Kenneth Faried reflects on playing for Michael Malone, expectations for next season and more

Kenneth Faried talked with Bleacher Report last month at P3 (Peak Performance Project), an elite training facility in Santa Barabara, California and discussed the Nuggets disappointing 2015-16 campaign, the exciting talent on Denver’s roster, expectations for next season, and everything in between.

Faried is entering a pivotal 2016-17 season. His numbers plateaued last season as the 27-year-old averaged 12.5 points and 8.7 rebounds in 25.3 minutes per games, the fewest amount of minutes he’s played since his rookie season. Faried still shot a healthy 55.8 percent from the field but struggled defensively to first-year head coach Michael Malone’s chagrin.

Malone let it be known early on that if you’re not able to keep up defensively, you’re not going to play important minutes late in games. There were times during the first half of the season where Nikola Jokic was benched in the fourth quarter despite playing well offensively in favor of Darrell Arthur, as was the case for Faried, who ended up averaging less fourth-quarter minutes than Arthur throughout the year.

It’s a pivotal season for Faried in Denver. Expectations are much higher than they were last season and the Nuggets will need a huge contribution for Faried if they want to make a run for the eighth seed.

Here are some highlights from the interview.

Faried on his first year playing for Malone:

“First year, it was interesting. He’s a good coach. He coaches us up hard and tries to get us to go, but a lot of us are self-motivated, so he was just happy that we kept staying self-motivated throughout the whole year when it was looking bad for us. The times we could’ve thrown in the towel, we kept fighting, so that’s what I liked about him. He kept fighting with us.”

Faried on his mentors coming up in the league:

“Dennis Rodman. I love how he wasn’t afraid to be himself, either on the court or off the court. I think if he had social media back then, his platform would be crazy right now. He would be making money still for just the stuff he did back then, off his personality.”

“Charles Barkley. He’s got social media now. Back then, if he had it too, he was wild and crazy. I like guys who came from really nothing and were short and made something. Like Russell Westbrook. Everybody wondered why he got drafted fourth back then. They were like, “What the hell? Just not that good to be drafted No. 4 in that draft.” And he panned out. He’s better than a lot of the guys in that draft. Way better.”

Faried on expectations for next season:

“Hopefully, we take that big step and be like the Portland Trail Blazers were this year or be better than Phoenix was a couple years ago when they were really young and they were on the teeter-totter of making the playoffs. I’m excited to see.”

Faried on the Nuggets’ young talent:

“Those are my guys. They’re young, but they’re learning. They’re willing to put in the time, and I’m willing to help them. They look at me, and they ask me for advice and stuff … so I try to help them to the best of my abilities.”

Faried on Denver’s leadership:

“For me, it’s been Jameer Nelson and Randy Foye, but Randy’s gone now. It’s been more so Jameer Nelson and Mike Miller as the vocal guys in our locker room. They’ve been in the league way longer than me, so I get to take a seat back and watch.”

Faried on Emmanuel Mudiay‘s improvement over the course of his rookie year:

“I think he got way better over the year. At first, he was making rookie, young, nervous, still-learning mistakes. We all did that. Some more than others, some less. But he really turned it around when it came to March. He had a crazy March Madness for himself. You would think he was in college playing with how crazy it was for him. I was happy for him, though. I was proud of him. He worked for that.”

There’s more quality insight from Faried in the full interview with Bleacher Report’s Josh Martin here: