This would be a dirty-work job. “We went back and forth a million times on, ‘Is this the right move?'” Wallace remembers. “‘Is he going to buy in?’”

“I was extremely excited … just from knowing him in Orlando and knowing what he could bring to our team,” said coach David Adelman, who had overlapped with Gordon as a Magic assistant. “But you never know if someone’s gonna fit in, leaving a situation where the Magic had kind of given him basically a ball-handling, star role.”

The Magic had a deal in place with Houston leading up to the trade deadline, a league source told The Post, but the Rockets didn’t get a sense that Gordon would sign a contract extension with them. That caused the deal to fizzle out — another crossroads that could have altered the course of multiple franchises, like Denver’s pursuit of Holiday. Instead, Houston’s withdrawal from the sweepstakes left the Nuggets and Celtics as Gordon’s main suitors in the end.

It all led to that bus in Tampa, where the Nuggets anxiously waited more than 30 minutes in front of the plane to find out who wouldn’t be boarding their flight to New Orleans. They had lost a blowout to Toronto the night before.

“We were all yelling up to the front of the bus, like, ‘Yo, Tim, who’s getting traded? Tell us!’” Hampton told The Post in 2021. Harris recounted later that he and Hampton “kind of looked at each other, like, ‘I think some (stuff) is going down.'”

Before the Nuggets finalized the deal with Orlando, Booth called Andrews seeking reassurance.

“I’ve got to ask you this one more time, man,” Andrews remembers him saying. “If we trade for AG, is he gonna buy in?'”

Andrews gave his word. He felt strongly that Gordon was the piece Denver was missing.

Connelly went to the back of the bus to give Harris and Hampton the news.

“They held the buses just in case the trade actually happened, out of respect. And when the trade did happen, it was actually the best situation,” Adelman said. “We got to say goodbye to some important people. Gary was an enormous part of what we did here. So it was pretty emotional.”

The ‘perfect match’ for Joker

Ninety minutes away in Orlando, Gordon didn’t know what to expect from his new team — especially from playing next to Jokic, who was an enigma to him and many other players outside of Denver at that time.

“He’s so quiet, you know?” Gordon told The Post. “So like, around the league, he wasn’t the guy you were looking at as the best in the league, because he was so quiet. He was such a silent killer. And when we played him, same thing. He wouldn’t say a word. And he’d dominate the game, and you’d look up and say, ‘This guy is just really killing us.’ So I didn’t know he was as good as he was when I got here. Then I started watching him in practice, in games, the way he was passing the ball, and I was like, this guy is amazing.”

Their chemistry was instantaneous. Gordon debuted on March 28 with 13 points in 20 minutes. The Nuggets won their first seven games with him in the lineup.

“Once I got here and started playing with these guys, the energy that they played with, the talent that was around you, it was incredible,” Gordon said.

“It just was clicking,” Andrews said. “I’ve never seen anything click like this so fast. It just clicked. They were flying all over the court. Joker was throwing lobs. I mean, it was crazy.”

Then Murray went down. The Nuggets had looked the part of a serious championship contender for two weeks, only for their star guard to suffer a torn ACL during Gordon’s ninth game with the team.

Plans were delayed two years. Gordon passed the time by reexamining his game, simplifying it to mesh with Jokic’s surgical style. He trimmed the fat out, the occasional proclivity for poor shot selection. He mastered the short corner. He turned a Denver warehouse into a personal gym and refined his 3-point shot. By the time Murray returned and the stars aligned for a championship run in 2023, he was a carefully crafted blend of athleticism, skill and creativity. He swears by Jokic now. He has journeyed to Serbia in the offseason to experience the big man’s lifestyle. He recruited Jokic to 361, the company that now makes Jokic’s signature sneakers. He has bought Jokic gifts out of gratitude over the years, from a customized saddle to a car.

He has also signed two contract extensions with Denver. The only uncertainty that looms over his current deal is his soft-tissue health, which keeps resurfacing as an irritant after more than a decade of highlight dunks. The Nuggets are holding their breath as another playoff run nears. They’ve long since recognized he is their championship X-factor.

“It just turned out to be the perfect match for (Jokic and Murray), and it has been for all these years,” Adelman said. “Obviously, it led to the ultimate success, winning a championship. So Aaron’s been incredible from that trade, and Gary’s time here was so impactful as well. So that was pretty crazy to have Gary, what he did, and then get Aaron on the back end.”

Harris’s playing time and production dropped in Orlando, where he spent four full seasons before signing with the Bucks in 2025. Hampton played 145 more games in the NBA. He’s out of the league now, playing in China. Orlando used the 2025 pick on Michigan State’s Jase Richardson, who’s averaging 11 minutes this season in the early stages of his development. The Magic hasn’t won a playoff series since 2010.

The Nuggets clinched their eighth consecutive playoff appearance this week. Their trade history has long been highlighted by their 1980 swap of George McGinnis for Alex English, who became Denver’s most celebrated hooper until Jokic. They’ve exchanged Kiki Vandeweghe for Fat Lever. They’ve traded away franchise stars, from David Thompson to Anthony. The latter turned into a pick swap, which years later became Murray — a chain reaction to introduce a championship window.

When they traded for Gordon, they aggressively pried that window open. By the five-year anniversary last week, Jokic had wiped away the tears.

“I’m happy we have AG, of course,” he relented. “He’s a unique player and a special player.”

Alex English remembers seeing a Canadian high school guard play at an event alongside other blue-chip prospects. Murray “outshined everybody.” The all-time leading scorer of the Nuggets was confident he was watching a future NBA star. “I can’t remember all the other players,” English said, “but I remember Jamal Murray.”

Dan Issel watches his Kentucky Wildcats religiously, so he had familiarized himself with Murray’s burgeoning talent months before Denver drafted him seventh overall in 2016. He beamed at the pick. At the renewal of the Kentucky-to-Denver pipeline. “That makes him special in my eyes,” Issel says. “… It����ap kind of difficult, but I follow most of the former UK players in the NBA. I don’t watch (the rest of) them every night like I try to with Jamal.”

Nikola Jokic met him at the 2014 Nike Hoop Summit in Oregon. They were teammates in a showcase pitting top U.S. high schoolers against international prospects. . Maybe that made it a fitting prologue to their eventual basketball partnership. More than a decade later, their chemistry is best described by Murray as telepathic, intellectual, instinctual.

