What can Sean Payton and the Broncos learn from the Nuggets?
May 27, 2023, 11:24 AM
The Denver Nuggets are headed to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history. After a historic run in the playoffs, including a sweep of LeBron James and the Lakers, it’s apparent that this Nuggets team is special. It’s been years in the making, but they finally have made it to their first championship series.
Nikola Jokić, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon and this team have been playing at an elite level that no one could have expected. Can Sean Payton and Broncos take a page out of the Nuggets playbook and learn from this historic run?
The Broncos have been dull since 2015 when Peyton Manning retired after Super Bowl 50. They’ve been through 11 different quarterbacks, four different head coaches and an ownership change and have yet to be able to find success. After a heartbreaking 5-12 season with Russell Wilson, the Broncos ownership went all in and hired Payton to change this team and bring back that winning mentality once and for all.
The Walton-Penner group took over this organization knowing it had issues and that they would have to find long-term solutions to these problems. Could the Nuggets be an example of how they should approach building this team? The answer is yes.
The Nuggets have been organically building this team since 2015 when they drafted Jokić during a Taco Bell commercial. Since then, they’ve been adding young talent like Jamal Murray and Micheal Porter Jr. that they’ve developed over the last several years.
They built this team with young players and patience. The Nuggets knew it wasn’t going to be an easy road and remained patient. This team was not a pay-to-win team. They worked hard to get to this point and the Broncos need to do the same.
Over the lasts couple of years, Broncos general manager George Paton had been building a young roster that has a lot of talent. But unfortunately, the team fell into the trap of wanting to pay for success.
Last year when they traded and offered Wilson a massive deal, it was all in hopes that he would perform instantly and turn this team around. They didn’t take into account that you need to build a team from the ground up.
Broncos players and coaches need that time together to build those relationships and create chemistry that can translate onto the field. They need to go through the ups and downs as a team together before finding true success. The Nuggets were able to go through those ups and downs over the last couple of years and learn from their mistakes to make it to their first NBA Finals.
The Broncos need to understand that it’s not about the present, it needs to be about planning for the future and building a group that will be there long-term. Wilson struggled so badly last year because he was in a new system with new coaches for the first time in his professional career. He had to adjust to this new environment and build those relationships from scratch. There was always going to be an adjustment period with this team and no one gave them the benefit of the doubt.
This will be Wilson’s second year with most of these players and it’s the first step to making progress. He’s been able to learn their tendencies and adjust his play style to the strengths of the team.
Unfortunately, there’s still a long road ahead. It’s going to be another season of adjustment for Wilson as he adapts to a new head coach and offensive system. Payton and Wilson are going to go through those growing pains throughout the season as they figure each other out. They will need to build that chemistry and it’ll start to translate onto the field over time.
The Nuggets were able to organically build their team over several years and it’s a prime example of how teams need to develop. You can’t pay to win in this league anymore. It needs to be about getting young talent and developing them together as a team and the Broncos need to do the same.
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