Josh Kroenke on Building Successful Teams, Realizing How Special Jokic Is, and Drafting MPJ

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat hip hop music)

00:00:03.240 | - Welcome to another episode of Curious Mike.

00:00:10.520 | I'm here with Josh Kronke, fellow Columbia, Missourian.

00:00:14.660 | I appreciate you on the podcast, man.

00:00:16.520 | - Absolutely, man.

00:00:17.360 | - I know you don't do a lot of media, so I appreciate it.

00:00:18.920 | - No, man, it's my pleasure to be here,

00:00:20.540 | especially like, as you said,

00:00:21.640 | with a fellow Columbia, Missourian.

00:00:23.060 | - Yes, sir.

00:00:23.900 | - We're a rare breed up here.

00:00:25.080 | - We are a rare breed, yeah.

00:00:26.640 | I wanna start off a little bit with your childhood

00:00:29.560 | because I find it interesting.

00:00:31.020 | You know, growing up,

00:00:33.200 | your father was obviously already very wealthy.

00:00:35.240 | I don't know if it was to the point that it is now,

00:00:37.720 | but like you, just being around you

00:00:40.280 | and how down to earth you are,

00:00:41.880 | I find that intriguing just in the way you came up.

00:00:44.000 | So talk a little bit about, you know, growing up,

00:00:48.040 | regular things like high school and things like that.

00:00:50.260 | Talk about your childhood.

00:00:52.280 | - Well, yeah, I mean, and you know,

00:00:53.960 | as we affectionately say back home, Como, very well.

00:00:57.600 | And I was born and raised in Central Missouri,

00:01:00.320 | Columbia to be exact.

00:01:01.760 | And yeah, I mean, I do come from a background

00:01:05.020 | where I've been financially secure,

00:01:06.600 | very secure my entire life.

00:01:08.200 | But, you know, my parents,

00:01:11.160 | I think they did an unbelievable job

00:01:13.600 | of raising both my older sister and I

00:01:15.720 | to understand that, you know,

00:01:18.360 | to feel blessed in the position that we're in,

00:01:20.640 | but don't let it define you in any way.

00:01:23.200 | We're all humans

00:01:24.120 | and we're all kind of going through this experience

00:01:26.520 | in our own kind of different versions

00:01:28.840 | of how we're experiencing life.

00:01:30.200 | And, but being from Columbia, I think is a,

00:01:33.760 | it's a college town.

00:01:35.760 | There's a lot of really good people in there.

00:01:37.640 | And, you know, the sport of basketball really is the thing

00:01:41.960 | that really kind of kept me grounded, you know,

00:01:45.080 | going through junior high and high school

00:01:47.480 | and then playing in Mizzou.

00:01:50.200 | You know, you experience people from all walks of life.

00:01:52.680 | And so some of my best friends from a very early age,

00:01:55.480 | I understood didn't come from as fortunate

00:01:57.280 | of a background as myself,

00:01:59.320 | from a two-parent home, from a financially secure home.

00:02:02.040 | And so I understand, or I understood at an early age

00:02:05.240 | how fortunate I was.

00:02:06.640 | And my parents didn't ever let me forget that.

00:02:08.840 | - Yeah.

00:02:09.960 | Yeah, I find, I think about it all the time,

00:02:11.720 | like even raising kids of my own one day,

00:02:14.480 | like people always talk about once you make money,

00:02:18.080 | you want to make money for your kids, kids,

00:02:19.800 | and all these things.

00:02:20.640 | But when you really think about it,

00:02:22.480 | I think about like, would I be here today

00:02:24.040 | if I had parents who were very stable?

00:02:26.920 | One of the things that pushed me to even be successful

00:02:29.240 | is the fact that I had, you know, my family,

00:02:31.680 | I have seven siblings, my mom was a stay-at-home mom,

00:02:34.360 | you know, I wanted to make it so that they could be okay.

00:02:37.320 | So I just find that interesting

00:02:39.360 | when people just stay super down to earth,

00:02:41.280 | regardless of their circumstances.

00:02:42.960 | - Yeah, and for me, there was also a motivation to,

00:02:46.480 | with the basketball part, to kind of forge my own identity.

00:02:49.320 | - Right.

00:02:50.440 | - You know, being in Columbia, and it is a college town,

00:02:52.880 | but it's a small town in certain ways.

00:02:55.520 | And so, you know, being around sports,

00:02:57.840 | I realized that I could forge my own identity

00:03:00.200 | in the shadow of kind of my father, my grandfather,

00:03:03.000 | my parents, and all the success that they've had.

00:03:05.800 | And so sports was a big impact on me.

00:03:08.480 | - Do you feel like you had to become at an early age,

00:03:10.520 | like a very good judge of character,

00:03:12.240 | even like just with friends that you would hang around,

00:03:14.280 | but you know, when it comes to dating or girls,

00:03:16.400 | like, is that something you felt

00:03:17.880 | like you had to develop pretty early on?

00:03:19.880 | - Yeah, you know, I don't think I'm the sharpest tool

00:03:24.160 | in the shed when it comes to certain things,

00:03:26.160 | but you know, I think my EQ and reading people,

00:03:29.000 | I'm fairly decent at it.

00:03:30.480 | You know, I remember being in like fourth grade,

00:03:34.520 | and I just moved into a new house.

00:03:37.320 | And I remember overhearing someone in the lunch line

00:03:41.960 | saying they wanted to become my friend

00:03:44.000 | so they could come see my house, my parents' house.

00:03:46.880 | And so when you're that little, it's interesting,

00:03:48.920 | 'cause it kind of takes you back

00:03:50.000 | because it's not anything

00:03:50.960 | that you've ever really thought about,

00:03:53.240 | but it does, you know, put your guard up in certain ways.

00:03:56.800 | And so, you know, I've had to do a lot of personal work

00:03:59.960 | on trust and understanding that, you know,

00:04:04.960 | not everybody's out to get you.

00:04:07.240 | Not everybody's guilty until proven innocent, you know.

00:04:11.160 | But when it comes to relationships with other people,

00:04:13.000 | and especially relationships with women,

00:04:14.400 | I did have to, you know, overcome some certain fears

00:04:16.960 | in myself because there are good people in this world,

00:04:21.280 | not everybody's out to get you.

00:04:22.400 | And so reading that and understanding that,

00:04:24.940 | giving people the benefit of the doubt,

00:04:26.340 | but also being slightly guarded, you know,

00:04:29.080 | that was definitely something I had to develop over time,

00:04:31.000 | but very early on.

00:04:32.640 | - Yeah, it's a hurdle, I think, even, you know,

00:04:35.360 | that I go through.

00:04:36.680 | - Yeah.

00:04:37.520 | - And I've noticed, you know, even like being around you

00:04:38.820 | at the Super Bowl, which was amazing,

00:04:41.720 | you're still around a lot of the same people

00:04:43.920 | that you kind of grew up with,

00:04:44.760 | like hearing them talk and talk about you and stuff

00:04:47.000 | and how proud they were of you.

00:04:48.200 | And their stories were always like,

00:04:49.420 | "I've known Josh forever."

00:04:51.240 | So I think it's cool that you kind of stay around

00:04:53.200 | the same people that you grew up with.

00:04:54.040 | - Yeah, you know, we've, and I've still got a few buddies

00:04:56.720 | that I grew up playing basketball with.

00:04:57.980 | Kareem, I think was at, Kareem Rush was at the game.

00:05:00.640 | But yeah, I mean, you know, I think, you know,

00:05:04.160 | as life evolves, and I have friends that I've just made

00:05:06.400 | within the last few years

00:05:08.280 | that have become good friends of mine.

00:05:09.640 | But I do have a core group of guys

00:05:11.280 | and a group of friends from back home.

00:05:14.600 | Definitely from Mizzou, a couple of guys from Kansas City

00:05:18.860 | and guys that I just kind of was grew up around

00:05:21.000 | from late teens to early 20s

00:05:22.480 | and a lot of formative years in there.

00:05:23.880 | And I think it's important to, you know,

00:05:26.960 | stay in touch with people, understand that people grow

00:05:29.440 | and they sometimes they grow apart,

00:05:30.840 | but you always have a little bit of a bond

00:05:32.680 | and check in with people

00:05:33.920 | because you never know what people are going through.

00:05:35.600 | - A hundred percent.

00:05:36.440 | - Yeah.

00:05:37.260 | - And basketball was a big part of your childhood.

00:05:38.880 | Talk about, you know, going to Mizzou,

00:05:42.080 | were you nice?

00:05:43.440 | Were you like, were you, you actually got buckets?

00:05:46.160 | Were you nice?

00:05:47.000 | How was that?

00:05:47.840 | - Well, I definitely wasn't getting buckets like you,

00:05:49.000 | trust me on that one.

00:05:50.040 | But yeah, I mean, I was like a top 50,

00:05:53.920 | top 75 recruit in high school.

00:05:56.680 | Went to Rockbridge in Columbia

00:05:58.400 | and actually my senior year, I hurt my knee.

00:06:02.520 | I didn't tear my ACL, but I had my left kneecap

00:06:06.600 | with sublux and kind of come out of the alignment.

00:06:09.400 | And so I had to have it scoped

00:06:11.320 | and I came back way too soon

00:06:13.040 | because I really wanted to play, it was my senior year.

00:06:15.840 | And so, but I could tell that I wasn't right.

00:06:18.240 | And so after the season was over,

00:06:19.960 | I took a little time and thought about it.