“I think of friendship, a relationship, symmetry, an unspoken communication,” he said last week. “It’s cool. It’s really cool, honestly. It’s one of the things I cherish, being in Denver and having (him) to play with.”

Murray is ascending into the same airspace as English and Issel and the other Nuggets greats. He’ll check another box on the career bucket list Sunday, when he plays in his first NBA All-Star Game a decade after entering the league. As it was when they first met, he and Jokic will be teammates in a game of the United States vs. The World.

“They’re like the perfect Batman and Robin duo in the NBA,” English said. “I don’t know if there’s another couple as successful as they’ve been.”

All-Star recognition ‘past due’

It’s an unusual anointment for Murray. It doesn’t represent anything the basketball community didn’t already know about him. His high-end ability has materialized in moments far more consequential than the two-month window of regular-season games used to canonize All-Stars. It has also slipped away in smaller measures, enough to christen him as the best player never named an All-Star until now. The moniker was starting to get worn out.

For him to get over the hump this weekend is not a profound revelation. In the context of Murray’s league-wide reputation, this occasion represents more of a starting gun for the individual accolades to play catch-up.

“It����ap past due,” English said. “I mean, this kid has been playing great basketball for four or five years. It����ap not like he just started. And I think he got the brunt of having a superstar like Jokic playing with him. … He’s been the sidekick. He’s been the Batman sidekick, and hasn’t gotten the accolades he has overwhelmingly deserved, honestly. But this man’s been an All-Star a long time.”

Aside from correcting the record, Murray’s moment this weekend is an opportunity to take stock of his status in Nuggets history. The Denver Post asked their three all-time leading scorers — English, Jokic and Issel — for their perspectives. Franchise legends, both past and present, are ready to welcome him to the inner circle already.

“He’s definitely made a mark in this organization,” Jokic said. “He’s gone through a lot. He was injured. Championship. Now All-Star, after so many years that he was so close. So it����ap good that the franchise still loves him and the fans love him.”

As he landed in Los Angeles for the weekend, Murray ranked sixth in scoring (10,909 points). Fifth in assists (2,889). Seventh in games played (586). Sixth in minutes (18,576). He’s long since ran away with the franchise record for 3-pointers (1,304). He remains tied for first in rings (one).

Six former players have their jersey numbers retired by the team and immortalized at Ball Arena. It’s a small club that comprises the texture of a 59-year-old franchise. English and Issel. David Thompson and Dikembe Mutombo. Fat Lever and Byron Beck. Jokic’s No. 15 will be the seventh (whether or not Carmelo Anthony is eventually recognized for wearing the same number). English believes Murray’s No. 27 is also a lock to join them all in the rafters — even if he retired today.

“He’s already there,” the 72-year-old English said. “Who else can you think of other than Jokic that should be there, other than Jamal Murray? … Jamal Murray certainly should be in that same group. He’s been good his whole career. It����ap been a steady growth. He’s bona fide.”

“There are numbers up there that aren’t in that category (statistically),” Issel added. “So it makes sense that when his career is over, (his should be). And the other thing is, I love how loyal he is to the Nuggets. It seems like a lot of these players are just mercenaries today that go where they can make the most money and get the most exposure. He seems to be very happy being a Denver Nugget.”

The franchise’s elder statesmen understand that Jokic is an inextricable aspect of any conversation about Murray’s developing legacy. His secondary role makes him tricky to categorize. It lends itself to conjecture about how a team would perform with Murray as the main event. There was barely any evidence to support either conclusion until last month, when a knee injury caused Jokic to sit out a month, the longest absence of his NBA career. Issel — a former Nuggets player, coach and executive — was watching closely. Denver went 10-6 without the most accomplished player in franchise history.

“He should have been an All-Star before now, but I think part of the explanation is that he’s playing with the greatest player on the planet,” Issel said. “And I think that usurps, sometimes, what a great player he is. But when he needs to, he also steps up.  … I don’t know that they’d be a championship-caliber team — it would depend who else was with Jamal — but I think he would be very successful if he was on a team where he was the No. 1 scoring option.”

English is reminded of Lever. His Murray. Lever ranks 13th in NBA history with 43 career triple-doubles, but the point guard hadn’t been named an All-Star five years into his career. English was the face of the franchise, a perennial awards candidate throughout the 1980s. “He had to play with me,” English remembers self-deprecatingly, “and they figured, ‘Well, we can’t have two Denver Nuggets guys on the All-Star team.’ And then one year, I petitioned and said I’d give up my spot for Fat Lever because he deserves it. The next year, he made it.”

Lever played with the Nuggets for six seasons. His No. 12 is one of the six retired numbers at Ball Arena today. The comparison feels resonant to English because he sees a star equally willing to sacrifice when he watches Murray.

“He understands that to be a winner, you have to be a team, and he has fit into that Robin role, like I said,” English said. “… He has fit in it well. He could easily have been Batman. But Jokic is such a big presence on the court with his style of play. But if you look at when the Nuggets win, Jamal Murray had to be there.”

The defining moments of the Jokic era have a funny way of placing Murray centerstage. He’s responsible for the first playoff buzzer-beater in franchise history, a shot over future Hall of Famer Anthony Davis. A defensive stop against LeBron James to clinch the Western Conference title. A 50-point season-saving Game 6. A 30-point triple-double to match Jokic in the NBA Finals.

“We weren’t very good to start,” Murray reflected last week. “We both came off the bench together. That really was him and Gary (Harris) that started the two-man game and handoffs and stuff. And then just to have that relationship the whole time, no problems. I don’t think we’ve ever argued. It’s cool just to have that relationship. And I know what the game is going to be like. I have his back, and he has my back, and we just go out there and play hard. So it’s fun to have that kind of relationship with the greatest player in the world.”

Jokic’s penchant for introspection is notoriously understated — his entire public persona is — but as he fielded questions about Murray ahead of their couples trip to All-Star weekend, he shared a revealing insight about the guard’s significance to both him and, by extension, Denver. One that even left behind a note of sentimentality.

Would Batman like to play out his entire career with Robin?

“I would love it,” Jokic said, “just because it����ap so good when you know who you’re playing with. He cannot really surprise me. I know what he can do. So the experience of playing probably 10 years definitely helps. But I don’t want to change him, if they ask me.”

