Big Honey: What the Nuggets Can Teach Us About Forging a Countercultural Path to Success

Three lessons the Denver Nuggets can teach everyone about achieving goals--even if you're not a sporty type!

The Denver Nuggets' postseason dominance caught many by surprise, judging from the dumbfounded ESPN commentary and stunned court-side celebrities, particularly during the Western Conference Championship against the Lakers. Adele looked like she was about to belt a somber ballad to accompany the moody footage of LeBron James retreating into the tunnel after a third consecutive loss. There's a script called The Lake Show that everyone was supposed to follow, with the Lakers delivering another one of the beatdowns they previously administered Denver every time the Nuggets managed to poke a toe into the Western Conference finals since 1985.

The Lakers were following the consensus formula for success: spend a lot of money, assemble some big stars, give those big stars all the opportunities, and power/fame your way to a win. But this year the Nuggets had a countervailing superpower: generosity. The Nuggets’ approach went beyond teamwork, because teamwork can mean everyone coordinating to create opportunities for the team's best player. The Nuggets' style made it possible for any player to be the team's best, on any given play, in any given quarter, or any given game.

Nuggets’ Lesson 1: In Zero Sum Games, Everyone Loses

Our country stepped out of Covid lockdown into a miasma of crankiness and mistrust, and many people seem to treat every interaction as a zero sum game. Our screens are dominated by school board meeting hooligans, egocentric congresspeople, unhinged billionaires, book bannings, and showboats in every field. The spectacle of selfishness is so pervasive that at times it's difficult to remember there's another way to be.

The Nuggets won the NBA championship for the first time in franchise history because of their relentless generosity toward each other. Time after time players chose to forgo taking a good shot themselves in favor of setting up a better shot for a teammate.

The Nuggets' leader in this self-effacing style of play was two-time NBA MVP Nicola Jokić. Even though it's within Jokić's power to produce a 53-point outburst as he did in a game four loss to the Suns in the Western Conference semifinals, he clearly prefers to help someone else score rather than take a shot himself. After game three in the semifinals, TNT commentator Ernie Johnson informed Jokić that he'd just passed Wilt Chamberlain for the most triple doubles by a center.

"Nice!" Jokić said, "Where is Shaq in that? Is Shaq on that list?"

"No, because I never passed, Big Honey," Shaq said, using a nickname one of Jokić's teammates gave him for his smooth, sweet playing style.

Unlike many traditional centers and stars, Jokić relishes passing, specializing in tricky dishes that helped earn him his other nickname, the Joker. He also seems to enjoy setting picks, an aspect of the game that most who've played it don't find all that pleasant—sacrificing your body so your teammate can use it as a bulwark and find a way to break free. Jokić sets screens with alacrity, collecting an assortment of florid gashes on his arms as defenders try to claw their way around him. He prefers to be the architect of the play rather than its object. Jokić displayed how success can arise from uplifting the people around you and helping them do their best rather than prioritizing your own gain.

Nuggets’ Lesson 2: Stick with Good People When They’re Down

Nikola Jokić is surrounded by a team of hungry second-chancers, who've had years to grow close, a rarity in this era. The core group of Jokić, Jamal Murray, and Michael Porter Jr. have been together since 2016, with Porter Jr. rehabbing through a third back surgery and Murray through an ACL tear since then. Joined by Aaron Gordon and Jeff Green in 2021, Bruce Brown, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Christian Braun in 2022, these eight players seek ways to give their teammates opportunities on every play.

Jamal Murray missed the whole 2021-2022 season because of a knee injury, and coach Michael Malone shared that the day after the injury, Murray looked at him with “tears in his eyes” and asked if he was going to be traded because he was “damaged goods.” Malone told him, “Hell no, you’re ours. We love you, we’re going to help you get back, and you’re going to be a better player for it.”

Having faith in good people, and sticking with them through difficult times was key to the Nuggets’ success. Murray, who at times in this series seemed to be playing in a fourth dimension accessible only to him, is talented enough he could choose to act as a lone-wolf superstar, but he's never disengaged from the Nuggets' generosity dynamic.

No member of the Nuggets is throwaway—no matter how far down the bench a player sits, how old or young he is, when he's on the court, his teammates view him as a possibility. None of them play keep-away from a teammate who's had an off night; they've seen each other turn momentum around too often to ever stop trusting that a pass to that teammate is a good bet.