00:06:22.960 | And I did, I did decided to do a fifth year

00:06:24.560 | and went to prep school.

00:06:25.680 | - Okay.

00:06:26.680 | - I was, I didn't turn 18 until right when I graduated.

00:06:29.560 | So I was kind of a little bit young for my grade,

00:06:31.760 | even though it was still the correct,

00:06:33.200 | correct position for me to be in.

00:06:34.480 | And so I did a post-grad year in New Hampshire

00:06:37.440 | where I got stronger, got my knee healthy again

00:06:41.160 | and really got my bounce back

00:06:42.880 | and then came back to play at Mizzou in the fall of '99.

00:06:46.400 | And that was when there was a change in coaching.

00:06:49.720 | And we went, Quinn Snyder was hired.

00:06:52.720 | And so yeah, Quinn, he was, and he's still coaching

00:06:56.520 | and having a great career coaching in the NBA today.

00:06:58.760 | And he, I learned so much from being around him

00:07:02.720 | and around the program.

00:07:04.440 | We had some, we had a little bit of success

00:07:05.880 | and I started the first half of my junior and senior years

00:07:09.400 | but there was always, you know,

00:07:10.640 | more talented guys behind me.

00:07:12.280 | - Who was on that team, I'm trying to think.

00:07:14.520 | - My junior year, excuse me, my red shirt sophomore year,

00:07:17.320 | we made the Elite Eight, we lost to Oklahoma.

00:07:19.240 | That was as far as we made in the tournament.

00:07:21.000 | I thought we were gonna beat them,

00:07:21.960 | but they had a really good team, Hollis Price.

00:07:24.720 | And then, but on our squad, that was Kareem Rush,

00:07:29.120 | Clarence Gilbert, Arthur Johnson, Ricky Paulding.

00:07:33.720 | And then my later years, my junior year,

00:07:37.560 | I started half the year and then got beat out,

00:07:40.120 | rightfully so, by a guy named Jimmy McKinney

00:07:42.440 | from St. Louis, great player.

00:07:44.320 | And then my senior year,

00:07:45.480 | we had another young two guard named Thomas Gardner,

00:07:48.200 | played in the pros for a year or two.

00:07:49.560 | But by the end of my senior year,

00:07:51.840 | my knees were really hurting.

00:07:52.960 | I had another surgery on my right knee.

00:07:55.320 | And so I was just kind of,

00:07:57.040 | I was in a state of flux where I loved the game.

00:08:00.120 | But, you know, being so committed at the collegiate level,

00:08:02.360 | I didn't have the opportunity to really do a lot

00:08:04.400 | in the summer times, like from a professional standpoint

00:08:06.720 | and thinking about the rest of life.

00:08:08.440 | And so I had a couple offers to play in Europe,

00:08:10.280 | but I passed them up and got into the real world,

00:08:14.640 | so to speak.

00:08:15.480 | And it's been fun.

00:08:17.400 | I did an internship right out of school

00:08:20.160 | with the NBA league office.

00:08:21.760 | And that was eye-opening on a lot of levels

00:08:24.620 | because it shows you how the league operates

00:08:27.560 | and how big of a business it really is.

00:08:31.040 | You know, when you're at the league level,

00:08:32.140 | you're not dealing at the team level.

00:08:33.760 | It's all business all the time.

00:08:36.080 | It was also very humbling

00:08:37.160 | because I was in the player programs department

00:08:40.800 | and under Chris Achin, who I'm sure you know as well.

00:08:44.240 | She was at the league at the time,

00:08:45.360 | and Chris is a wonderful, wonderful person.

00:08:47.720 | And she taught me a lot while I was there.

00:08:50.280 | And she was, our group was in charge

00:08:52.480 | of the rookie transition program.

00:08:54.360 | - Okay, yeah. - And so.

00:08:55.200 | - Yeah, out in New York, right?

00:08:56.720 | - Yep, yep.

00:08:58.040 | And so the rookie transition program kind of is,

00:09:01.160 | you know, for those that might not be familiar with it,

00:09:03.540 | is a, you know, kind of a crash course

00:09:06.200 | in how to be an adult.

00:09:07.220 | That's just, you know, for better or worse.

00:09:09.540 | And I went from competing against all those guys

00:09:13.580 | about three months prior.

00:09:15.300 | - Yeah.

00:09:16.140 | - And then now I was the one making copies

00:09:18.000 | and making sure everybody was on time.

00:09:20.560 | And I would see these guys and have to say hello,

00:09:22.500 | and they knew who I was

00:09:23.340 | 'cause we competed against each other,

00:09:24.540 | but I was completely on the other side of it.

00:09:26.660 | - Yeah.

00:09:27.500 | - And so that was, it was very humbling right away.

00:09:30.100 | But you could see, you know, the growth

00:09:31.940 | that really took place in myself

00:09:34.420 | over those few years in New York.

00:09:36.060 | I did the internship for about six months.

00:09:39.720 | Then I was unemployed for two months in New York,

00:09:41.580 | which was probably the most fun two months of my life.

00:09:44.700 | (laughing)

00:09:46.460 | - Unemployed.

00:09:47.300 | - Yeah.

00:09:48.120 | (laughing)

00:09:50.380 | But then after that, I worked for an investment bank

00:09:55.820 | called Lehman Brothers.

00:09:57.780 | They're no longer a firm anymore.

00:10:00.980 | They went under during the crash of late 2007, '08, '09.

00:10:05.980 | And it was a great experience.

00:10:09.860 | I learned how to, you know, look at certain deals

00:10:12.900 | from a financial perspective.

00:10:14.980 | Really taught me how to value,

00:10:17.960 | or the backbone of kind of our family business

00:10:20.600 | outside of sports is real estate, commercial real estate.

00:10:23.660 | And so I was a commercial real estate underwriter

00:10:25.460 | in their finance group for a few years.

00:10:27.580 | And I learned so much, but I think it's,

00:10:30.700 | as much as it's important to learn what you love to do,

00:10:33.140 | it's also important what you love not to do.

00:10:36.660 | And so I knew that I really wanted to be more involved.

00:10:39.420 | If I was ever gonna be involved in sports,

00:10:41.340 | be more involved at the team level.

00:10:43.700 | Thought I would find that much more rewarding.

00:10:45.300 | And from a family business overall perspective,

00:10:48.280 | I really learned how to look at a deal from,

00:10:50.980 | a real estate deal from the other side of it,

00:10:52.800 | from the financial banking side,

00:10:54.640 | as opposed to the development side.

00:10:56.060 | And I think that's helped me to this day,

00:10:57.980 | helped me understand kind of things

00:10:59.440 | that we're doing across our venues.

00:11:02.220 | You know, when you're trying to redevelop something

00:11:04.100 | in or around our venues, our arenas with our teams,

00:11:07.300 | and then our shopping centers

00:11:08.580 | that we have around the country as well.

00:11:09.820 | So it was a great experience.

00:11:11.600 | I moved to Denver in 2007.

00:11:14.220 | Started watching tape with the Nuggets coaches

00:11:16.740 | and never looked back.

00:11:19.180 | - Real quick, did you hear what happened to me

00:11:20.700 | at the rookie transition camp in New York?

00:11:22.740 | - Was this the one where you posted Adam Silver's number?

00:11:25.340 | - Yeah.

00:11:26.160 | (laughing)

00:11:27.000 | So, I mean, I didn't know that you knew

00:11:29.060 | what rookie transition camp was, man.

00:11:31.340 | We're sitting there like, you know, in the classroom,

00:11:33.640 | learning about something,

00:11:35.120 | and they have this slide show or whatever.

00:11:37.660 | And I just take a picture of the room

00:11:40.220 | on Snapchat or whatever.

00:11:41.780 | But like, his number is posted on the screen.

00:11:44.620 | - On the screen.

00:11:45.460 | (laughing)

00:11:46.300 | - And like, I didn't even realize I posted it,

00:11:48.140 | but I look on my Snapchat 10 minutes later,

00:11:50.060 | and my sister replied to it and was like,

00:11:52.580 | "You know you just put Adam Silver's number out there."

00:11:54.660 | So I look at the post and it already had

00:11:56.060 | like a thousand screenshots.

00:11:57.180 | (laughing)

00:11:58.020 | And then like, literally like 10 minutes later,

00:12:01.380 | they put it out on, they put it on the screen

00:12:03.740 | in the classroom, and they were like,

00:12:07.640 | "Basically, I thought I was gonna get kicked out the league."

00:12:10.300 | - Oh, wow.

00:12:11.120 | - It was like a big deal.

00:12:11.960 | And like, I ended up having to get up on stage

00:12:14.340 | and apologize in front of everybody.

00:12:15.820 | They were like, the way they worded it though,

00:12:18.540 | they were like, "Yeah, someone in this room

00:12:20.660 | "leaked Adam Silver's number.

00:12:22.360 | "They're gonna come up here and apologize."

00:12:24.020 | So everyone around the class is looking around,

00:12:25.700 | and I have to stand up, get up on the stage,

00:12:28.840 | and apologize.

00:12:29.680 | - Did they tell you in advance

00:12:30.500 | they were gonna have you do it?

00:12:31.340 | - Like, they brought me in the back room

00:12:32.260 | with like Adam Silver's, and they were like,

00:12:33.780 | "What were you doing?"

00:12:34.620 | I was like, "It was an honest accident, I'm sorry.

00:12:37.380 | "I can get up on stage and apologize if you guys want to."

00:12:39.580 | They were like, "Yeah, we're gonna have you do that."