Had to close my jaw and rub my eyes after what I read next.

Chauncey Billups, the greatest basketball player our state has ever known, was charged Thursday morning with participating in a series of rigged poker games organized by Mafia families that cheated victims out of at least $7.15 million.

Read that last sentence again. Billups arrested, gambling, cheating — almost a year to the day he was enshrined into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

There are few surprises anymore. This news left me stunned.

David Adelman after Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier arrests connected to sports gambling: ‘Just hoping for the best for everybody’

Billups was always a great player, dating back to when I covered him winning the state championship for George Washington High School as a sophomore in 1993. But he was also one of the good guys, someone easy to talk with about hoops or his favorite football players when he attended Broncos practice during training camp.

He was Colorado. The King of Park Hill. Mr. Big Shot. He stood for clutch, character, toughness. Mention his name, and proud smiles followed.

Trying to reconcile that man with the person who was arrested early Thursday morning and appeared in a Portland courtroom flanked by attorneys a few hours later remains jarring.

"I was shocked. I have been very sad. I am hoping that this is a misunderstanding, a minimal situation where he can find a safe place to go on to have a great life," said former Nuggets coach George Karl of Billups, who led Denver to the Western Conference Finals in the 2008-09 season. "He is one of the best leaders, if not best leader, I have ever been around. Great with the team, great one-on-one. He was so mentally strong. I don't know if I have cried today, but I have been really, really down."

Billups is innocent until proven guilty. But this is serious stuff. He turned over his passport and his travel is restricted to Colorado and Oregon. His next court appearance is Nov. 24 in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Between now and then, perhaps we will learn more. As is, the details of the indictment, coined "Operation Royal Flush," are damning.

Billups is accused of being a "face card" that organized crime figures used to lure gamblers into two underground card games, in April 2019 and October 2020, taking advantage of participants who were attracted by his celebrity. He would then receive part of the criminal proceeds, the feds claim.

The games were deemed fixed because of rigged shuffling machines, decoy phones, card markers only visible through special glasses and "electronic poker chip trays that could secretly read cards," the indictment states.

Why would Billups put himself in this position? Did he know the games traced back to the Gambino, Genovese and Bonanno mafia crime families? Did they have leverage on him?

I am inclined to give Billups the benefit of the doubt based on the person I know. But nothing about this makes sense. His involvement. The risk.

Billups served as a game analyst for Los Angeles Clippers broadcasts during that time, and had made it known he wanted to work in the NBA as a coach or in a front office.

Why jeopardize that dream?

It was bad judgment at the very least to associate with people with nicknames like "Albanian Bruce," "Flapper Poker" and "Spanish G."

The second criminal case announced by the feds is more problematic, involving NBA players and coaches selling nonpublic information about games and players to gamblers who then used that inside information to place bets. Co-conspirator 8, per the indictment, told a bettor that several of the Trail Blazers' best players would be sitting out against the Chicago Bulls on March 24, 2023. That conspirator has credentials that match Billups' playing and coaching career.

As if tilted card games were not enough.

If proven, such insider trading will get Billups banned for life from the NBA. And likely prevent him from working at the high school or collegiate level.

"Shock. Dismay. Denial. Can't be real," said Altitude Sports' Vic Lombardi, who covered Billups' prep-to-pros career. "I am heartbroken."

If the allegations are true, Billups has not just committed fraud, but betrayed those who trusted him the most, like the kids who have attended the Porter-Billups Leadership Academy since he joined forces with the former Regis College legend Lonnie Porter in 2006.

"I am speechless," former CBS sports reporter Mark McIntosh said. "It flies in the face of everything I have known about Chauncey and his family."

It is hard to come to terms with the accusations.

Athletes throwing away their careers because of drinking, drugs or gambling is nothing new.

Billups just did not fit the profile, especially at this point in his life. He would have been in his early 40s when he turned up at the card games, and 47 years old when he tipped off a bettor about the Blazers.

How could someone who made $106 million playing in the NBA put themselves in this position?

I asked Craig Carton. His rise and fall as a New York sports personality came about because of gambling. He was the subject of a documentary a few years ago after he lost everything. He served over a year in prison for securities and wire fraud before returning to the media and now hosts "The Craig Carton Show" on Fox.

"I don't know if he is a compulsive gambler. But I know from my experience that compulsive gamblers lose total sight of the money," Carton said. "It's about the competition. I can only speak about myself. Losing was viewed as absurd, and I didn't accept it. There is a point early on that you become aware of the risks financially. But you process it irrationally.

"When you get into the throes of it, you are willing to throw everything away. It ruins lives. It leaves such a wake. It's why I tour high school and college campuses now, and why I was honored to speak at the NBA Rookie Symposium. I own the fact that I am an addict. There is shame and stigma that comes with it seven years later. But I don't mind. I know that is who I am. I was blessed because I had a lot of good people in my corner who thought there was still a really good person inside. I will be indebted to them for the rest of my life."

Billups deserves his day in court. But his days on the court could be over forever.

And it is tough to come to grips with that reality, given his legacy as a Colorado icon.

"Chauncey saved my job in Denver," Karl said. "I went on to have four more good years. One regret I have is that when we traded Melo (Carmelo Anthony) that Chauncey had to be part of it. I begged them to do it without him. The admiration I have for Chauncey will never leave. This whole thing reminds me of when I went off to college. My dad said, 'During our lifetime, we all eat humble pie. Just make sure it's a small piece.'

"I just hope it is a small piece for Chauncey."

It culminated with him becoming one of the sports’ purest scorers and most decorated players ever.

Walking onto the stage for his induction into the on Saturday to chants of “Melo! Melo,” Anthony took his place alongside basketball’s immortals.

“Pardon my language, but damn,” the former Denver Nuggets star said, tearing up. “Tonight I just don’t step into the Hall of Fame, I carry the echoes of every voice that ever told me I couldn’t. … I had to build a new road. I had to write a new ending.”

Anthony was part of a quintet of players that were inducted into the Hall on Saturday as individuals, joining Dwight Howard, Sue Bird, Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles. Together they were part of 11 WNBA or NBA championship teams, captured 15 Olympic gold medals, made 37 All-NBA or All-WNBA appearances and were named as All-Stars 45 times in their careers.

“I never got an NBA ring. … But I know what I gave to the game,” Anthony said.

