Each weekday, our DNVR Nuggets crew will be tackling one question about the Nuggets season in a round table format. Members, leave the questions that you’d like to see our writers answer in the comments section below and Harrison, Adam and Brendan will address them on an upcoming episode of the DNVR Nuggets Podcast.
What was the most memorable moment of the Nuggets’ season?
Adam Mares: Michael Porter Jr. against the Indiana Pacers
The most accurate answers to this question are either the night Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash or the night the NBA season was canceled. The Nuggets were at the forefront of both. When the Kobe news broke, word spread throughout Pepsi Center and the Denver Nuggets locker room for us all to see. When the season was canceled, the Nuggets were in the middle of a game against the Dallas Mavericks. Both nights will be nights I’ll never forget.
But for a more Nuggets specific moment, it has to be the night Michael Porter Jr. broke out. To me, that night was January 2nd, 2020. Porter was fresh off of his first start four nights earlier but it wasn’t until the game at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse that I was sold on Porter becoming a star. The 25 points on 11 of 12 shooting tell most of the story but it was the variety of ways that Porter scored that stood out. Offensive rebounds, transition buckets, spot-up three-pointers, dribble drives to beat the shot clock, and what has become his patented step back three. From that point forward, Denver’s long-term trajectory changed. They had a second (maybe third?) superstar in the making.
Harrison Wind: The night of the trade
For me, it wasn’t a game-winner, a Nikola Jokic full-court Hail Mary heave or any sequence that happened in between the lines. My most memorable moment from this season came in the Nuggets’ locker room around 30 minutes after Denver thrashed the visiting Trail Blazers 127-99. The trade deadline was imminent and just over 12 hours away, and players were convening at each other’s lockers and discussing the latest rumors.
After the media had entered, Juancho Hernangomez was on his phone. He showered, dressed and began to leave the arena while Torrey Craig, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt huddled at Vanderbilt’s locker and discussed the latest trade rumors that they were hearing through their respective agents. They soon all departed as the details of the four-team trade was being reported in real time.
Around 15 minutes after the full trade had been leaked which sent Hernangomez, Beasley and Vandebrilt to Minnesota, Will Barton was the only one left in the Nuggets’ locker room. As he conducted his postgame media availability, Beasley returned to Denver’s locker room and waited just outside the semi-circle of media flanked around Barton. After Barton finished, the two shared an emotional hug that lasted around 60 seconds. It was an embrace that represented the nearly four seasons that the two had spent together in Denver, the battles they went through on the practice court and the wins and losses the two had shared. Beasley’s mom returned to the locker room with her son too.
“He’s going to drop 50 on y’all,” Deena Beasley said to anyone within earshot.
Hernangomez returned shortly thereafter.
“Where’s Joker? Where’s Joker?” he asked, hoping to say a final goodbye to his best friend on the team before boarding a flight to Minnesota in the morning.
Nikola Jokic had already left for the night.
It was a surreal evening but it was easy to forget that earlier that night the Nuggets beat the Trail Blazers by 28 points. Jokic had a masterful performance, finishing with 29 points, 13 rebounds and nine assists. Beasley chipped in 14 points off the bench while Hernangomez added seven points and 11 rebounds in 28 minutes, the most he had played since Nov. 17.
We later learned from Hernangomez in an emotional media address where the forward thanked the Nuggets organization and front office for drafting him and making his dream of playing in the NBA come true, that he had to petition the Nuggets front office and Michael Malone to let him play that night. Denver wanted hold him out to ensure he wouldn’t suffer an injury which would throw off any trade that could be agreed upon. He told the Nuggets that he wanted to go out fighting for a win.
“It was for me like the great goodbye,” Hernangomez said.
Indeed it was.
Brendan Vogt: the night it ended
In a regular basketball season, the night ‘The Seven’ walked into Utah, and out with a win might be my answer. A close second might be standing in the locker room when learning of the deadline trade that sent Juancho Hernangomez, Malik Beasley, and Jarred Vanderbilt to Minnesota. But this was far from a regular basketball season.
Both of those nights will fade from my memory over time, essential details slipping through my fingers like sand. The impact they’ll leave on me pales in comparison to that of two events that are sure to stick with us all.
There’s a threshold of surreality that, when crossed, effectively sears any given experience or state of affairs into one’s brain. The memory of these events and the accompanying emotions will remain somewhat accessible for most of our conscious experience.
“Do you remember where you were when?”
I remember where I was when news broke of the tragic helicopter accident that took the life of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven others. I remember watching players, media members, and fans, learn, and react to the news in real-time. That night will stick with me. Yet, somehow, it’s not the most memorable night of the regular season.
The night we learned the NBA would suspend its season indefinitely, as the Nuggets played on national television, and a large portion of the country began to realize the significance of the events we’re currently navigating — that’s a night I will never forget.