00:12:41.820 | So it was like a whole situation,

00:12:43.340 | but that's funny that you were out in New York

00:12:45.280 | for a few years.

00:12:46.360 | - It was good, it was a good time.

00:12:47.620 | And I did see that, but.

00:12:49.620 | - It was crazy.

00:12:51.420 | But yeah, so you go through college,

00:12:55.340 | you go through that internship and everything like that,

00:12:58.140 | and then you realize you want to be a part

00:12:59.260 | of the business world.

00:13:00.660 | When did you and your father and your family in general

00:13:03.080 | decide you wanted to start owning teams?

00:13:05.780 | - For my father, it goes back to kind of a dream

00:13:12.060 | that he's had for a very long time.

00:13:13.820 | I think that, and he's a huge sports fan in general,

00:13:18.420 | I think my family, we love sports.

00:13:20.680 | I was always taught to kind of,

00:13:22.120 | both by my dad and my mom,

00:13:24.660 | use sports as a metaphor for life.

00:13:26.540 | There's teamwork, sacrifice, understanding

00:13:30.540 | how you can help others.

00:13:31.960 | And so for me, I guess, I'm rambling a little bit,

00:13:38.460 | what was your original question?

00:13:43.060 | 'Cause I was gonna go down one way,

00:13:44.100 | I don't want to make sure I answered the question.

00:13:44.940 | - No, I mean, yeah, we're just talking a little bit more,

00:13:46.340 | just like, how did you get into that?

00:13:47.740 | - Yeah, so like, it was my dad's dream kind of way back when

00:13:52.080 | and I guess I would say that as a real estate developer,

00:13:55.480 | he was always looking for a potential deal.

00:13:58.720 | And the first deal that ever kind of came around

00:14:01.720 | was when the NFL was expanding in 1993, '94 maybe, '92.

00:14:06.720 | And that was, the NFL was expanding

00:14:11.440 | and they were gonna award two new teams to two cities.

00:14:14.520 | And so St. Louis wanted to be on the ticket

00:14:16.880 | and my dad partnered with some guys locally,

00:14:20.720 | they reached out to him and unfortunately,

00:14:23.520 | it didn't result in an expansion franchise.

00:14:27.000 | But when that didn't work out,

00:14:30.180 | he helped position another group of people

00:14:33.520 | to come to St. Louis and that resulted in the Rams moving.

00:14:36.800 | And then from there, it became a really,

00:14:41.800 | just a minority investment in an NFL team

00:14:45.420 | that morphed into, he was looking around for,

00:14:49.560 | like I said, as a real estate developer,

00:14:52.040 | potentially a deal that involved a stadium venue

00:14:55.620 | and teams as well.

00:14:57.000 | And he looked around, I think there was a few opportunities

00:14:59.800 | and then all of a sudden, the Denver deal presented itself.

00:15:02.360 | And so when you have a real estate developer

00:15:04.100 | that can make sense of a real estate deal

00:15:06.760 | that involves two sports teams,

00:15:08.800 | that was kind of how we, what I say is,

00:15:10.640 | we were a real estate family that kind of fell into sports

00:15:13.320 | due to our love with it,

00:15:14.160 | because that was the Avalanche Nuggets

00:15:16.940 | and at the time was called Pepsi Center,

00:15:18.820 | which is now Ball Arena.

00:15:19.980 | - Right.

00:15:20.900 | - And then that has morphed into what we have now,

00:15:23.660 | which is SoFi Stadium and the LA Rams.

00:15:27.740 | We have Ball Arena, the teams in Avalanche Nuggets

00:15:31.200 | and also the Colorado Mammoth.

00:15:33.180 | We have Dick's Sporting Goods Park,

00:15:34.420 | which is where Colorado Rapids play in Denver.

00:15:37.660 | And then the other one, which is the really big one,

00:15:40.780 | is over in London.

00:15:42.700 | We have Arsenal Football Club.

00:15:44.560 | - Got you.

00:15:45.400 | - Yeah.

00:15:46.220 | - As a team owner and it's been a long time coming

00:15:49.160 | and there's been a lot of recent success of your teams,

00:15:52.280 | championships with us, the Avs, the Rams,

00:15:55.440 | which has to make you guys,

00:15:57.720 | definitely in the most recent years,

00:15:59.080 | like some of the most successful team owners in the history,

00:16:01.640 | but during that long process of developing the teams,

00:16:06.640 | drafting players,

00:16:07.640 | was there ever thought of letting some of these things go

00:16:11.000 | or you guys have been committed from the jump

00:16:13.300 | with all these teams?

00:16:14.380 | - We've been pretty committed.

00:16:16.400 | We're long-term holders in really everything that we do.

00:16:19.200 | My father's philosophy,

00:16:21.700 | and I know that's one I'll carry forward with me as well,

00:16:24.820 | is whenever you invest in something,

00:16:26.860 | if you're looking to make a short buck on it

00:16:28.940 | or try to figure out a way to make an exit somewhere,

00:16:31.140 | that's usually not our strategy.

00:16:32.460 | I know there's some brilliant people out there

00:16:33.980 | that can make sense of deals like that,

00:16:35.460 | but we want to invest in something

00:16:37.580 | that makes sense for us over the long term.

00:16:39.380 | - Got you.

00:16:40.220 | - So when he did the Denver deal in 2000,

00:16:43.340 | I was still in school.

00:16:45.420 | I was at Mizzou.

00:16:47.100 | I remember him telling me about it

00:16:49.220 | and me just being incredibly excited,

00:16:51.280 | but then they set out

00:16:53.820 | and they built kind of the first version of the Nuggets

00:16:56.060 | underneath kind of our family,

00:16:58.940 | and that resulted in some really amazing teams.

00:17:02.100 | They hadn't made the playoffs in I don't know how long,

00:17:03.860 | but they kind of stripped the roster down

00:17:06.220 | over the first year,

00:17:08.060 | drafted Carmelo Anthony in the summer of 2003,

00:17:11.020 | and then they started signing free agents,

00:17:13.420 | and by the spring of 2004,

00:17:16.500 | they were in the playoffs,

00:17:17.380 | I think for nine or 10 straight years,

00:17:20.120 | and that was a level of success

00:17:23.020 | that the Nuggets hadn't quite had,

00:17:24.420 | and then when my dad and I kind of really sat down

00:17:29.100 | to talk about the future

00:17:30.860 | of how we could build the Nuggets back,

00:17:34.320 | I knew that I had some philosophy.

00:17:37.100 | I'd been around the team for probably four or five years

00:17:39.100 | at that point in time,

00:17:40.460 | and I'd watched a lot of basketball

00:17:42.700 | and kind of tried to devise some sort of strategy.

00:17:45.900 | I was like, you know what?

00:17:47.100 | It's never been done in Denver.

00:17:48.700 | We've never won the whole thing.

00:17:49.980 | How can we actually do this?

00:17:52.460 | And for me, the only advantage that we could really create

00:17:55.360 | was to kind of elongate our timeline,

00:17:58.820 | and so draft really good players

00:18:01.800 | that are also really good people,

00:18:03.980 | surround them with really good coaching,

00:18:06.100 | and try to grow something organically over time,

00:18:09.220 | and it's never gonna be perfect.

00:18:12.620 | Progress is never linear, as you know.

00:18:15.380 | I mean, our squad was up and down those first few years.

00:18:18.340 | You guys were all kind of learning different things,

00:18:20.460 | the different roles,

00:18:21.980 | and now, all of a sudden, you see it start to gel,

00:18:24.480 | and then you guys get hit with injuries,

00:18:27.580 | and so it required a certain amount of patience,

00:18:29.720 | but also knowing that at the end of the day,

00:18:33.220 | we had really good people,

00:18:35.900 | and that's why we're really proud of you guys as players,

00:18:38.660 | but I think the group of people that we have down there

00:18:41.380 | is really unique around the NBA

00:18:43.060 | and how you guys all play for each other.

00:18:45.300 | Our culture has kind of evolved to a place

00:18:47.060 | where I couldn't be prouder of it,

00:18:48.980 | and then the icing on the cake

00:18:50.820 | was to finally win the championship last year,

00:18:53.780 | but it all started kind of watching,

00:18:56.660 | we had a 57-win team in 2012, 2013,

00:19:00.980 | and we won 57 games and didn't have an All-Star,

00:19:04.100 | and that's pretty hard to do in the NBA,

00:19:07.300 | but I would watch that team,

00:19:09.900 | and I remember watching us down in Miami,

00:19:12.060 | and we played the Heat toe-to-toe for about 46 minutes,

00:19:17.060 | and then they could go to a level

00:19:19.980 | and close those games out that we just didn't quite have,

00:19:23.580 | and so I was like, okay,

00:19:25.140 | if we're gonna take this step backwards

00:19:27.020 | and we're gonna finally come back to the playoffs one day,

00:19:30.560 | we're gonna come back with a team

00:19:31.700 | that's built to be sustainable,

00:19:33.540 | and continually grow our ceiling organically,

00:19:38.540 | and that's what you guys did, man.

00:19:39.820 | You guys all worked your butts off.

00:19:41.700 | You guys all figured out how to come together.

00:19:43.820 | I remember I wasn't in the bubble,

00:19:45.240 | but watching you guys kind of,

00:19:47.260 | I think in the bubble,

00:19:48.300 | there was a new level of confidence that was reached.