Nuggets’ Lesson 3: Small Self-Sacrifices Accrue for Mutual Benefit

During each game of the playoffs, the Nuggets evinced magnanimity, communication, turn-taking, optimism, courtesy, and respect. Watch them play and you can remember what it was like to trust the people around you, to want to set others up for their chance to excel, to stay quiet when you might blurt, to share when you might hoard. The Nuggets showed us how small self-sacrifices have a way of accruing for great mutual benefit. This is the balm of Denver's after-you ball: the way they play looks like they love each other. As Jamal Murray put it in an interview after their sweep of the Lakers, "We can do everything together."

It’s so rewarding to play in an atmosphere like this that Bruce Brown, who contributed several clutch performances and could stand to earn a huge payday as he becomes a free agent next season, instead told the Denver Post that he’d take less money so he can stay with the Nuggets. “It’s a perfect fit,” he said. “And money is not everything. The money will come. So I’m not worried about that right now.”

Denver interrupted The Lake Show to bring the nation what those of us from Denver call Nugg Life, a state of being that has come in a variety of flavors over the years—usually involving a series of unlucky breaks that have kept the Nuggets out of the finals for 47 years—but that always held at its core the idea that we would never give up on our team.

Let the Nuggets’ championship romp teach us how to give and go for each other again.

The Assorted Whimsy Portion of The Tumbleweed

A few weeks ago, I experienced a very important milestone in my life: Chuck D, the legendary MC of Public Enemy, followed me on Twitter.

.Then I was afraid to tweet for a while. What could I possibly say that would be worth Mr. Chuck D’s time? Finally I just started tweeting away again about the Nuggets and books and stuff, and so he has probably unfollowed me (I can’t bear to check), but I’ll always have the screenshots!

Whether or not Chuck D continues to follow me on Twitter, I recently had an important brush with fame. I was in the waiting room of the maintenance department at Boulder Nissan, and I spotted my first novel in the dealership’s book exchange:

I remained calm and refrained from pointing it out to the auto mechanic. "Well actually, I wrote that book, the one on its side just a few rows down from the Jesmyn Ward." But, I couldn’t help but mention it to you.

Now that I’m famous at Boulder Nissan, I’ll need a fancy gown to wear around town, and during the Nuggets’ playoff run, I found these for sale on the corner of 38th & Federal.

They come in three colors so coordinate with your girls.

The Book Recommendation Portion of The Tumbleweed

This year the Pulitzer Prize in fiction was awarded to two books, a move I liked a whole lot better than when they decided not to give it to anyone in 2012. I’ve got Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead on my to-read list, and I’ve already devoured the other winner, Trust by Hernan Díaz.

“Trust” with my favorite garden irises.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning novel doesn’t need a recommendation from me to find readers, but I couldn’t resist suggesting this one, because it’s a book I’ve already recommended to my mom, who I think will like Díaz’s old-fashioned, psychological, Henry James-inspired writing style, and that I also plan to recommend to a student of mine who loves books that take risks with time and structure. It’s so rare to find a book that will please readers who love a good, old-fashioned, straightforward story, and those who love fancy literary tricks and time jumps.

The Happenings & Links Portion of The Tumbleweed

• In honor of Pride month, I want to point Tumbleweed readers toward a fantastic resource created by one of my former students, Melissa McKinney. As a part of the Mile High MFA degree, we require our students to come up with a “Writing in the World” plan: an action they can take or resource they can provide to contribute to the literary community. (See, generosity is the key!) Melissa was disheartened by how many books she was reading that featured tragic endings for LGBTQ characters. She was determined to write her own LGBTQ love story with a happy ending, and create a website to recommend LGBTQ books for young readers with positive depictions of the characters’ lives. So check out Positively Empowered By Literature for some great recommendations, and find it on Facebook too!

  

• After rolling out last month’s edition of The Tumbleweed, in which I honored the memory my high school basketball coach Kathryn Kindle, I felt that more people should know about her legacy, so I contacted some journalists, and Catie Cheshire of Westword came through with a wonderful profile of the legendary Denver coach.

• From July 21 to 30 I’ll be teaching in the Mile High MFA summer residency, and participating in a reading on July 25 that’s free and open to the public, at Regis University’s Claver Hall, 6 pm.

• On Saturday, September 30, I’ll be participating in the Counterpath Indie Press Author Meet and Greet at Counterpath Press in Denver, along with many other writers with books published with small presses. The talented writer Hillary Leftwich is organizing it. Watch this space for more details.