Anthony and Howard were dual-enshrinees as members of the 2008 Olympic men’s basketball team that after winning gold at the Beijing Games that summer after only capturing a bronze at the 2004 Athens Olympics and 2006 FIBA world championships. Howard and Anthony joined 2008 team members Jason Kidd, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the late Kobe Bryant who were already enshrined as individuals.

This year’s class was rounded out by Chicago Bulls coach and two-time NCAA champion Billy Donovan, Miami Heat managing general partner Micky Arison and longtime NBA referee Danny Crawford.

The inclusion of Bird, Moore and Fowles’ enshrinement marked the will enter the Hall of Fame in the same year.

Bird said being on the stage Saturday made her appreciate the journey she’d made from Syosset, New York, predicting in her high school yearbook that she’d one day become a professional soccer or basketball player.

“There was no logical place for a kid like me,” she said.

Saturday also was a showcase of how interconnected that trio of women were. Bird and Moore with two NCAA titles each at Connecticut. Fowles was also instrumental in the final two of Moore’s four WNBA championships with the Minnesota Lynx. All three played together and won gold medals for the U.S. on the Olympic team.

All the members of Redeem Team were in attendance, with the exception of Kobe Bryant, who passed in 2020.

LeBron James, who was 23 years old in 2008, said the tone for that team was set by the Lakers great.

“We just wanted to get to his level and make him proud,” James said.

Coach Mike Krzyzewski said the mission of that team was clear from the moment the star-laden team was assembled.

“Our goal was to win the gold medal, but also to win the respect of our country again,” said Krzyzewski said.

Moore believes her basketball career, replete a run of college and WNBA championships and MVP trophies, was simply a prelude to her post-basketball calling: building what she called “championship communities.”

“Now that I’m in the Hall, I believe I have become Auntie Maya,” she said.

Moore retired before the 2019 WNBA season to focus on social justice issues and helping overturn the wrongful conviction of her now-husband, Jonathan Irons.

She devoted her speech to imploring today’s generation to use their platforms to promote change in their own communities.

“Figure out what motivates you every day you get out of bed,” Moore said. “I want to challenge you up and comers, every day to seek out joy and connection.”

Howard, one of four players with three Defensive Player of the Year awards, became known for the playful way he expressed himself on the court. He showed all those attributes during a speech that honored the sacrifices of his parents, notably how his mother endured seven miscarriages before delivering him on her eighth attempt.

“My mother lost seven children and he allowed me to bring sunshine into her life,” he said. “I’m just honored to stand in front of you as one of the greatest basketball players ever.”

Howard was inducted by Dominique Wilkins, Shaquille O’Neal, Patrick Ewing and Robert Parish. He also acknowledged other great centers as well, including Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Dikembe Mutombo. Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of Russell’s enshrinement.

His speech took playful jabs at his “Superman feud” with Shaquille O’Neal and included an imitation of Stan Van Gundy, his former Orlando Magic coach.

But he concluded his remarks with a message to his children, imploring them to chase their dreams.

“You only die once but you live every day,” Howard said.

Arison thanked former Heat players in attendance, including James, Chris Bosh, Udonis Haslem and Alonzo Mourning for their contributions to what has become known as during his stewardship of the team.

Arison also had jokes, looking toward James when he reminisced about the championship teams led by James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh by referencing James’ now infamous prediction for the trio’s success.

“In 2010, with Dwyane, LeBron and Chris Bosh we knew we could win. Not one, not two…I guess it was just two,” Arison said.

The feud between Nuggets fans and Carmelo Anthony celebrates its 15th anniversary early next year. Our favorite basketball beef’s growing facial hair now. It’s old enough to enroll in driver’s ed.

Time for the Nuggets to steer this narrative back to sanity.

Time to retire Anthony’s number. To rip the Band-Aid off. To make peace. To stop pretending he didn’t happen.

Anthony is being inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame this weekend. So how come he’s still notably absent from the rafters at Ball Arena?

“(It’s) well-deserved. I always thought (Melo) would be a first-ballot Hall of Famer,” Denver hoops icon Chauncey Billups told me earlier this summer. “He’s just that gifted. He’s a great teammate. He made me better.”

Anthony made Denver better, too. Any list of top-5 Nuggets that leaves off Melo is suspect. Any all-time Nuggets Mount Rushmore without him is mere graffiti.

Melo’s 13,970 points with the Nuggets still topped only by Alex English, Dan Issel and Nikola Jokic — icons all.

Anthony was the franchise’s best pure scorer since English, the face of this franchise from 2003-11. The 6-foot-7 forward and No. 3 overall pick notched four of his 10 All-Star berths here. He landed four of his six All-NBA selections as a Nugget.

It’s been 15 years.

It’s time to forgive a little.

No one’s asking you to forget the divorce. Melo big-timed Denver. That’s a Front Range sin on par with playing for the Raiders or letting Bill Schmidt run your front office.

Anthony told the Nuggets he had no interest in signing a contract extension after the 2010-11 season — essentially forcing the team to trade him to the New York Knicks that February.

And what a trade. The guy that might’ve become the best Nugget ever had he sucked it up and stuck around, instead turned into the greatest flip in franchise history.

On February 22, 2011, Denver shipped Melo to the Knicks. The Knicks sent back Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Timofey Mozgov and Raymond Felton. But the sweetener was the draft picks the Knickerbockers threw in, including a 2016 pick swap that had a major impact on Denver. The No. 7 selection that summer, a gift from New York to the Nuggets, was used on a Kentucky guard named Jamal Murray.

In other words, Melo helped to build a championship team in Denver. It just took him leaving and another 12 years for that tree to finally bear fruit.

Let’s stop ignoring history. And revising it. Before he abandoned Ball Arena, Melo made it relevant. He gave it hope.

Anthony effectively ended the Nuggets’ Wilderness Years. Denver had suffered nine straight losing seasons, BM — Before Melo. The year prior to the Nuggets drafting him, Denver won 17 games. It won just 27 the season before that.

The Kroenkes and the then-new downtown arena stabilized one of the NBA’s wobbliest franchises. The on-court product, at the turn of the 21st century, still stunk to Mile High Heaven.

Anthony changed that. Instantly. The Nuggets won 43 games his rookie year. They won 49 in his second. His era ushered in 10 straight playoff berths, including two after he’d been traded to the Knicks. To date, that remains the longest consecutive postseason streak in franchise history (2003-13).