00:19:50.880 | I saw you stepping up in new ways,

00:19:53.300 | Yoke and Jamal doing their thing,

00:19:54.900 | and it really kind of was a,

00:19:58.580 | I was watching on television going,

00:20:00.220 | this group can really do something special.

00:20:02.100 | Yeah, and so that was the first time

00:20:05.460 | where I really was like, okay,

00:20:06.820 | now how can we start to go for this,

00:20:09.380 | and then the patients that I talked about,

00:20:11.780 | we come out of the bubble,

00:20:13.560 | we kind of hit the ground running,

00:20:14.680 | but we had lost Jeremy in free agency,

00:20:17.780 | and it took a little while for us to figure out

00:20:19.780 | how we wanted to try to fill that void,

00:20:22.500 | and then when Aaron came along,

00:20:24.140 | we jumped at that opportunity to get A.G. in the squad,

00:20:27.180 | and then I think we ran off like,

00:20:30.100 | I don't know what we were those 10 games

00:20:31.540 | after we traded for Aaron,

00:20:32.620 | but we were like, nine and one or something like that.

00:20:35.140 | - It was before Jamal got hurt,

00:20:37.060 | and it was like, I don't think we lost the game.

00:20:38.860 | - Yeah, we were something like that.

00:20:40.020 | We were eight and two, nine and one,

00:20:41.180 | but we were beating good teams

00:20:43.620 | and beating them pretty handily,

00:20:45.260 | and then Jamal went down,

00:20:46.900 | and I think that while we knew it internally at the time,

00:20:51.180 | maybe the rest of the league didn't,

00:20:52.380 | we couldn't replace Jamal with anybody.

00:20:54.500 | There was a level of skill and a level of chemistry

00:20:57.340 | that we knew we just had to sit tight,

00:20:59.240 | and then the following fall,

00:21:01.500 | you had to go through another adventure again,

00:21:04.180 | and it's amazing to think how far the group has come

00:21:09.180 | and how far certain individuals have come, man,

00:21:11.960 | and I'm sure you look back on things at different times,

00:21:14.660 | and it's amazing to think how far we've come

00:21:17.180 | and how far we can still go.

00:21:18.500 | - Yeah, no, that's crazy.

00:21:20.060 | Yeah, I saw some post or whatever.

00:21:22.740 | It was talking about the individual stories

00:21:25.020 | of all the guys on our team

00:21:26.100 | and how it really was grown organically.

00:21:29.100 | When did you realize we had something special with Nikola?

00:21:34.100 | Did you know that early on?

00:21:35.740 | I know Nerkich was here at the time.

00:21:37.060 | - Yeah, yeah, it's a funny story about Nikola,

00:21:41.620 | and if anybody tells you they knew,

00:21:43.160 | they are lying through their teeth.

00:21:45.300 | - I didn't know.

00:21:46.140 | The first year I got drafted,

00:21:47.540 | I went to training camp, and I had no idea,

00:21:51.300 | just 'cause he treats a game different than practice,

00:21:54.020 | so I'm seeing Mason Plumlee and Nikola go at it.

00:21:56.380 | I'm like, wait, why does Nikola start over Mason?

00:21:58.620 | I remember that was my thought process.

00:22:00.140 | So, yeah, tell me that story.

00:22:02.580 | How did you--

00:22:03.420 | - So, yeah, Yoke is a funny story.

00:22:06.340 | I remember sitting with our former president

00:22:09.060 | of basketball ops and GM at the time,

00:22:11.580 | Tim Connolly and Arturis Karnaschovas.

00:22:13.420 | One of 'em now runs the Timberwolves,

00:22:14.820 | and one of 'em now runs the Chicago Bulls.

00:22:17.620 | But they were in our front office at the time,

00:22:19.900 | and they're like, hey, there's this guy

00:22:20.940 | that you should see on tape,

00:22:22.580 | 'cause we want him to keep his name in the draft,

00:22:26.500 | but he wants to stay over in Europe for one more year.

00:22:29.060 | And we're in a phase at the time

00:22:30.900 | where we wanted as many young players as we could get,

00:22:33.860 | and to try to see what we could grow.

00:22:36.100 | And so I was actually like,

00:22:40.060 | why does he wanna stay over in Europe one more year?

00:22:42.780 | And both Tim and Arturis were like,

00:22:44.140 | it's best for his development,

00:22:45.860 | and we think that there's a skill level there

00:22:47.580 | that could be interesting.

00:22:48.940 | But I remember them showing me on tape,

00:22:52.220 | and Nikola's wearing like this,

00:22:54.260 | their colors were like pink and blue,

00:22:56.260 | and Nikola couldn't jump over a phone book,

00:22:59.140 | but he'd catch these balls,

00:23:01.380 | and he'd throw these passes that you were like,

00:23:04.540 | I don't know how that's gonna translate,

00:23:06.340 | but that player's basketball IQ

00:23:08.500 | was obviously off the charts.

00:23:10.540 | And so we drafted him, he stayed over for one more year,

00:23:15.140 | and then he came over in the summer of 2015,

00:23:17.300 | and my dad actually has really good stories

00:23:19.660 | about being down in the weight room

00:23:22.340 | early in the morning that summer,

00:23:23.700 | and Nikola would be in there every morning

00:23:25.380 | with his two brothers, and they'd be beating on him

00:23:28.540 | kind of before the coaches would even come in,

00:23:30.180 | and he'd be in there, but over time,

00:23:32.420 | I think Nikola cleaned up his diet,

00:23:35.260 | he understood what it took to be a professional,

00:23:37.420 | and you referenced Yusef Nurkic,

00:23:39.500 | who was another really good young player

00:23:41.340 | that we had on our roster at the time,

00:23:43.660 | and we couldn't quite tell what to do with both of them,

00:23:48.580 | 'cause Yusef, I think, had made second team All-Rookie,

00:23:52.100 | and Nikola was coming over,

00:23:53.820 | and so we had a very established center,

00:23:56.380 | but we knew that they both had really good hands,

00:23:58.980 | really good skills, and the thing that was unfortunate

00:24:03.500 | is the league was trending,

00:24:04.980 | that was when the Warriors were on their ascension,

00:24:07.260 | and the league was trending to this small ball,

00:24:11.140 | shooting everywhere, and even more extreme

00:24:14.780 | than it is now, almost.

00:24:16.260 | It was like everyone wanted to try to be the Warriors

00:24:18.460 | almost overnight, and you couldn't play Nikola

00:24:21.500 | and Yusef together.

00:24:23.900 | You had two seven-footers that were incredibly skilled

00:24:26.220 | and very unselfish guys, but trying to play them together,

00:24:29.680 | while it did present its advantages at certain points,

00:24:32.060 | it was tough for them to cover

00:24:34.180 | whenever you got kind of almost four guards out there

00:24:36.940 | moving around in sync, and it's a tough defensive cover.

00:24:40.760 | So we had to really kind of put our heads together

00:24:42.940 | on what we wanted to do, and fortunately,

00:24:44.980 | by the time, after Nikola's first season,

00:24:49.980 | I think he made first-team All-Rookie,

00:24:52.580 | and then we were halfway into the second year,

00:24:55.700 | and we were really realizing that we couldn't,

00:24:58.820 | we had to pick, we had to choose,

00:25:00.340 | 'cause they're both starting-level centers,

00:25:03.180 | and I think Yusef's contract was coming up in about a year,

00:25:07.240 | and so we were having our analytics group

00:25:09.820 | run all the different numbers of how to compare the two

00:25:13.620 | and what to look for, and all of a sudden,

00:25:15.980 | this comparison comes through, and fortunately,

00:25:18.140 | we had enough data at the time to be able

00:25:20.260 | to really put together per 36 minutes

00:25:23.260 | and compare different things,

00:25:25.660 | and so this comparison comes through,

00:25:28.060 | and it's Player A and Player B,

00:25:30.060 | and it was during their second season,

00:25:33.980 | and the only difference of the two

00:25:36.140 | is that Player A is two years older than Player B

00:25:39.980 | at the time of their second year in the NBA.

00:25:41.860 | Player A just entered the league later,

00:25:44.300 | and you could clearly see that Player B's numbers

00:25:47.340 | were better in really every category,

00:25:49.500 | and so I was like, okay, I'm gonna guess

00:25:52.940 | that Player B is Nikola, and they're like,

00:25:56.020 | yep, you're right, Player B is Nikola,

00:25:57.780 | and I'm like, all right, well then,

00:25:58.620 | who are we talking about with Player A,

00:25:59.860 | or is this some sort of comparison with Nurk,

00:26:01.900 | or is this some sort of comparison

00:26:03.420 | with someone else in the league,

00:26:04.300 | and they're like, Player A is Larry Bird.

00:26:07.120 | (laughing)

00:26:08.860 | And I was like, oh.

00:26:10.980 | - Like you looked at the per 36?

00:26:12.660 | - Yeah, and so that was when I think all of us

00:26:16.380 | kind of looked at each other like,

00:26:17.860 | because sometimes when you talk to a basketball purist,

00:26:21.060 | even, to your point, Nikola's skill set

00:26:24.740 | and the way that he plays, the eye test,

00:26:27.180 | he doesn't jump out at you right away,

00:26:29.180 | but when you watch it over time,

00:26:30.740 | and you understand what he's doing,

00:26:32.260 | and how he's affecting a game,

00:26:34.460 | it really jumps out at you,

00:26:36.220 | and so that was when, and that was in,

00:26:39.020 | that was like the first week of December,

00:26:41.180 | and I think we were on a four or five game skid at the time,

00:26:44.060 | and then Tim and I wound up on the phone,

00:26:45.380 | and I was like, Tim, I was like,

00:26:46.220 | I'm never gonna tell anyone who to play,

00:26:48.500 | any coach what to do, but if we're gonna pick one,

00:26:52.160 | tell 'em to put Nikola in, and we gotta roll with it,

00:26:55.380 | and then that was the famous,

00:26:58.340 | the next night or the night after was,

00:27:00.640 | the date was at December or something,

00:27:03.940 | when that was when Yoke went into the starting lineup

00:27:05.820 | and never came out.

