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DEL MAR, Calif. — The L’Auberge Del Mar hotel, which overlooks the limitless beauty of the Pacific Ocean in this village north of San Diego, is the kind of peaceful place where people go to unwind.
There’s a bar near the front that gets quite lively at night, and a pool not far away that offers spectacular views and all the good vibes during the day. The spa services and wedding offerings are quite popular. Its website boasts about the seal of approval received from the famed Condé Nast Traveler magazine.
Disconnecting from the rigors of everyday life, in other words, is the name of the game.
Unless you’re David Adelman.
The Denver Nuggets head coach is sitting in the corner of the lobby on this early October evening, settling in to discuss his first full season at the helm of one of the NBA’s most exciting and embattled teams. Yet as he discusses it all, from his unexpected promotion late last season to the ensuing playoff run and this season of pressure and promise ahead, his mental motor is still running hot.
This is Day 3 of training camp, meaning the process of making this team his own is still in its infancy. Adelman, the son of Hall of Fame coach Rick Adelman, has been a pivotal part of their group as an assistant since 2017. He was tasked with running the Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray-led offense, under former coach Michael Malone, that never ranked worse than seventh during that stretch (and was top five four times). He was there for all the times they came close to breaking through in those early years — with Jokić ascending to superstar status while Murray and Aaron Gordon proved to be near-perfect partners — and for the 2023 title run that ended with champagne showers.
But even with the proof of concept that they all showed in the most recent postseason, when the Nuggets downed the LA Clippers in the first round before nearly upsetting eventual champion Oklahoma City in a seven-game, second-round series, Adelman is the first to admit that there’s still a long way to go. And to grow.
“We know we have the talent, and you have a lot of experience, but you just can’t stand on stuff that you did before,” Adelman told The Athletic. “I just went to my high school Hall of Fame enshrinement (at Jesuit High School in Beaverton, Ore.). It’s fun to talk about things we did 25 years ago, but now is now, and you’re moving on. So that’s what this team is. It’s a new identity of what we can be but without forgetting all the things that got us to where we were and to this point of being one of the standards of the NBA. So it’s a delicate balance and a really fun challenge.”
(Note: Conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
Let’s start with last season. You’ve got the dynamics with (former general manager) Calvin (Booth) and coach (Malone), and ownership shocks us all by cleaning house. You get elevated, and it’s ‘Welcome to the big leagues. You’re in the frying pan.’ … But then you’re right there on the edge with OKC in the second round. So, not to bring up painful memories, but safe to say that Games 4 and 5 kept you up at night a little bit over the summer?
Yes, especially all the good things we did in those games, to get in those situations, and then to have it kind of fall apart very quickly. … It was their role players who won those games. The Sunday matinee was not a fun game to watch, but just give them credit. They had guys make shots. I thought we did a good job on their main players, and we just didn’t do enough to finish out that game.
Then in Game 5, when you’re up double digits in the fourth quarter — I know you’re on the road — but you have to finish that game. And Lu Dort makes three straight 3s. Two of them I would live with. But to his credit, he made them. So you kick yourself for a lot of things, but when you work that hard to have the opportunities and then not follow through on them, you look back and you just wonder, ‘What if?’
Now, the what-if would have been Minnesota, and that would have been really tough. So people saying that if we beat OKC, we would have gone and done something else — we had a big challenge ahead of us. … So we squandered an opportunity that we created through really good play — high IQ play, physical play. We gave it away in some ways.
Does that frustration and the agony of defeat, over the course of these past few months, eventually start shifting toward reasons for optimism?
I told the guys, and I really mean this: We won the championship in ’23, then you lose two really tough Game 7s the last two years. You take those experiences and they make you better, and tougher, but they also don’t mean anything in the moment, because this is the one moment you have for 25-26. Now is the present, and this is your one time to do this. Those are all just things you did in the past. It’s time to write your own book here for this year, and I think they believe that. The way they started camp showed it. … We’re not the returning champions, and we haven’t been for two years. So that was something we did that was great back in the day. Now it’s, ‘What can this group do in this calendar season?’ That’s where your mind has to be, and right now the group has done that. That’s because the leadership of the guys who came back and have been through the wars here — ‘wars’ in basketball terms. It’s cool to see them mature a little bit, and it really, really is their team.