Melo didn’t just help save a franchise. He put the Nuggets back on the national basketball map. Anthony’s baby blue Denver No. 15 every season from 2003-’04 until 2009-’10. .

Was he a great defender? No. Were his postseasons forgettable? Too often. Melo’s Nuggets reached a Western Conference final in 2009, one of eight playoff berths in the Mile High City. He was eliminated in the first round the other seven times.

“That year we had it rocking here (2009) was one of my favorite years in my 17-year career,” Billups said. “And it had a lot to do with Melo, watching him just destroy people every single night.”

The 50 points versus the Rockets in February 2011. The 49 points against Washington, on 19-for-25 shooting. The six treys against Indiana while Ball Arena booed him.

Like any passionate relationship that burned hot and ended badly, things between Melo and Denver got thorny. Tangled. Complicated. Hurt fed the hate.

The Nuggets gave Anthony Rudolph Melo’s No. 15 not long after the Anthony trade. Jokic got it next, became the franchise’s GOAT, and cue the awkward.

“What I believe is that (the Nuggets) gave him 15,” Anthony told The Kid Mero in January 2024, “to erase what I did.”

Baloney.

At any rate, rules for remembrance were always made to be broken. Kobe Bryant has two numbers hanging at Crypto.com Arena. Why can’t the Nuggets have two No. 15s?

The longer this can keeps getting kicked down the road, the pettier everyone looks.

“I remember (Anthony) coming into the league,” Billups mused. “And now to see him retire and actually be inducted into the Hall of Fame. I’ll just be looking like, ‘Dang, I really am old.'”

It’s been 15 years.

As grudges go, isn’t that long enough?

All in all, the Nuggets have reached the playoffs 17 out of 25 seasons in the new millennium, winning 55% of their regular-season games with nine 50-win seasons. They’ve won 12 playoff series. They’ve had only five All-Stars — but three of them have been inducted to the Hall of Fame, while another has three MVP awards and counting.

We all love a round number, so to reflect on the last 25 years of basketball — almost half of the franchise’s existence under the “Nuggets” name — we assembled The Denver Post brain trust to vote on an All-Quarter Century Nuggets Team.

Five of our staffers who cover the Nuggets voted on a First Team and a Second Team. Five players who received votes but didn’t make the 10-man rotation were also included as reserves.

The voting body was made up of yours truly, sports columnist Troy Renck, sports columnist Sean Keeler, sports editor and Nuggets Ink Podcast host Matt Schubert, and photographer and Nuggets Ink producer AAron Ontiveroz. Note: Statistics and accolades before the 2000-01 season were not taken into account in the voting process.

First Team

Point guard: Chauncey Billups (2008-11)

When building a ceremonial fake roster like this, there’s an inherent conflict between longevity with the team and short-term excellence. Mr. Big Shot technically played only one full season in Denver during the 2000s (but more than half of two other seasons). He made the most of his 201 regular-season games, averaging 18.1 points and 5.1 assists. He earned an All-Star nod and finished 12th in 2009-10 MVP voting.

More importantly, in 2008-09, Billups helped lead his hometown team to its first Western Conference Finals appearance in 24 years. The George Washington High School and CU alum shot 46.8% from 3-point range during that 16-game playoff run, averaging 20.6 points and 6.8 assists.

As a result, Billups was a First-Team honoree on all but one ballot. He’s best remembered nationally as a Finals MVP with Detroit, but his significance to Denver basketball history adds to his case here.

Shooting guard: Jamal Murray (2016-present)

One of the best players of his generation to never make an All-Star Game or All-NBA team (yet), Murray lacks the on-paper success of a few other Nuggets stars this century. Yet his status in franchise history is undeniable: He was one of three unanimous First-Team honorees in our vote.

Murray established a reputation as the quintessential “playoff riser” in the 2020 bubble, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the NBA into quarantine. His battles with Donovan Mitchell were legendary. His iron will contributed to six consecutive wins in elimination games as Denver made it back to the WCF for the first time since 2009.

The torn ACL that knocked Murray out of two postseasons remains a major “what if” in Nuggets history. Could they have won the 2021 or 2022 championship with a healthy star guard? In his first season back from the injury, Murray was the ceiling-raiser Denver needed during a dominant run to the championship. His and Nikola Jokic’s dueling 30-point triple-doubles in Game 3 of the NBA Finals will immortalize Murray no matter what the future holds. He also had a not-so-sneaky case for Western Conference Finals MVP that year: 32.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 2.8 steals per game.

Small forward: Carmelo Anthony (2003-11)

It’s complicated, we know. But Carmelo erasure is just plain irresponsible. He was too good, too important to an entire era of Denver basketball. When you envision the baby blue uniforms, you probably think of him first.

Anthony saved the Nuggets before he walked out on them (if that’s what you want to call it). They were on a streak of eight consecutive losing seasons when they drafted him third overall in 2003. Then they proceeded to make the playoffs in all seven seasons he finished with Denver. The first-round exits are certainly part of his legacy, but he brought back competitive basketball after a decade of futility.

Anthony played more games for the Nuggets (564) than for any other team, including the Knicks. He was a four-time All-NBA honoree in Denver, a four-time All-Star. He averaged 24.8 points and 6.3 rebounds. He got the team within two wins of the NBA Finals against Kobe Bryant’s Lakers. Then came the infamous 2011 trade, the origins of which are still being litigated on podcasts and social media to this day. Much less controversial was Anthony’s First-Team status here. He was unanimous.

Power forward: Aaron Gordon (2021-present)

Nikola Jokic described Gordon during the 2025 playoffs as “the soul of this team.” Trading for the former Orlando Magic first option elevated the Nuggets to a new echelon of championship contention. In four full seasons (so far), he has morphed his play style to complement Jokic, transforming into a super-role player and becoming a fan favorite in the process. Hence his place here, with three First-Team votes.

The stats don’t jump off the page, but the versatility is unparalleled. Gordon is a power forward in the traditional sense, but the Nuggets have used him as a point guard, a center, and almost everything in between.

He cemented his legacy this year with a pair of memorable game-winning buckets: the first buzzer-beater slam dunk in NBA playoff history, and a 3-pointer to complete a stunning comeback in Oklahoma City. Even though Denver didn’t win the title, fans will relive those moments for decades.