00:27:06.900 | - Never looked back, and it's crazy 'cause--

00:27:08.580 | - It was in Dallas, I think, yeah.

00:27:10.380 | - Yeah, I have unlimited Nikola stories too,

00:27:12.620 | talking about the cleaning up the diet and stuff,

00:27:14.880 | my first couple years, I mean, he cared about basketball,

00:27:17.340 | but he would go home to Serbia in the summer

00:27:19.540 | and come back out of shape.

00:27:20.860 | I've seen him progress every year,

00:27:22.940 | even from MVP year to MVP year, he's somehow progressing,

00:27:26.280 | so you guys obviously made the right choice, man.

00:27:29.480 | There's a lot of talk about his number, number 15,

00:27:33.740 | and him and Carmelo Anthony.

00:27:35.740 | I don't even know the whole story of what came out,

00:27:39.260 | but yeah, talk a little bit about your thoughts

00:27:42.140 | on that whole situation.

00:27:43.500 | - Yeah, that's a funny one.

00:27:44.860 | I saw Melo was on something fairly recently,

00:27:47.780 | and my first, it's interesting to think back,

00:27:51.440 | because my first meeting when I was put in charge

00:27:53.660 | of the Nuggets in the summer of 2010

00:27:56.060 | was to fly to Baltimore and sit in a hotel room

00:27:59.140 | where it was he, his agent, and one other guy

00:28:02.400 | that worked with him, and he asked to be traded.

00:28:05.020 | And they gave us two teams,

00:28:07.100 | and I put that in my back pocket, went back to Denver.

00:28:12.100 | I was kind of, our front office was in flux at the time.

00:28:15.860 | And then I wound up hiring a guy named Masai Ujiri,

00:28:19.540 | now runs the Toronto Raptors.

00:28:20.980 | And then he and I, and another person named Pete D'Alessandro

00:28:24.860 | worked on that trade for about six months.

00:28:27.580 | And so we got through the trade,

00:28:31.800 | and you don't really think about much.

00:28:35.460 | We had Allen Iverson for a number of years,

00:28:38.620 | and Ty Lawson wore number three.

00:28:41.980 | And so it's not anything that really ever crossed our mind.

00:28:46.620 | And so I was very surprised to hear Carmelo say that

00:28:49.900 | the other day, because it wasn't something

00:28:51.460 | that ever crossed my mind.

00:28:52.380 | I think Nikola has worn number 15 his entire career,

00:28:56.540 | even when he was over in Europe.

00:28:59.500 | And so it wasn't something that really crossed our mind.

00:29:03.580 | And to have Nikola, I think,

00:29:05.100 | ascend to the level that he's at,

00:29:07.780 | maybe that might get under somebody's skin, I guess,

00:29:10.460 | perhaps, but I don't know.

00:29:11.540 | I think Nikola's always worn 15.

00:29:13.500 | It was never anything that we ever thought about,

00:29:15.780 | and I'm just happy that Nikola's on our team.

00:29:18.900 | - And what specifically was Melo upset about?

00:29:22.500 | Was it that someone else got to wear his number,

00:29:24.900 | his number didn't get retired?

00:29:26.660 | - I'm not 100% sure.

00:29:27.820 | I think Melo, he had an unbelievable career with us.

00:29:32.180 | He really put the Nuggets back on the map

00:29:33.760 | in a really positive way.

00:29:35.420 | I think that there was a...

00:29:38.100 | It's interesting when a player

00:29:41.020 | wants to be traded from a team,

00:29:43.100 | and that creates certain feelings.

00:29:46.660 | - Yeah.

00:29:47.500 | - And it took a while for our fan base in Denver

00:29:49.620 | to get over that as well.

00:29:51.460 | It was an interesting scenario

00:29:54.100 | because that whole saga really started

00:29:56.660 | the summer before, the summer of 2010.

00:30:01.500 | That was when LeBron had left Miami,

00:30:03.620 | or excuse me, left Cleveland to go to Miami.

00:30:05.780 | And so player empowerment and movement

00:30:08.100 | was really kind of just starting to reach its peak.

00:30:12.340 | And I think that's great.

00:30:13.660 | I think you guys have one shot at your careers.

00:30:15.780 | We're kind of custodians of that career.

00:30:17.740 | We obviously have our own goals

00:30:19.540 | in trying to build our teams,

00:30:20.820 | but I always respect if somebody

00:30:22.580 | wants to go do something else.

00:30:24.740 | But for the city of Denver,

00:30:26.500 | I think they took it very personally.

00:30:28.420 | And that took a little time for the city to get over.

00:30:32.380 | And I'm sure Melo didn't like being booed

00:30:34.640 | for the first few times he came back because he did.

00:30:36.700 | He worked his butt off for the city

00:30:37.980 | and we had a great run in there.

00:30:39.780 | We made the Western Conference Finals in 2009.

00:30:42.500 | Only made it out of the first,

00:30:43.340 | that was the only time we made it out of the first round.

00:30:44.820 | But I think over time, hopefully the feelings dissipate.

00:30:48.820 | I think if he was to come back to Denver,

00:30:50.980 | I think he'd probably get a different reception these days.

00:30:53.240 | But from a personal level,

00:30:55.420 | there was never any animosity or anything

00:30:57.900 | kind of on our thinking about Nicola's number.

00:31:01.540 | - Right.

00:31:02.380 | - Because it was just the number that he wanted to wear

00:31:04.920 | and the number that he's worn forever.

00:31:06.680 | I think that it's been interesting

00:31:09.000 | to see his ascension to where he is.

00:31:10.640 | But to think that, for anyone to think

00:31:13.700 | that we gave a second round pick, number 15,

00:31:17.420 | and knowing that it would someday turn into this,

00:31:20.100 | I think that's a pretty wild statement.

00:31:21.940 | - Multiple times.

00:31:22.780 | (laughing)

00:31:23.600 | - Yeah.

00:31:24.440 | - That's funny, man.

00:31:25.280 | Well, you guys have done an incredible job.

00:31:26.820 | I wanna talk a little bit about your guys' thought process

00:31:30.020 | with me coming into the league.

00:31:32.420 | Obviously, you were both from Columbia,

00:31:34.580 | so you had known about me and things like that,

00:31:37.020 | but I had been through a lot.

00:31:38.460 | The Clippers doctor spread the report throughout the league

00:31:42.860 | that they didn't know,

00:31:43.900 | they weren't sure if I'd be able to play basketball,

00:31:46.180 | considering my injuries.

00:31:47.380 | And a lot of teams were scared away by that.

00:31:50.660 | I remember the first time I got on the phone

00:31:52.220 | with the Nuggets was with Tim Conley on the day of the draft

00:31:55.120 | because my agent wanted to kind of create a floor,

00:31:57.220 | like, okay, if he drops it here,

00:31:59.620 | this team will take him.

00:32:01.060 | So I had no idea going into the draft

00:32:02.580 | what was gonna happen.

00:32:03.540 | What were those conversations like behind doors about me?

00:32:06.840 | - Well, my Michael Porter Jr. story first starts,

00:32:12.180 | I think you were in seventh or eighth grade.

00:32:14.420 | A friend of mine sent me this link

00:32:18.700 | of some unknown skinny kid going up for a dunk.

00:32:23.200 | - Yeah.

00:32:24.040 | - And I was like, wow.

00:32:25.540 | I was like, this kid's supposedly

00:32:27.260 | the best eighth grader in the country.

00:32:28.460 | And I was like, wow.

00:32:29.300 | And he's like, I've never seen an eighth grader

00:32:31.500 | look at the rim, almost, like you were.

00:32:33.900 | And then I was like, wait a minute.

00:32:35.820 | I'm like, that's Jeff City's gym.

00:32:38.700 | That's Jefferson City.

00:32:39.540 | I'm like, that's, I know that gym.

00:32:41.420 | We're my high school rivals.

00:32:42.980 | And so I did a quick search to try to find out more

00:32:47.580 | of what I was watching.

00:32:48.940 | And I was quickly told that Central Missouri

00:32:52.180 | had one of the best players in the country.

00:32:54.620 | And, 'cause I was like, that section of the country

00:32:58.540 | doesn't produce talent like you.

00:33:01.360 | And so I was very aware of who you were from an early age.

00:33:05.140 | And I followed your career 'cause I was kind of proud

00:33:07.340 | that we had someone of your caliber coming out

00:33:10.120 | of that section of the state.

00:33:11.980 | And so I followed your career.

00:33:16.220 | And then I was gonna watch your first game in Mizzou.

00:33:20.420 | And then I heard about what had happened.

00:33:23.700 | And I think you were going through warmups, right?

00:33:26.060 | Or it was a couple of days leading up to it

00:33:27.780 | where you had some tightness, right?

00:33:28.900 | - Yeah, the injury, it happened a few days prior.

00:33:31.340 | But that was my first time experiencing anything strange.

00:33:33.980 | So I thought it would just dissipate.

00:33:35.220 | And it got worse.