You have a unique challenge because you’ve been here for a long time and were a big part of this program before you got elevated. I’m sure you want this group to take on even more of your identity and your philosophies and your beliefs. But it’s within this really familiar setting. So how do you make this your team while also (honoring) the foundation that it would be unwise to get rid of?
Yeah, it’d be stupid not to maintain some things that have been constants, that won us playoff games. But it would also be stupid not to realize the league educates itself and people have guarded us differently in the last two years. So doing the same thing over and over is not going to lead to anything successful in June. We have to tweak things. Defensively, we have to try things we haven’t done in the past. We needed, I think, new voices in the room. And then offensively, you stick with what you have, but you can do similar things in different formations and give the guys a fresh look and give other teams that scout us a fresh look.
You got me curious when you highlighted the two years of change in terms of how you’re being guarded. What have you seen on that front?
It’s man defenses that really are zone defenses. It’s tilted to our two main guys in the games. Teams have fully sold out to post-up play and (have) honestly allowed open shots on the weak side. And that’s part of the game. A lot of teams do that. It’s fronting Nikola and trying to impact the flow of our offense, and (opponents) did a good job of it. At the same time, we still were top five in offense.
But it’s about the playoff games and how you can execute against physicality and all the stuff that comes with it — the way it’s been officiated, the way the rosters have changed, with flexibility, playing small, playing big. We have to prepare ourselves for all those scenarios, because any opponent in the West, if we’re lucky enough to get into that top six or (even) the Play-In (Tournament), they’re all going to bring a totally different challenge.
It’s almost like you’re maintenancing talent along the way throughout the season to get ahead for the test. But you don’t know what the test is going to be. That’s our job. We know we have talent. We know we have a good team. Just trying to overprepare for what could happen is a big deal for us.
Defensively, when you get a little bit older, you have to mix it up more. We did that in the playoffs. We did the best we could. We tried to show zones and man and man that looked like zone. And we have high-IQ guys, so why not let them try things on the fly? I think you can get better as the year goes on, because we did it in a very short period of time.
Who are the new defensive voices?
Jared Dudley, Mike Moser. Chase Buford will help with that group, and they’ve done a great job so far. Obviously, it’s been fun for me to dive back into this and have a partnership with new people and to hear what they have to say. Who we had in the past is great too, but this has been a cool thing to have their voices.
Previous relationship with Jared?
Strictly word of mouth. The NBA, for me, has kind of been that. I don’t really hang out in the circles very much, but I do respect certain people’s opinions — that will go unsaid — who told me, ‘You should really reach out to this person. I think he has a great chance to help you out,’ and he’s been really, really good., He’s very confident when he’s trying to teach. It’s been a really good partnership so far. And then offensively, with J.J. Barea, John Beckett’s back. Ogi Stojaković, Andrew Munson. It’s a lot of the same guys, with J.J. bringing that personality and that winning thing. And I’ve been around J.J. He’s one of those personalities you want to see every day, every morning, and that’s important in an 82-game season. They’ve been really good for the guys in this short duration they’ve been here.
Going back to the topic of new additions, is this the best supporting group that this core has had?
My enthusiasm is high. I do think that timeline needs to be discussed, too. You’re talking six years ago, I mean, we had a revolving door of Jerami Grant, Mason Plumlee, Paul Millsap, Malik Beasley, Monte (Morris). Those are pretty good teams, not to mention the same two guys that are still here with us. So I think the exciting part is that the veterans that we signed are on the same timeline as Aaron, Jamal and Nikola. Christian (Braun) is — for the years in the league, feels like he’s older — so they kind of all feel like they’re in the same place going forward. And then we’ve seen some growth from Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther.
Obviously, (Jonas) Valančiūnas coming in as a backup center is a big deal, and the flexibility of that on certain nights. People should be excited. But they should also be excited about the competition of the Western Conference. We’re a problem … but so are they, and so I think that’s why camp has been so good because the guys know what’s coming.
You mentioned Jamal, and I wanted your read on him for sure too. We chatted today and had a good big big-picture discussion about where he’s at and how he’s feeling. He talked about last summer and how it wasn’t a pleasant stretch for him in terms of Team Canada (at the Olympics) and his body not responding well. In general, it just sounded like he wasn’t himself last summer heading into the season, but right now, he’s very excited about having a summer with a lot more rest and health. He seems to be in a good place. What’s your view there?
