Patience, in a Can

The denizens of the Pepsi Center have a trick in common that could have only come from the very top. They were built with patience and time. Good things come when you exercise patience over time… Just ask Andy Dufrense.

Patience is a difficult skill to master. It was never a personal strength growing up, but one of my grandparents had it in spades, and was determined I’d learn the habit as well. She sat me down to talk about a goal I’d set for myself, to make it onto an elite soccer team for my age group. My previous year’s tryout had ended quickly.

That summer, I went to her house every morning and would run the drills I knew I’d be working through in tryouts. Most days would last 4-6 hours. It sometimes seemed interminable. Several times I wanted to quit. Grandma would bring me water and chat with me during breaks, always reminding me of the goal I had set. I got to a point of repetition that by summer’s end, I could run the drills for a few hours straight, and probably blindfolded, if I’d tried. I’d logged hundreds of hours getting to a better spot, and you could see it in my footwork, my confidence, and my steps. I made the team that Fall, and was a captain the following year. I’d have never attained those goals without exercising some patience. It was simply going to take some time and effort to get better.

Your Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets not only share a common home in the Pepsi Center, but they also share a very common story at this moment in their histories, as each of them is primarily comprised of young and homegrown talent that their teams took their lumps with in getting over some painful growth issues to become powerhouses in their respective leagues.

The Avs are the seventh-youngest team in the NHL, with only three players on the roster who have over 10 years experience. Though not every youngster on the team was drafted by Colorado, there are seven who are still on the roster, in Rookies Cale Makar and Adam Werner, second-year goalie Pavel Francouz, third-year forward Tyson Jost, fifth-year forward Mikko Rantanen, alternate Captain and sixth-year star forward Nathan MacKinnon, and ninth-year Captain and star forward Gabriel Landeskog in the mix, all originally brought into the league by Colorado. Though there have been some growing pains with that crew over the last several years, the homegrown talent is now the heart and soul of an Avalanche squad that finds itself in second place in the Central Division, even with injuries to six key players (including Landeskog, Rantanen, and Francouz). The Avs have built something special in Denver from scratch, and are now enjoying the fruits of that labor with several more special seasons possibly at hand. Colorado has found a lot of success via their own choices, something somewhat uncommon in today’s NHL.

Similarly, the Denver Nuggets seem to be particularly fond of home cooking as well, with Denver draftees making up nearly 70% of their current roster. Rookies Bol Bol and Vlatko Čančar have not had the opportunity to make an impact just yet, with redshirt rookie Michael Porter, Jr. already seeing some bright spots under the bright lights. His fellow draftee Jarred Vanderbilt has had a few shining moments of his own, following in the footsteps of now-impact players Monte Morris and Torrey Craig. The year prior, key contributions came along from Juancho Hernangomez, Malik Beasley, and especially from point guard Jamal Murray. Murray was only a year behind the draftee who might yet be Denver’s best player in history, Nikola Jokic, who had done a little overseas redshirting of his own after being drafted a round behind rock-star shooting guard Gary Harris. Fully 11 of Denver’s 16 players had their names called by Denver on draft night, an astounding number in comparison to most NBA squads.

As the Nuggets have continued to pursue this quest in continuity, one of the questions that is somewhat constantly posed to coach Michael Malone, GM Arturas Karnisovas, and President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly is how they have maintained their patience with this consistently young squad over the course of the last few bumpy seasons, always pressing forward with this ever-improving core. Though there are several key components to their answers, the phrase that constantly bubbles up is, “We don’t skip steps”, intimating that they are willing to wait for the reward of these long-term efforts, and understand that there are pains and lessons to be learned along the way, and say they have the full support of leadership to the very top of their food chain. It is not a massive leap to equate that same plan and nature to their icy siblings across the hall as well. Both teams ultimate leadership is exhibiting a lot of patience of their own.

Is it a coincidence that two of the most homegrown squads in their respective leagues are borne out of the same parent company? Or is it a tenet that Kroenke leadership has decided to hold dear to? Admittedly, it takes a lot of scouting, thought, skill, and luck to grow a successful organization from scratch, but after a ton of time, and a pallet of patience, home cooking is starting to whip up something pretty tasty nearly every night this year at the Pepsi Center. Where the trick now sits with each of their frothing fan bases is to show some of that patience of their own. Should both teams stick with their plan and not experience any catastrophic luck, they have put themselves in a position to be contenders for years to come. Do each of their fan bases have the ability to show a little patience of their own? Time will tell.