00:33:36.060 | And the first game comes around.

00:33:38.180 | - Yeah, and you were going through warmups.

00:33:39.420 | And then I think you had to play, what,

00:33:40.300 | the first 10 seconds before they--

00:33:41.740 | - Yeah.

00:33:42.580 | - It was so close to game time.

00:33:43.400 | They'd already turned in the lineup, right?

00:33:44.240 | - It was so close to game time.

00:33:45.080 | They had already put the lineup up.

00:33:45.900 | So I go to my dad.

00:33:47.500 | And I'm like, Dad, I don't think I can play.

00:33:48.900 | I don't know what's going on.

00:33:49.740 | But I can't jump right.

00:33:51.700 | I can't produce force like I want to.

00:33:54.100 | And then we went to the coaches.

00:33:55.820 | And they were like, okay, you just have to start the game

00:33:57.780 | because big national TV game.

00:33:59.940 | You know, number one player in the country

00:34:01.100 | going to the University of Missouri,

00:34:03.300 | you know, which never happens.

00:34:04.420 | And then, so yeah, I had to play the first 10 seconds

00:34:07.260 | and came out.

00:34:08.100 | - Yep.

00:34:08.920 | And then I followed, you know, I followed what was going on.

00:34:13.340 | And I knew you came, you were really rushing to get back

00:34:16.820 | because you wanted to help your team.

00:34:18.700 | And, you know, that told me a lot about your character.

00:34:21.220 | You know, if you were already thinking about the pros,

00:34:24.520 | which is a natural thing, you know,

00:34:26.300 | I think that there's probably part of you

00:34:29.020 | that wants to think ultra long-term in that scenario.

00:34:32.340 | And I'm sure there was people around you,

00:34:33.460 | but it also told me that there was a person inside of you,

00:34:37.540 | inside of that player that was really competitive

00:34:40.020 | that wanted to get out there

00:34:41.220 | and you wanted to help your teammates.

00:34:43.100 | And so, you know, as I watched that spring kind of evolve

00:34:47.220 | and I heard about your draft workouts,

00:34:50.080 | leading into that week, I thought your floor in the draft,

00:34:53.140 | I think Chicago had seven and seven or eight.

00:34:57.960 | But I also knew that when you were healthy,

00:35:00.580 | you were probably the best,

00:35:02.420 | if not one of the top two or three players in that draft.

00:35:05.260 | And we had just missed the playoffs by one game that year.

00:35:10.260 | And we were thinking that we were,

00:35:15.060 | once we made it back to the playoffs,

00:35:16.460 | we knew we weren't going backwards.

00:35:19.080 | We had a good young team and we just had a few things

00:35:22.300 | that we needed to, we thought,

00:35:23.820 | to really put us in a new level.

00:35:27.000 | And so the day of the draft, I remember coming over

00:35:30.420 | and Tim had called me the night before the draft

00:35:32.220 | and he goes, "Hey, I'm just gonna put something

00:35:33.340 | "on your radar."

00:35:34.180 | I was like, "What's up?"

00:35:35.420 | Because by missing the playoffs by one game,

00:35:38.780 | we picked 14 in the lottery.

00:35:40.900 | And so Tim called me, he's like,

00:35:44.140 | "Hey, I wanna put something on your radar."

00:35:45.300 | And I'm like, "What's up?"

00:35:46.140 | And he goes, "I heard something from a buddy of mine

00:35:49.680 | "that Chicago might pass."

00:35:52.860 | And I'm like, "But I thought you told me earlier today

00:35:54.640 | "that that was Michael's floor."

00:35:57.460 | And he goes, "I don't know."

00:35:58.420 | He goes, "I don't know what happened.

00:35:59.320 | "I'm still trying to gather the information.

00:36:00.740 | "I'll talk to you about it in the morning."

00:36:01.980 | And I said, "Okay."

00:36:03.100 | And so I came in the day of the draft

00:36:05.500 | and Tim Arturas and I sit down and they said

00:36:08.860 | that you may have had a spasm or something,

00:36:10.560 | like at a workout, and it might've scared a few teams.

00:36:13.140 | And I was like, "Really?"

00:36:15.140 | I was like, "This is just, can we get more data on it?

00:36:17.200 | "Is there any kind of..."

00:36:18.060 | And they're like, "We're still trying to piece it together,

00:36:20.080 | "but he could fall."

00:36:22.780 | And I was like, "What do you mean he could fall?"

00:36:25.280 | And I was like, "Guys, that skill set

00:36:29.160 | "does not grow on trees."

00:36:30.360 | I was like, "What do you mean he could fall?"

00:36:31.520 | And they're like, "Well, the teams could get scared

00:36:33.780 | "of the back."

00:36:35.760 | And I said, "Okay."

00:36:37.480 | And so then I rang my dad and he came down that afternoon

00:36:42.480 | and then the four of us, Arturas, Tim, myself, my dad,

00:36:46.020 | and we pulled Coach Malone in as well.

00:36:47.480 | And we said, "Look, if he's there, we're gonna take him."

00:36:51.240 | And we got all our doctors in

00:36:54.020 | and it was a really great group experience

00:36:56.560 | because we all had to put our heads together

00:36:58.200 | from our own perspective.

00:36:59.580 | Tim and Arturas knew that they believed

00:37:02.080 | in your skill set and your talent.

00:37:04.320 | And then you had Coach Malone who was understanding

00:37:06.380 | that this is something that was gonna play out

00:37:08.200 | over multiple years, whereas a lot of coaches,

00:37:11.440 | and this is their job, coaches have one responsibility,

00:37:15.000 | that's win the next game.

00:37:16.640 | And so you have to put,

00:37:18.520 | and then our perspective is even further,

00:37:20.240 | it's how can we create the best talent over time.

00:37:23.520 | And so when your name was still there,

00:37:26.320 | it was a no-brainer for us.

00:37:27.440 | It might sound funny to some people,

00:37:29.220 | but I was really worried that the,

00:37:32.420 | because you referenced a team that had two picks ahead of us

00:37:36.000 | and I thought somebody might take a chance.

00:37:37.640 | Somebody's gotta take a chance.

00:37:39.240 | - I think they may have if it wasn't for their doctor

00:37:42.600 | that was doing the main analysis on me that day.

00:37:46.360 | And so our decision in the room that day

00:37:48.680 | when we all kind of walked out

00:37:49.760 | after discussing the different concerns and thoughts

00:37:53.240 | from all of our own perspectives was,

00:37:56.040 | we'll never have a chance to draft another player

00:37:58.300 | like you, especially at that point in time

00:38:01.000 | with the group of players that we had,

00:38:04.120 | the skill set that you brought,

00:38:06.120 | and you could raise our ceiling immensely.

00:38:10.920 | But we knew it wasn't gonna be right away.

00:38:12.680 | And so we had to, once we drafted you,

00:38:15.440 | we got you in, we let our doctors take a look at you.

00:38:18.800 | We made sure that you felt like one of the family

00:38:21.240 | and we knew that there was gonna be a long journey ahead.

00:38:24.140 | And I think you may have known, but you probably,

00:38:27.240 | looking back, you maybe didn't even realize

00:38:28.680 | what you were gonna have to go through.

00:38:29.840 | And so you had another surgery.

00:38:32.200 | We sat you out that whole first year.

00:38:34.120 | We tried to make you feel like you're a part of the group.

00:38:37.200 | Hopefully you did, even though you weren't getting to play.

00:38:40.720 | But I remember coming over to training camp

00:38:43.680 | that first year when, I don't even think you could play,

00:38:46.280 | all you could do is just do standstill shooting.

00:38:49.160 | And our shooting coach at the time was, was it Mark Price?

00:38:54.160 | - Mark Price. - Yeah, Mark Price.

00:38:55.880 | See, I remember.

00:38:56.960 | And Mark and I were standing there and I was like,

00:38:59.120 | "Mark, what do you think of our group?"

00:39:00.200 | And he goes, "Wow, there's some really good young players."

00:39:02.280 | And that was when he started to ask about Nikola.

00:39:04.520 | Nikola was just starting to really show

00:39:06.800 | the level that he could dominate.

00:39:08.480 | And I was like, "What do you think?"

00:39:10.520 | And he goes, "I think you got a really great group here."

00:39:12.480 | He goes, "But I'll tell you what."

00:39:13.320 | He goes, "Best shooter in this gym can't play right now."

00:39:16.800 | And I was like, "You're talking about Michael, right?"

00:39:19.360 | And he goes, "Yep."

00:39:20.200 | He goes, "I'm talking about Michael."

00:39:21.240 | He goes, "Take your time with him, be patient."

00:39:25.160 | But he goes, "That guy's the best shooter in this gym."

00:39:28.040 | And I said, "Well, that's our plan."

00:39:32.280 | And so, over the course of that year,

00:39:34.120 | and then I think your first full season

00:39:37.360 | was the COVID year, right?

00:39:39.160 | - Yeah, our first full season was the first half

00:39:42.400 | of that season, and then we go to the bubble.

00:39:44.320 | Yeah, that was my first full season.

00:39:45.160 | - And so, I saw an important step out of you,

00:39:48.320 | which was over the first, I don't know,

00:39:50.880 | six months of the season, I think you were up and down

00:39:54.400 | as any rookie is gonna be.

00:39:55.640 | You're learning how to play.

00:39:56.680 | You're learning where you fit in the different roles,

00:39:59.840 | and you're learning how to play

00:40:00.680 | with some of these guys around you.

