Kentavious Caldwell-Pope's individual goal for this season: First Team All-Defense

Shouts of “First Team” echoed off the walls of the Nuggets’ locker room late Monday night. Collin Gillespie told those who were within earshot to “start the movement.”

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope collected his fourth Defensive Player of the Game chain in four tries following the Nuggets’ 110-102 win over the Jazz which moved Denver to 4-0 on the season.

His individual goals for this year, however, go beyond prized postgame bling.

“One of my goals is First Team All-Defense,” Caldwell-Pope said.

“I think the last three years or last five years, I feel like I haven’t been mentioned as far as defense at all. This year I’m going to make it hard for them, and they’re going to have to do something.”

Caldwell-Pope has never made an All-Defense team, but he’s off to a promising start this season.

In the Nuggets’ win last week in Memphis, Caldwell-Pope helped hold Desmond Bane to 4-17 shooting. During Denver’s blowout victory over the Thunder, he was the Nuggets’ primary assignment on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who Denver limited to just 7 points on 2-16 shooting.

Then Monday against the Jazz, he shut down Jordan Clarkson, who shot only 1-7 with Caldwell-Pope as his primary defender.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has been so, so good on defense to start the year pic.twitter.com/RD0BTHCqCg

— Matt Brooks (@MattBrooksNBA) October 27, 2023

He’s been the linchpin of a Nuggets defense that opened the season producing at a championship level. The Nuggets have allowed an average of 103.6 points per 100 possessions across their first four games this season, which is good for the fourth-best defense in the NBA so far.

That’s better than the 105.5 Defensive Rating that Denver posted in last year’s NBA Finals.

“I tried to tell them,” Caldwell-Pope said. “You’ve got to name (the DPOG chain) after me.”

You know the Nuggets are going to have an elite offense every year. That’s a given with Nikola Jokic, who tallied 27 points (12-16 FGs), 10 rebounds, 11 assists and 2 blocks vs. Utah, running the show and surrounded by this much talent.

But Denver’s defense, which in the regular season can be a night-to-night adventure with this group, has been stellar to open the 2023-24 campaign.

There’s been no championship hangover. There’s been no complacency. The Nuggets are hungry, motivated, and playing with even more desperation coming off last season’s championship.

I asked Denver’s DPOG chain keeper why that’s the case.

“Our mindset is we want to be unstoppable,” Caldwell-Pope told DNVR.

“This group just loves to play for each other. We love to play basketball. We love to just hoop. We love being in the gym and getting better. That makes a lot of difference for us. Everyone just wants to be great.”

That’s certainly the sense that you get with this team right now. The Nuggets don’t want to be known as a group that won just once. They want to do it again and again. They want to be acknowledged as a truly great team. That’s where a lot of where Denver’s early-season motivation is coming from.

Caldwell-Pope is a proponent of that mindset.

Hanging on the front of his locker is a poster with pictures of the 11-year pro that span most of his career. There’s a picture of Caldwell-Pope from high school. There’s one of him in a Georgia Bulldogs jersey. There’s a shot of him shaking David Stern’s hand on draft night and portraits of him playing for the Pistons and Nuggets.

The photos were compiled by Nuggets assistant coach Charles Klask, who was an assistant in Detroit when Caldwell-Pope played for the Pistons.

At the bottom of the poster are the words, “Don’t Be Average.”

“That’s a principle I live by,” Caldwell-Pope told DNVR.

Caldwell-Pope has carried that mentality into this season. He’s trying to perfect his role. He’s opened the year shooting 41.2% from 3-point range. His mid-range jumper has been cooking too. His defense, as always, has been on point. After all, it’s the biggest part of his job description.

So Caldwell-Pope welcomes the calls of “First Team” All-Defense from his teammates. He wants the “movement,” as Gillespie put it, to get going.

He wants his defense and this Nuggets team to be recognized as the best.

“They believe in my defense,” Caldwell-Pope said of his teammates. “Just to have that support behind me gives me even more fire.”