To understand the story of Tim Hardaway Jr.’s surprise emergence as an NBA awards candidate in Denver, you have to start with the origins of his role.
Nuggets coach David Adelman wanted to be transparent with him and fellow veteran guard Bruce Brown. He wanted them both coming off the bench nightly. No matter the situation. No matter the positional shortage Denver’s starting lineup might be facing. It was an unorthodox arrangement, one that involved younger and less established bench players appearing, at surface level, to leapfrog them in the roster hierarchy. Adelman laid out his reasoning for them early in the season.
“There were multiple reasons for it,” he recounted before a recent road game. “Protecting their bodies, both guys, (and) trying to get them to the finish line here. I didn’t want to play Tim 38 minutes a game. You can have your younger guys step in and take those first six minutes. It minimizes the minutes.”
That was the practical side of it. Then there was Adelman’s instinct.
“In my heart, I thought, ‘This is gonna be our bench when it matters,’” he continued. “And Tim and Bruce, I wanted them to play together as much as possible. Don’t break them up. Keep a rhythm. … It just made sense to me. Let’s give other people opportunities to play with Jamal (Murray). He can somewhat protect guys; they also gain confidence as starters. But we knew that Tim and Bruce would finish most of the game.”
Adelman had also watched Hardaway’s career long enough to know he wasn’t lacking in confidence. The minutiae of his substitution pattern at the beginning of a game wouldn’t bruise his ego, his insatiable yearning to shoot the basketball that Denver desperately needed. “The ball’s gonna come right back to you,” Hardaway rationalizes, “whether you like it or not.”
In a Nuggets season often defined by injuries, he has been one of their few constants. And he has remained a constant off the bench in particular. Starting only five of the 70 games he’s played for Denver, Hardaway has persisted as a candidate for NBA Sixth Man of the Year. After fueling a fourth-quarter comeback win for the Nuggets (43-28) on Friday night, the 33-year-old guard admitted the accolade has been on his mind as a source of motivation.
In a 13-year career, he’s never taken home any hardware.
“If I was sitting here saying I wasn’t thinking about that, I would be lying, you know? I do think about that,” he said. “When I came here, that was one of my goals. But also, it comes with team success. And I know that. … I’m just going out there and letting my play do the talking, and whatever happens, happens. Whoever’s deserving of the award, they’ll get the award and deserve it most. But I definitely want to, you now, stitch my name to that little category right there.”
Hardaway has appeared on Sixth Man ballots in the past. He finished top-10 in voting twice with the Dallas Mavericks and once with the Hawks. He’s been regarded as a fringe contender for most of this season, next to candidates including Miami’s Jaime Jaquez, Minnesota’s Naz Reid, San Antonio’s Keldon Johnson and Oklahoma City’s Ajay Mitchell.
But this is perhaps the best case Hardaway has ever built for himself on paper. His 7-for-10 outside shooting performance Friday against Toronto improved his season 3-point percentage to a career-high 40.9%. He’s 13 away from a career-best in made 3s as well. He’s attempted the 14th-most in the league this season, helping elevate the Nuggets from dead last in attempts as a team to 21st. Only two players have outpaced him in both volume and efficiency: Hornets rookie Kon Knueppel (68 starts) and ex-Nugget turned Phoenix Sun Collin Gillespie (50 starts).
“I don’t know how he’s not in the race,” Murray said. “Just scoring in bunches. Still playing defense. Still bringing intensity on defense, being physical. He’s not just coming in and just making shots. He’s doing a lot. He’s talking. He’s into the game. He’s into the ball. He’s engaged in every shot. He’s engaged in every opportunity he has. He’s a starter out there.”
In spirit, anyway. Hardaway’s embrace of the bench role has been essential to his production. He says he recognized what Adelman was trying to accomplish with the rotation, fresh off a season in which Denver lacked a consistent scoring punch in the second unit. “I think (it was) just having some offensive power, some spark coming off (the bench),” the veteran said. Subsequently, the real sign of trust from Adelman has been his willingness to close games with Hardaway, who’s often the hot hand.
He’s logged 123 clutch minutes this season, third-most on the team behind Nikola Jokic and Murray. As clunky as the Nuggets have been in those situations, they’re only a minus-one in Hardaway’s clutch minutes. Even when he never touches the ball, his ability to keep help defenders honest is what matters to Adelman and the team’s two stars. Space to operate is paramount.
When the Lakers did sag off of him in the weak-side corner last week, he punished them with what should have been a game-winning shot on the receiving end of a Jokic dime.
It was the type of high-stakes moment Hardaway had envisioned last July, when he spent 15 minutes on the phone with newly hired Nuggets lead assistant coach Jared Dudley. The conversation heightened Hardaway’s temptation to pick Denver among a handful of suitors in free agency. He had just finished a season of starting for a playoff team in Detroit. The Nuggets could only promise him a bench role, a veteran’s minimum salary and a green light to fire away.
“His confidence level, it never wavers, which is a talent I think we all wish we had in certain parts of life,” Adelman said Friday. “And in basketball, that’s what he has. He firmly believes after he misses, the next five are going to go in. He is a green light player. I’ll never bat an eye if he takes a shot.”
Adelman’s mission to save his legs has been successful so far. Hardaway has played all but one game, but he’s averaging 27.1 minutes — his second-fewest in the last 10 seasons.
Those minutes have been backloaded within each game as Adelman intended when he first approached Hardaway and Brown with a rotation plan months ago.
“Someone has to sacrifice, you know? For the team, for everybody,” Hardaway said. “So sometimes it was Bruce. Sometimes it was myself. But yeah, all in all, it was a rhythm thing, just embracing that role, knowing that (was) what I needed to do before I even got here in the summer. So just embracing that and trying to go out there and give the best spark I can.”
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