The Denver Nuggets have won 301 regular season games since 2020, the third-most in the league. They’ve always been a competitive team in the playoffs and brought home the franchise’s first championship in 2023. Thanks to the likes of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon and a collection of talented role players, this team has established a winning culture over the last five years.
While the team has won more games than every franchise besides Boston and Milwaukee in that span, they’ve still been missing an important player in the rotation, a center to backup Nikola Jokic and give the team 15 solid minutes off the bench. To solve that problem, EVP of Basketball Operations Ben Tenzer and EVP of Player Personnel Jonathan Wallace went out and traded for Jonas Valanciunas in one of the best NBA deals of the offseason.
Valanciunas, after an offseason filled with drama that he finally shut down at Media Day, has been with the Nuggets at training camp in San Diego, has been making moves at Nuggets practice this week, as he’s elevated the Nuggets’ depth to a level it needs to be at in order to compete for a championship.
After Thursday’s practice in Southern California, Valanciunas spoke to the media for the first time since he officially took the floor with his new teammates, and had plenty of great things to say about the organization, especially the culture.
“It’s a winning culture, no matter what we do. Simple drill, 3-on-3, 3-on-0, everybody’s trying to win,” Valanciunas said. “That’s the culture, and we’re gonna keep it going. That’s why we [were] brought here. Not just to spend some time, we have a mission. So, that’s why we’re working.”
Nuggets head coach David Adelman also had great things to say about his new big man on Thursday. After years of having to roll with Gordon, DeAndre Jordan, Demarcus Cousins or someone else as the backup to Jokic, he’s finally got a guy he can trust who can play with both the backups and the starters.
“[He’s a] legit center that you can play through… In the second period today, he played with Jamal, and they had really good synergy, alongside the shooting on the weak side, JV and Jamal playing together, that can be really dangerous.”
Murray has historically staggered his minutes at the start of the second quarter with the backups, but that was in Michael Malone’s rotation. If he’s able to click with Valanciunas, that will be how his minutes likely get staggered again this season. He’s going to get a big upgrade from playing with DeAndre Jordan in those minutes.
Denver’s final day of training camp is Friday as they prepare for the preseason opener against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night. That game will be Nuggets Nation’s first chance to see Valanciunas repping the Mile High City, and it tips off from Pechanga Arena at 7:00 p.m. MDT.
