"He understands what makes people tick": A firsthand look at Calvin Booth's strengths

When Arturas Karnivos spoke, the rest of the Nuggets’ front office made sure to listen.

Denver’s former general manager commanded that type of respect no matter what basketball circle he found himself in. His basketball acumen — Karnisovas was a four-year starter at Seton Hall and went on to have a legendary career playing for Lithuania and professionally in Europe — spoke for itself.

Calvin Booth worked under Karnivoas for the last two seasons as the Nuggets’ assistant general manager. He possesses much of the same basketball ingenuity that Karnisovas has, according to Nuggets VP of strategy and analytics Tommy Balcetis who’s worked alongside Booth since 2017.

On the DNVR Nuggets Podcast, Balcetis discussed the ways in which Booth is similar to his Karnisovas, what it’s like to work with him day-to-day, what Denver lost when Karnisovas took the Bulls’ job, and much more.

Here’s an excerpt from the episode

What dynamic did Arturas Karnisovas bring to the front office?

“First of all his basketball savvy. The guy has been such a high level player. We’re all big basketball fans and we all understand basketball in the front office, but when you have somebody who’s been such a high level player, and none of us have except for maybe Calvin who played in the league. None of us have had that on-court success. AK was one of the more successful guys in that regard. When he watches players, when he talks about players, your ears perk up because he knows what he’s talking about because he played against those guys. He played with those guys, not those specific players but those specific profiles. He’s like, ‘Hey, I’ve seen this profile succeed.’ So we’re like, ‘OK. Fair, right? You’ve obviously done you’re work.’  So I think he brought a lot of basketball savvy which is extremely important and when you have on-court experience I think it really translates well into front office work.

“He brought a lot of organizational abilities having worked at the league office, having worked in Houston. He had a unique way of organizing the front office which was great. The information flow was done in a successful way. Everybody was always communicated with, everybody knew what was going on, and I think he did a really good job kind of structuring our front office in the right way. Tim (Connelly) obviously has those skills as well but Tim, he knows a lot about everything. He’s such a creative thinker. It’s just very rare to meet somebody like that, and AK was able to hone Tim’s skills into kind of a more productive way of doing things. So I think they worked extremely well together and we’ll miss him a lot.”

You’ve worked with Calvin Booth for two seasons. What’s he like to work with day-to-day?

“He’s first and foremost one of my closest friends. Calvin is the absolute best. His emotional IQ is probably the best I’ve seen in the many people that I’ve known. Him and Tim’s. He has a really high emotional IQ. He understands what makes people tick, and how to have them produce to the maximum of their abilities. That’s what Cal is really good at. I think he knows what people are good at and he tries to encourage more of that from them while also working on their weaknesses. I think he’s just a really, really good people’s person.

“Obviously he played in the league for a long time. He knows basketball. That’s kind of besides the point. I think he has a very good instinct. When he watches players, him and I actually end up agreeing and disagreeing on the same guys all the time. It’s almost kind of fun when we don’t agree on something so we can have a legitimate conversation. But we do end up sitting there and being like, ‘Oh yeah, we both like the guy. Alright, Preaching to the choir.’ I love the way he looks at players and what he thinks a good player should be. I’m learning a ton from him.

How are him and Arturas different in their approach to their job?

“I think they’re more similar than different. Both have been great basketball players so when you sit down their basketball instincts I think are in many ways similar. Obviously AK played in the 90’s, Cal a little later than AK. So when they look at different players you can kind of tell that sometimes they would disagree about a specific profile but more often than not they would agree. They like length, they like IQ, and things like that. So it’s kind of hard to find too many differences. AK perhaps focuses more as I mentioned on the organizational and structural side. I think Cal, not that he doesn’t have it, but is a little more of an instinctual thinker. He kind of again focuses more on people’s strengths and weaknesses, not that AK doesn’t.

“They’re way more similar than different because I think both of them respect and love Tim a lot and they take a lot of their strengths from Tim. And Tim has been able to influence both of them in many ways and they have influenced Tim as well.”