Center: Nikola Jokić (2015-present)

Awkward yet graceful, perpetually battle-scarred by his dominant physicality yet possessed by a preference for finesse, Jokic is a revolutionary center. His spot on this roster was always going to be the most obvious and anticlimactic. The more suitable topic for him is where he lands in relation to John Elway and Joe Sakic on the list of greatest athletes in Denver sports history.

Ten years in, he’s still adding to the following accolades: three MVPs, an NBA Finals MVP, seven consecutive All-NBA teams (five of them First-Team recognition). He just joined Oscar Robertson and Russell Westbrook as the only players to average a triple-double in a season. He’s on pace to break Westbrook’s career triple-doubles record. He’s the first player since Larry Bird to finish top-two in MVP voting five straight years. We could go on, but this paragraph might be outdated soon.

What can’t be expressed in those numbers is the lasting impact of the Joker: No basketball player has ever brought Coloradans as much joy and wonder.

Second Team

Point guard: Ty Lawson (2009-15)

Two Second-Team spots required a tiebreaker, including this one. A pair of us voted for Lawson, another pair for Andre Miller. The only person who omitted both from his ballot was Ontiveroz, so he was consulted for the deciding vote and chose Lawson, citing the “pure excitement” of watching him. Lawson averaged 14.4 points and 6.2 assists over six years in Denver. He finished 12th in MVP voting as the star of a 2012-13 Nuggets team that won 57 games — still tied for the most in franchise history.

Shooting guard: Allen Iverson (2006-08)

Another case of short-term elite play over longevity, Iverson played only 135 games as a Nugget but is technically in a club with Jokic, Anthony and Billups as the only players this century to represent Denver at multiple All-Star Games. In his one full season with the team, he averaged 26.4 points and 7.1 assists. Iverson received one First-Team vote in this exercise (over Billups).

Small forward: Michael Porter Jr. (2018-25)

MPJ is the fourth member of the championship team to make the cut. Recently traded to Brooklyn, his time in Denver was characterized by immense medical resilience. Porter overcame three back surgeries to average 16.2 points and 6.4 rebounds over 345 games, many of them while wearing a brace on his foot. He ranks second in franchise history in 3-pointers (843) behind Murray, and he made them at a 40.6% clip.

Power forward: Nenê (2002-12)

The initial vote was deadlocked between Nene and Kenyon Martin, both of whom received one First-Team and one Second-Team vote. Keeler was assigned the tiebreaking vote in this case, and he chose the Brazilian forward who spent a decade in Denver. In 555 games, Nene averaged 12.4 points and seven rebounds, registering career-highs in both statistics during the 2008-09 season when Denver reached the conference finals.

Center: Marcus Camby (2002-08)

Center was the only position where all five voters agreed on the First- and Second-Team selections. Camby led the league in blocks per game three times in his six years with Denver. He was named NBA Defensive Player of the Year in 2006-07, making him the franchise’s only player to win the award since Dikembe Mutombo.

Reserves

An NBA roster isn’t complete without 15 players, so the All-Quarter Century Team has room for a Third Team made up of the following leftover vote-getters: Andre Miller, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Danilo Gallinari, Kenyon Martin and Antonio McDyess (a 2001 All-Star).

Thunder guard and reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as the cover athlete for the video game’s standard edition, which will cost $69.99 on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X’S, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch 2.

Chicago Sky forward Reese will be on the WNBA edition and Anthony, who is into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, will be on the superstar edition.

A fourth edition will feature all three players on the cover.

“Being on the cover of NBA 2K26 and debuting my first-ever signature shoe with Reebok on that cover, the Angel Reese 1, is more than a milestone — it����ap a statement,” two-time All-Star Reese said in a news release. “It����ap about representation and showing young girls they can be confident, bold, and take up space unapologetically. To be cemented in NBA 2K history is a special honor that reflects not only my journey, but also all the veteran WNBA players who have paved the way before me and the growing impact of the league as a whole. I’m proud to be part of a game that continues to elevate women’s basketball and can’t wait for fans to see how NBA 2K26 brings our game to life like never before.”

AP Sports:

Let me get this straight. Josh Kroenke fired his coach and president of basketball operations in April to end years of not-so-secret intra-office backstabbing and rancor.

The Nuggets president said he needed to get his franchise operating under one vision. One plan. One voice.

So he hires two mouthpieces?

And he takes two months to announce it?

Welcome to the corner of 11th and Chopper Circle, where Nikola Jokic shouldn’t sign anything else unless

After eight weeks of occasional news conferences and mostly silence, Kroenke on Monday announced that the Nuggets had filled their GM vacancy . Or, rather, by adding two: Interim GM and incumbent Ben Tenzer becomes executive vice president of basketball operations, while Minnesota Timberwolves staffer and former Nuggets scouting coordinator Jon Wallace comes on board as executive vice president of player personnel.

Co-managers, basically. in which Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) split managerial duties at paper company Dunder Mifflin. There was a koi pond, hijinks ensued, and Kathy Bates eventually had to step in and clean everything up.

Yes, the Kroenkes have made a habit of hiring promising basketball minds as Nuggets GM over the last decade and a half. But man, do they have a heck of a time keeping those promising basketball minds. And an even harder time explaining how they got there.

“I don’t know if I’ll be any more or less (involved),” Kroenke told us in April after letting go of the only coach (Michael Malone) and only director of basketball ops (Calvin Booth) to win his franchise an NBA title. “I think that, from my perspective, I’ve always been pretty hands-on in a way, maybe more so than some people realize.

“What does that mean? I’m not 100% sure. But I think with my background, it’s natural for me to kind of think about it some. I mean, I live and breathe this stuff. This is what I do. This is what I’ve done for the last 15 years. And so if anybody has a good read on the group, hopefully it’s relatively me, at my level. But I’m never going to be somebody that’s saying what player to pick or anything like that. I’ve moved way past that in my career and my roles and my responsibilities. That doesn’t mean my basketball instincts won’t kick in.”

So why not just name yourself GM and be done with it? No grey area. No delegations. No parsing.

What the Nuggets announced instead risks too many layers, too many forms, too many meetings, too many cooks.

The presumption is that Wallace is the basketball guy and Tenzer is the numbers guru. So what if an agent has a question for the former about a contract clause? (“Let me call Ben.”) What if a player asks the latter why coach David Adelman isn’t giving him enough minutes? (“Let me call Jon and get back with you.”)