00:40:02.480 | And then the season stops,

00:40:03.640 | like right around this time four years ago.

00:40:06.600 | COVID hits, we go into our cocoons,

00:40:09.480 | and then we emerge in the bubble a few months later.

00:40:13.880 | And you went from a rookie to a second year player

00:40:18.880 | in that little two month span.

00:40:21.640 | - In that gap, yeah.

00:40:22.720 | - And so, when you came into that bubble,

00:40:24.840 | I saw a different Michael.

00:40:26.240 | I saw a more confident Michael.

00:40:28.720 | I saw one that knew how to fit within our team,

00:40:32.280 | but also went to really use your own skillset

00:40:35.400 | to drive us forward.

00:40:36.760 | And I remember you hitting some big shots in the bubble.

00:40:39.400 | And seeing our team really start to believe in each other.

00:40:42.960 | And I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it.

00:40:45.360 | - That's crazy.

00:40:46.200 | - But then you come out of that,

00:40:48.440 | it's kind of a very short off season.

00:40:50.000 | We lose Jeremy, we replace him with Aaron,

00:40:53.120 | and then Jamal gets hurt.

00:40:55.320 | And so I knew there was a special group in there,

00:40:57.840 | and then you have to wait almost two years.

00:41:00.520 | And that required a lot of patience on our end.

00:41:02.920 | And we never even remotely thought

00:41:05.120 | about veering off the path of the roster that we had.

00:41:08.960 | And now that we got everybody healthy,

00:41:12.040 | I could see that you guys last fall,

00:41:13.800 | there was a little bit of a period

00:41:15.120 | where you kind of had to play your way into it again.

00:41:17.960 | Jamal had to play his way into it again,

00:41:19.640 | gain that confidence in your body.

00:41:21.640 | And then by March, I could tell we were locked in,

00:41:26.640 | and that we were just ready for the playoffs.

00:41:28.400 | And then it was like, okay, let's be healthy come April

00:41:32.280 | and see where the chips fall.

00:41:33.420 | And I was really proud of the way

00:41:34.560 | that you guys just immediately locked in

00:41:37.800 | to go 16 and four against the NBA's best shot.

00:41:41.960 | That's not something that a lot of people can say.

00:41:46.000 | - Well, man, I mean, man to man,

00:41:48.280 | I appreciate you guys so much taking the chance on me.

00:41:51.120 | - Appreciate you, man.

00:41:51.960 | - I remember I said at draft night,

00:41:53.440 | I was gonna do whatever I could to be

00:41:56.120 | one of the best draft picks that you guys could ever draft.

00:41:58.920 | And still, I've been through a lot,

00:42:00.960 | but like you saw at Mizzou,

00:42:03.720 | giving up and giving in to whatever injuries,

00:42:06.000 | that's not part of my DNA.

00:42:07.720 | But I'm so happy to be a nugget.

00:42:09.880 | You know what I mean?

00:42:10.720 | People ask me all the time about that whole draft situation,

00:42:15.160 | and I'm like, God does work in mysterious ways

00:42:17.360 | 'cause it's a blessing that somehow I fell to 14

00:42:20.200 | to a team that was already winning.

00:42:22.120 | So I got to take my time

00:42:23.720 | and not rush back after the injury.

00:42:25.600 | And now we've just built this program,

00:42:28.400 | this championship level program from really the ground up

00:42:33.280 | with adding small pieces.

00:42:34.460 | And we got it continued rolling with the young guys.

00:42:37.480 | We got now Peyton, CB.

00:42:39.640 | I know Julian's not playing right now,

00:42:40.960 | but Julian, some of the guards we got.

00:42:44.600 | So it's pretty crazy.

00:42:45.560 | So you go through all this stuff,

00:42:48.600 | the ups and downs as an owner,

00:42:50.680 | and then you win the championship.

00:42:51.800 | How fulfilling was that?

00:42:53.640 | I know you guys had already won the Rams championship,

00:42:55.800 | the Avs championship,

00:42:56.680 | but it probably felt a little bit different

00:42:59.480 | being a basketball player.

00:43:00.960 | - Yeah, I mean, I think I'm kidding myself

00:43:02.640 | if I try to say that it didn't.

00:43:05.080 | But I think I'm most proud

00:43:07.320 | because while the Rams had won a championship

00:43:11.560 | 20 years ago in St. Louis,

00:43:15.760 | the Avs had won twice before in Denver,

00:43:18.420 | but not since 2001.

00:43:21.440 | The Nuggets had never won one.

00:43:23.600 | They'd never even been to the NBA finals.

00:43:25.400 | And so I got goosebumps walking around the arena

00:43:27.560 | just seeing the NBA finals logo for the first time.

00:43:30.920 | But the process of going through it with the Rams,

00:43:36.220 | the Avalanche, and in the middle of the Rams

00:43:38.820 | and the Avalanche winning in 2022,

00:43:41.740 | our major league lacrosse team won a championship as well.

00:43:45.300 | And Arsenal has been knocking on the door of a few things.

00:43:48.460 | We got a good young group.

00:43:49.380 | We grew up pretty organically over there as well.

00:43:51.540 | So there's a formula to kind of what we try to do.

00:43:54.820 | But the NBA one was very special for my dad and I,

00:43:58.180 | mainly because it had never been done before.

00:44:00.460 | And to be frank,

00:44:01.300 | we had a lot of people telling us that we couldn't do it.

00:44:04.380 | When I made some changes to the Nuggets coaching staff

00:44:08.020 | and we started to kind of go through our building process,

00:44:11.720 | like I said, progress isn't linear.

00:44:13.340 | And so I would go down,

00:44:14.740 | be around the court during games at times,

00:44:16.540 | and I'd have people screaming at me,

00:44:17.680 | "What are you doing, you idiot?"

00:44:19.100 | We just want to see a competitive team.

00:44:21.940 | And we can't believe your dad trusts you

00:44:25.140 | with all this and everything.

00:44:26.880 | And so I heard it all, but you stay the course,

00:44:29.940 | you believe in kind of what you're doing.

00:44:31.780 | And so when you finally do reach the pinnacle of it all,

00:44:34.660 | and you realize that all those people

00:44:36.380 | that were doubting you are now supporting you,

00:44:39.680 | it's a great feeling.

00:44:41.980 | But it was also,

00:44:42.980 | I didn't realize how rewarding I would find it

00:44:45.600 | as I'm walking down the street and someone grabs me

00:44:48.460 | and they're like, "Man, I've been a Nuggets fan since 1978."

00:44:52.640 | Like, "I can die happy now."

00:44:55.140 | And those little moments where you're like,

00:44:57.220 | "Wow, you didn't realize how much

00:44:58.820 | "this was gonna really touch people."

00:45:00.340 | You get so locked in on trying to figure out a way to do it

00:45:04.060 | that you forget how many people that are along for the ride

00:45:07.780 | and really supporting you along the way.

00:45:09.340 | And I've watched the Game 5 50 times at this point,

00:45:13.900 | where you just start to count down and it never gets old,

00:45:16.420 | man.

00:45:17.260 | And so the cool thing was, though,

00:45:19.500 | was I knew on Monday afternoon that we won it on a Monday,

00:45:24.500 | and I knew on Monday afternoon, I was like,

00:45:26.960 | "You know, if I wake up tomorrow,

00:45:30.020 | "I'll either be a champion or we're not,

00:45:31.520 | "and I'm still gonna be the same person.

00:45:33.700 | "And if we lose tonight,

00:45:36.020 | "we're gonna go down to Miami and try and do it again.

00:45:38.320 | "And if we win, I'll wake up a champion,

00:45:41.020 | "but nothing's really gonna change.

00:45:43.040 | "And we'll figure out a way to go try to do it again."

00:45:45.480 | And so the perspective

00:45:47.560 | of having those other championships recently

00:45:49.360 | really kinda keeps you humble.

00:45:51.960 | You know you've really accomplished something great,

00:45:53.720 | but at the same time, when you do get that taste of success,

00:45:56.960 | I think as a competitor, we all want more.

00:45:59.460 | And that's the cool thing that I really see about you guys,

00:46:02.080 | is I think that even though you accomplished something

00:46:04.080 | for the first time in all of your careers,

00:46:06.400 | I see a collective focus starting to form here

00:46:11.320 | as we're coming down the stretch.

00:46:12.540 | And I mean, there's a lot of things that go into it.

00:46:15.280 | And at the end of the day,

00:46:16.240 | I think that people need to understand,

00:46:17.800 | no matter how you build these teams,

00:46:19.760 | and how you think you may have a chance,

00:46:21.520 | you need a little bit of luck involved.

00:46:23.560 | We need to have our health.

00:46:25.040 | We need to have our group together.

00:46:26.800 | And so you never know what could happen.

00:46:29.080 | But I'm really proud of the group.

00:46:30.540 | I'm really proud of the focus.

00:46:31.680 | And if we're healthy, I think it'll be a tough team to beat,

00:46:35.640 | which is always the goal.

00:46:37.420 | - Yeah, I think you said two really nuggets of wisdom.

00:46:41.320 | First of all was throughout the whole process of life,

00:46:44.460 | and even as athletes, as competitors,

00:46:46.700 | is the joy you put on other people's face.

00:46:50.440 | Something Nicola mentioned as well in the interview

00:46:52.440 | was like, those are the things that stick with you.

00:46:55.360 | Yeah, the championship is amazing.

00:46:57.880 | But like you said, you wake up tomorrow

00:47:00.200 | and you're still the same person, you know.