I’ve always taken the position that I agree that there’s times we had rosters that were very experienced the last two years of the playoffs, in the sense of depth. And I think it’s been really poorly reported on how much it also affected him, and that we were putting him with the second unit and he was just getting doubled and blitzed and attacked. People were changing each defender every possession, and we’re saying, ‘You’ve just got to do this for 10 minutes. You’ve just got to get through it.’
There’s not many guys who have done that, and then people would point at his numbers and never actually break down what he’s actually going through and dealing with in those games. And so, as exciting as it is to get new guys to play next to Nikola and possibly what Aaron can do with them, it’s really cool for Jamal. To be able to play pick-and-roll without (the opponent) just putting two on the ball every single possession, and actually being able to play with the ball and make plays for veteran players who can space the court, that’s a big deal. That’s not a shot at anybody who was with us, but depth affects everybody. It’s not like it’s just one person.
The point person is Nikola, and it should be. He’s one of the greatest players of all time. But it has also affected Jamal, and I don’t know if everybody remembers, but when we won the championship, Jamal was pretty good in the second unit because we had a different kind of team. Triple-doubles in the finals and 40-point games. When he plays in space, he’s very special.
On this current roster, who do you feel like relieves the pressure the most from Jamal?
I think being able to play through Valančiūnas is a big deal in the second unit. He’s a really good screener. It’s a lot harder to blitz and put two on the ball and rotate a small onto a man that big, not to mention that if you do that, you’re in rotations, and who’s standing over there? Tim Hardaway. It’s just a ripple effect to specialized defenses against him, and I think he will benefit from that.
I think the great thing about Jamal the last couple days is he hasn’t fought anything. He’s just playing. He’s defended, and not that he’s going to pick up (full court) all season, but he’s been doing it in camp. He’s been so communicative on the court, and it hasn’t been about ‘Are the shots falling?’ or whatever else. It’s been about just getting s— done efficiently, and he’s done it right. That’s part leadership. It’s his efficiency, because guys see it, and they follow it. Guys follow that stuff. So he’s been really good.
What did his offseason look like? I know he was in Denver most of the time, but anything unique or different about how he approached it?
From what he told me, a lot of weights, getting his body right. I think making sure that he maintenanced the mental part of everything. He has a family now, and I think that helps you maintenance your week better. … As parents, we all become different people when our kids are around and they’re experiencing something with us. So it’s noticeable.
So the guy at the middle of it, the big fella, got the media talking today at practice when he spent so much time talking to the refs after they called your scrimmage. I’d heard that it was similar in Abu Dhabi last year, when he spent a lot of similar time with the refs (during the preseason). It’s pretty widely known that he’s always trying to win on the margins, and it seems like that’s what those moments represent. But overall, where is he at right now? And what does a moment like that say to you?
He’s in a good mental state. He’s 10 years in now. And like everybody else, he’s grown up — not to mention he’s not from the United States. So his voice has grown. His confidence has grown. He knows the league. He knows the faces in the league. I think he feels empowered to speak. It’s not that he didn’t feel empowered to play and win MVPs and be the best player in the world. But now I think he feels empowered to be one of the torchbearers of the league. He is one of those guys, and he should have a voice with these people. And by the way, that’s one of the coolest things the NBA did for this whole thing, was bringing the real officials to these scrimmages. That’s new and that’s a big deal. And they reffed our really competitive scrimmage today (Mark Davis, JT Orr and Jason Goble). It was cool. They’ve always come and talked to us about the rules, but never having a full-on scrimmage. (It was on-demand.)
So that moment did jump out at you a little bit, though, in terms of the conversations that he had with the refs?
Yeah, I’m thinking about the conversations he had in film sessions during the playoffs, where he always had an opinion. He’s just more comfortable pointing it out and being specific to certain people. It’s just leadership qualities. Then, not to mention Jamal and Aaron. I mean, those guys really took steps forward in all that chaos. I give them a lot of credit. It’s really fun to coach a team where you’re leading, but you also know that in the room, you have very responsible opinions that can help guide you as a coach. And having that partnership goes a long way. Now the message is being sent from everybody, not from me like I’m a teacher talking to a bored class. Everybody’s engaged. It’s like one of the best classes you’ve ever taken, when the students care as much as the professor.
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Sam Amick is a senior NBA writer for The Athletic. He has covered the Association for the better part of two decades while at USA Today, Sports Illustrated, AOL FanHouse and the Sacramento Bee. Follow Sam on Twitter @sam_amick
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