It’s a bit like that old chestnut about “co-starting” NFL quarterbacks. If you’re using two, do you really have any?

We kid, we kid. I mean, this doesn’t mean it can’t work. The Nuggets got to the Western Conference finals in 2009 behind a two-headed GM monster of Mark Warkentien and Rex Chapman.

And in Josh’s defense, his last three GM hires all landed, in one way or another. Masai Ujiri had never been an NBA GM when the Nuggets handed him the keys in August 2010. He flipped Carmelo Anthony into what became the winningest regular-season team in the Denver’s NBA history (57) and acquired the draft pick that became Jamal Murray.

Tim Connelly was another first-timer, plucked from New Orleans. He drafted Nikola Jokic, Murray and Michael Porter Jr., traded for Aaron Gordon, and built the core of the 2023 NBA champions.

The man who succeeded him, Calvin Booth, also hadn’t ever been a GM before KSE elevated him. He consummated the Kentavious Caldwell-Pope trade and signed Bruce Brown within seven weeks of replacing Connelly. Which capped off the greatest season this franchise ever had. Then it got weird, mind you, but that’s not the point.

The clock is ticking. Jokic’s clock, in particular. The next five months could shape the next decade of the franchise.

In two weeks, the Joker is eligible to sign a three-year, $212.5-million contract extension. Christian Braun and Peyton Watson are up for extensions this summer, too — and the market pegs the former jumping from $4.9 million on his rookie deal in ’25-26 to anywhere from $15-$30 million annually going forward. The Nuggets in ’26-27, , are already projected to have four starters making at least $30 million in the Joker ($59 million), Jamal Murray ($50.1 million), Michael Porter Jr. ($40.8 million) and Gordon ($31.97 million).

Meanwhile, the too-young Thunder are too-young no longer, an NBA champion with a surplus of draft capital still to burn. The Rockets were a team of Alex Carusos who needed a front-line scorer to get them a bucket — and just traded for Kevin Durant, arguably the best pure scorer of his generation. The Grizzlies recently added Cole Anthony, old friend Caldwell-Pope and a slew of picks.

The Western Conference is like a shark. If you’re not constantly moving, constantly looking, you’re dead in the water.

“You’re not bringing in a brand new voice, trying to change things overnight,” NBA TV analyst Dennis Scott told me recently. “Hopefully the GM you bring in, they get on the same page right away (with the coach and owner). Because that’s going to help success. When the head coach, GM, owner, (when) all three are on the same page, you have a better chance of winning.”

Assuming, of course, anybody can get a word in.

What’s the latest on the GM search? Are they just waiting to announce Ben Tenzer?

— Dave, Aurora

Tenzer and Matt Lloyd are the two names I’ve heard most when asking people around the league about the Nuggets general manager job. Neither has experience as a director of basketball operations, but both are regarded as personable, smart and strong at building relationships. Those are going to be important characteristics in Denver. The Nuggets need someone who can help establish a better culture inside the organization and communicate well with agents.

“You could do a lot worse than Matt Lloyd,” one agent told me recently, speaking fondly of the current Timberwolves GM under Tim Connelly. (For the record: Connelly indicated this week to reporters that he’s not leaving Minnesota any time soon.)

The Tenzer smoke makes sense. He has been effusively praised by Josh Kroenke for his input since taking over as interim GM in April, and the Kroenkes have a history of hiring internally. I see Tenzer as a leading candidate right now. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he got promoted to GM with an outside hire made at president of basketball operations.

There could be other names waiting to emerge still. The Nuggets should want to have someone in place by the end of next week, with the draft and free agency nearing.

Saw some reports from earlier in the season that the Nuggets were really considering trading Michael Porter Jr. Do you see Denver actually doing it in the offseason and who are some players you’d throw in return packages?

— Jed Katz, Upper Saddle River, N.J.

Does the new GM (Ben Tenzer or whomever) finally cut bait with Porter? Michael Malone had a point that the bench was weak and inexperienced, but the true weakness of the Nuggets is MPJ and his albatross of a contract. Your thoughts?

— Joe, Denver

You guys are giving me déjà vu all over again. This was the most popular question leading up to the trade deadline last season, and it’ll probably be the most popular question before the next one, too.

I don’t think the Nuggets will trade Porter this summer.

I’m never going to say it’s impossible. The Timberwolves wouldn’t have thought last August that Karl-Anthony Towns would be traded by training camp.

But Josh Kroenke’s public comments since the season ended have been illuminating. It’s clear that ownership is leaning toward giving the “core four” another year together, while hoping to patch together a better depth chart via some combination of player development and free agency discount shopping. “I think a lot of our answers are internal right now,” Kroenke said.

Read those tea leaves and consider that Porter’s importance to Denver’s current roster — Positional size! Volume 3-point shooting! — exceeds what his value would be on the trade market. To 29 other teams, he’s still a questionable contract with a dubious medical record. What you have is a likely outcome where, even if the Nuggets entertain MPJ trades, they don’t find one that satisfies them.

Teams have to plan out their salary cap sheets for multiple years. The Nuggets are positioned to narrowly avoid the second apron next season, even with Jamal Murray’s extension taking effect. But the following year, they’ll be accounting for Aaron Gordon’s $9 million raise and Christian Braun’s new contract, assuming he and Denver agree to an extension this fall. (I expect that to happen.)

The team might have to do some serious salary-shaving in the 2026 offseason if it wants to stay out of the second apron. Porter will have one year left on his deal at that point, making the dollar amount more palatable to other teams. Common sense says next summer is the appropriate time to pounce on a trade after one more swing with the current starting lineup. Go ahead and mark your calendars to ask me about this topic yet again.

After the second Game 7 loss in two years to teams that were much more physical than the Nuggets, a couple of questions. Not that the outcome would have been different, but would the whistle have been different if David Adelman did not have “interim” in his title while coaching against a former Coach of the Year? Having seen Doug Moe get after the refs and change the way a game was officiated, I was disappointed that Adelman didn’t get a T or at least a fine for postgame comments during the OKC series. Do the players believe a coach has their back when he doesn’t make known his displeasure with the officiating?

— Shawn Thompson, Denver

Well, your second question is easily answered by the players themselves. Even immediately after losing Game 7, they responded with resounding positivity to the idea of Adelman being their full-time head coach. So I don’t think his willingness to be performative was top of mind.