00:47:02.360 | But it's like those moments along the way,

00:47:04.080 | or I go to Taiwan this off season and they could not,

00:47:07.660 | like, it was like diehard Nuggets fans in Taiwan

00:47:11.260 | that are talking about the championship, you know.

00:47:12.740 | So I think that's--

00:47:15.120 | - You guys put yourselves on the map in a whole new way

00:47:17.440 | with one, I mean, winning the championship,

00:47:19.720 | but I think two, how you guys all carry yourself.

00:47:22.400 | That's what makes me just as proud as winning

00:47:24.480 | because I think you guys, like I said,

00:47:26.880 | we play a brand of basketball that's really fun

00:47:28.920 | for people to watch and hopefully at the youth level

00:47:32.200 | you have a lot of coaches saying,

00:47:34.200 | you guys should play like them, you know.

00:47:36.240 | You and your father and your family as a whole

00:47:41.740 | have built something incredible.

00:47:43.640 | A lot of people think being financially stable

00:47:47.840 | or wealthy is the goal of life.

00:47:51.060 | You guys right now could sell your teams,

00:47:53.560 | you could take all the money and live perfectly comfortable

00:47:56.280 | the rest of your life, your kids, your kids' kids.

00:47:58.780 | Why do you continue, after you reach the success

00:48:02.900 | that you have, why do you continue to grind

00:48:06.600 | and work so hard and fly to London and back

00:48:09.880 | and do all these things?

00:48:11.640 | Is it just, because a lot of people truly think

00:48:14.480 | that happiness in life equals money,

00:48:16.340 | but you guys could just go chill on the beach

00:48:19.040 | and do whatever you want the rest of your life.

00:48:20.200 | Why do you keep going?

00:48:22.540 | - I mean, for me individually I always wanna prove stuff

00:48:26.700 | to myself to see if I can do something.

00:48:30.640 | And I actually, you know, I really enjoy,

00:48:33.820 | even though I'm kind of an introvert in certain ways

00:48:36.520 | and I'm very guarded in others, I do enjoy people.

00:48:40.340 | And being around the sports world I have to pinch myself,

00:48:45.820 | some of the people that I get to meet,

00:48:47.360 | some of the people I get to interact with,

00:48:50.060 | because we're from all walks of life, all over the world.

00:48:52.500 | You know, you mentioned Arsenal.

00:48:54.380 | I just got back from London last night

00:48:56.700 | and we advanced in the Champions League on Tuesday.

00:48:59.740 | But, you know, the people that I get to meet,

00:49:03.500 | you know, I mean, just with the nuggets alone.

00:49:05.700 | I mean, we have guys from all over Europe.

00:49:08.580 | When you get to Arsenal, it's even a greater expansion

00:49:11.340 | of people and so I really enjoy the different people,

00:49:14.540 | the different walks of life and being able to prove myself

00:49:17.300 | to myself that I can work with almost anybody

00:49:19.860 | and try to get the best out of a group.

00:49:22.660 | I think, you know, to your point,

00:49:24.340 | I don't know where my IQ might be,

00:49:26.220 | but I think my EQ is fairly high.

00:49:28.340 | And, you know, putting people in positions,

00:49:30.440 | giving them the resources to succeed,

00:49:32.820 | patting them on the back,

00:49:33.820 | putting my arm around them when they need it,

00:49:35.340 | and then, you know, give them a little kick in the butt

00:49:36.820 | when they need it too.

00:49:38.420 | But, you know, our formula is to really hire good people,

00:49:41.300 | provide them with the resources to go do things,

00:49:43.180 | and then draft, you know, good people

00:49:45.740 | who can have a chance to be great players

00:49:47.460 | and try to grow it over time.

00:49:48.620 | And, you know, that's what we've done with the Nuggets.

00:49:51.540 | That's what we've done with the Avalanche.

00:49:54.220 | You know, over at Arsenal, we have a really,

00:49:56.380 | you know, we have a talented young team

00:49:57.780 | that's fighting for, you know,

00:49:59.060 | both Premier League title this year

00:50:00.820 | and hopefully another advancement in the Champions League

00:50:02.580 | in the quarters.

00:50:03.420 | We just drew Bayern Munich today.

00:50:04.660 | That's gonna be an interesting one.

00:50:05.900 | - Yeah.

00:50:07.460 | - But, you know, it's really about the people.

00:50:09.340 | And for me, that's what drives me.

00:50:11.380 | But yeah, I mean, I have been financially secure

00:50:14.380 | my whole life.

00:50:15.220 | I understand that most people, a lot of people,

00:50:17.140 | aren't in that situation.

00:50:18.820 | And so I never want to take that for granted.

00:50:20.740 | But also, you know, we employ a lot of people.

00:50:24.180 | You know, that's something that I do find very rewarding

00:50:26.340 | is being able to sit down and talk to people

00:50:28.780 | about their jobs, whether it's over in London,

00:50:30.620 | whether it's in Denver, or whether it's in LA,

00:50:33.380 | at our team and our venue out there.

00:50:36.220 | So yeah, for me, it's about the people

00:50:37.740 | and trying to work together to achieve something special.

00:50:40.220 | And when you do achieve something special, man,

00:50:41.900 | it's a lot of fun for not only the group,

00:50:45.260 | but for the fans as well,

00:50:46.940 | which is really unique to really the sports business.

00:50:49.740 | - Yeah, no, even just talking to you,

00:50:51.820 | I feel like, you know, the way you grew up

00:50:53.940 | and just who you are as a person,

00:50:55.580 | and I feel like you really know yourself.

00:50:57.260 | You've probably spent a lot of time getting to know yourself

00:50:59.220 | and what makes you happy.

00:51:01.380 | So one of the questions I like to ask,

00:51:03.820 | like all the people I interview on this podcast is,

00:51:05.660 | what do you think your purpose is?

00:51:08.220 | - Wow.

00:51:09.060 | I think my purpose is,

00:51:15.940 | that's a great question, Michael.

00:51:17.340 | I wish I knew when you were gonna ask me that one.

00:51:18.740 | (laughing)

00:51:19.940 | - I ask it because I still feel like

00:51:22.020 | I'm trying to develop my purpose.

00:51:25.260 | And part of who I like to get on this podcast

00:51:28.860 | is people that I find very intriguing

00:51:30.300 | and I'm very curious about,

00:51:31.660 | and people I look up to in certain ways.

00:51:34.540 | So yeah, I'm trying to figure out,

00:51:36.660 | so it's just a question I like to ask.

00:51:38.660 | - You know, I think that, I'm sure you,

00:51:41.220 | I'd be very, I'd have to go back

00:51:42.340 | and re-watch some of your podcasts

00:51:43.500 | because that'd be a very curious answer

00:51:45.600 | from a lot of different people.

00:51:47.380 | For me, I think my purpose,

00:51:49.340 | you know, I'm not married, I don't have any kids yet,

00:51:52.260 | and so some people would answer, you know,

00:51:54.860 | family or this, and so I have,

00:51:57.660 | I come from a great family, great parents,

00:51:59.820 | my older sister's incredibly supportive,

00:52:02.020 | and I have a wonderful girlfriend who supports me as well.

00:52:04.460 | But I think for me personally,

00:52:07.260 | I think my purpose is to,

00:52:10.620 | you know, I think kind of how I answered

00:52:12.540 | the previous question was,

00:52:15.300 | I really enjoy getting to know people

00:52:16.780 | and trying to get the most out of them.

00:52:19.240 | My college coach, Quinn Snyder,

00:52:22.600 | always thought I would have been a great basketball coach

00:52:24.640 | because I loved the game,

00:52:26.920 | but I also really loved trying to get the most

00:52:29.700 | and help my teammates.

00:52:30.800 | And so that kind of plays out in my life

00:52:33.920 | across numerous areas,

00:52:35.240 | whether it's focused in on the team level

00:52:36.960 | with the Nuggets, Avs, Rams, Arsenal, Rapids,

00:52:40.580 | or on the corporate level,

00:52:43.200 | we just wonder when a big restructure

00:52:45.020 | on our corporate side in Denver,

00:52:46.260 | and so putting together the team there

00:52:48.300 | and kind of delivering some of the same mantras

00:52:50.520 | that we have around our team culture,

00:52:51.940 | try to deliver that on the corporate side as well.

00:52:53.760 | And having been around sports my whole life,

00:52:56.620 | I think I got a pretty decent handle

00:52:58.300 | on certain things at this point.

00:52:59.980 | And so trying to get the most out of people

00:53:02.500 | and then really going to achieve something together.

00:53:04.260 | So building a team and helping those people along,

00:53:09.260 | I think that'd be probably how I would answer it

00:53:12.980 | on an individual level,

00:53:14.180 | because when I'm by myself and doing things by myself,

00:53:17.200 | I enjoy it, but I enjoy being around people

00:53:19.740 | and being around the groups and working together a lot more.

00:53:22.420 | - Yeah. - Yeah.

00:53:23.420 | - That's dope, man.

00:53:24.260 | Well, I appreciate you so much giving us some of your time,

00:53:26.340 | man, this has been awesome. - Absolutely.

00:53:27.680 | - For real. - Absolutely.

00:53:28.520 | - Appreciate you, my man. - My pleasure.

00:53:29.340 | - Serious Mike out.

00:53:31.180 | (hip hop music)

00:53:33.840 | (upbeat music)

Josh Kroenke on Building Successful Teams, Realizing How Special Jokic Is, and Drafting MPJ

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