I’ll also remind you that Adelman did call out the refs after Game 6 of Denver’s first-round series when he spoke to reporters that night. Every coach has to choose how to navigate this stuff as a public-facing figure, and I suspect he’ll be one who uses sly sarcasm when he wants to sharpen the knives.

During games, I noticed Adelman giving the crew an earful more often than I think you’re giving him credit for. He might not ever compile as many technical fouls or ejections as Michael Malone, but I wouldn’t underestimate his ability to turn up the intensity.

If you thought the Nuggets generally got an unfair whistle against the Thunder, I get it. But the reason would have nothing to do with Adelman. Oklahoma City sets the terms every game by defending so fiercely that it forces referees to reckon with the fact that they can’t call �𱹱����ٳ󾱲Բ�.��There also remains the cheat code of putting a small guard on the unguardable Nikola Jokic. For years, he has been flustered by the contact an Alex Caruso or OG Anunoby can get away with in the post, relative to someone like Karl-Anthony Towns. Mark Daigneault rather brilliantly waited to play that card until it was absolutely necessary.

For what it’s worth, whatever you think about the OKC whistle, it’s not even close to the top reason Denver lost that series.

Bennett, were you as surprised as I was to see Pascal Siakam win Eastern Conference Finals MVP over Tyrese Haliburton? It reminded me of the Lakers series (in 2023) when Jamal was our leading scorer, but Jokic was still our most valuable player. In that case, Jokic got the award. Siakam had great shooting percentages, but the Pacers don’t win that series without Haliburton, in my opinion.

— Andrew, Denver

It can be true that Indiana probably doesn’t win the series without either star playing at an extremely high level. But yes, Haliburton would’ve been my series MVP without much handwringing. His play style is the basis of the Pacers’ unorthodox blueprint for an NBA Finals run. Even when his step-back 3s aren’t falling, he’s creating basketball advantage and cultivating healthy offense like few players can. He still averaged 21 points (well over his regular-season total), six rebounds, 10.5 assists, 1.7 turnovers and 2.5 steals per game. He achieved point guard nirvana with his Game 4 performance, which cemented Indiana’s control of the series.

And most notably — I would’ve used this as a tiebreaker if I had a vote and was torn — who is responsible for the most important moment of the series? Haliburton made one of the most instantly memorable shots in the history of the sport, without which who knows what might’ve happened in Game 7?

Who are we targeting in free agency this offseason? Bruce Brown seems like an obvious choice to shore up the bench. But will we finally get a good backup for Nikola Jokic, like bringing in Mason Plumlee, Larry Nance Jr. or Precious Achiuwa?

— Mike, Denver

Hard to say while the general manager position remains vacant. But I recently assembled an exhaustive list of possibilities just for you, Mike. Check it out.

Will we ever see Carmelo Anthony’s number climb to the rafters? Obviously, Nikola Jokic is the greatest No. 15 in Denver history, but could they do something similar to what the Mariners are doing with Randy Johnson and Ichiro Suzuki?

— Shawn, Westminster

I had a feeling I would get this question from someone after seeing the arrangement in Seattle. My hunch: Anthony and the Nuggets have a lot of relationship-mending to do before they can ever reach that point. Time might be the only medicine. Will it someday be normalized for Anthony to visit Denver for games, like the other franchise greats do? Will fans’ nostalgia morph into forgiveness as the years go on? Maybe by the time Jokic’s number is retired, perspectives will have changed. I think it’s only right that they both end up in the rafters, even if one clearly belongs to a loftier tier of basketball players historically.

The Nuggets want you to believe through a battery of sourced stories that they had no choice but to fire coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth. This was apparently the NBA’s biggest feud since Shaq and Kobe. Apparently, I missed Malone’s diss track.

Even if the timing was brutal, the Kroenkes clearly had their reasons to can them after watching a joyless season dissolve since the All-Star break. But we are also seeing damage control wrapped in shameful denial by the players.

We cannot let them off the hook. They were unhappy with Malone’s criticism, his yelling, his rotations, his preferential treatment of Russell Westbrook (OK, I’ve got their back on that one).

Is that license to throttle down? To play defense like they were in an All-Star game?

Athletes control effort, attitude and conditioning. That is what has made this season so disappointing.

Jamal Murray showed up out of shape after signing a four-year, $208 million max extension. He stank for the first 21 games before finally working himself back into form. But even that proved short-lived. He has missed eight of the past 12 games entering Friday with a hamstring injury.

Michael Porter Jr. continued to show us all who he really is: a medical marvel who is wildly inconsistent from game to game, quarter to quarter and possession to possession. When he is not making 3s, his value is virtually nonexistent.

Nikola Jokic, who is having a historic offensive season, lost interest in defending at the top of the key and stopped committing to his role at the level of the screen.

Aaron Gordon couldn’t shake a calf injury that siphoned half his games this season.

Westbrook played at one speed, and his tired Porsche-in-a-school-zone act deployed airbags multiple times over the last two weeks, making it clear Jalen Pickett should take his minutes in the clutch.

There are numerous examples of why Malone and Booth deserved to be canned. But let����ap not forgive the performance of the players. Just because warring factions existed behind the scenes, it does not excuse the lack of effort and communication.

For the Nuggets to go on a magical postseason run, it starts with those in uniform pulling in the same direction, not the schemes of interim coach David Adelman.

Young and restless: Rockies outfielder Zac Veen approaches baseball with a childlike enthusiasm. No need to take the wag out of the puppy’s tail, but it is important as he navigates his call-up to lean on veterans like Ryan McMahon and Kyle Freeland. He has the talent to make it. But he must adopt routines to simplify everything.

Carmelo’s request: Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony wants the Nuggets and Knicks to retire his jersey. No problem. But Denver’s comes with a caveat. His No. 15 goes into the rafters after Jokic’s as a sign of respect for the franchise’s greatest player.

Shedeur’s spot: When it comes to Cleveland, can we believe them? The Browns adding 40-year-old Joe Flacco and failed first-rounder Kenny Pickett suggests that they will pass on Shedeur Sanders with the second overall pick. There is growing buzz that they will take CU’s Travis Hunter. If that’s the case, the Saints would be silly not to take Sanders at No. 9, forming an ideal fit with new coach Kellen Moore.