After Brian Shaw, Kenneth Faried just wants ‘a coach that believes in you’
The Denver Nuggets entered last season with playoff aspirations, but were quickly laid low by struggles both on the court and off it. Brian Shaw never quite could get the most out of a Nuggets roster stocked with contributors but light on stars — a stepped-on version of the 10-deep crew that soared in George Karl’s uptempo scheme, but stagnated and stalled after the regime change. Of all the Nuggets, it was Kenneth Faried whose development seemed most arrested.
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After a breakout performance for the iteration of Team USA that won gold at the 2014 FIBA World Cup, the Nuggets offered the undersized power forward a four-year, $50 million contract extension, banking on continued growth that would make the 24-year-old one of the foundational pieces of Denver’s hoped-for return to postseason play. But while Faried’s per-minute productivity and box-score stats mostly held fast last season, his on-court impact and the Nuggets’ results often underwhelmed, leaving “The Manimal” looking less like a transformational talent and more like trade bait.
With his extension kicking in and the TV-revenue-fueled spiking salary cap making his deal less onerous to move, Faried’s name remains in the rumor mill. But with the Nuggets coming off another regime change — in comes new coach Mike Malone; goodbye, former starting point guard Ty Lawson; hello, new starter Emmanuel Mudiay — Faried’s eager to wash away the sour taste of last season. He also, however, would like to remind us that he and his teammates weren’t the ones who cooked the struggleplate.
From Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post:
I like the Manimal for the same reason so many Nuggets fans do. He cares. Really cares. That’s his rebound bouncing off the rim. Get out of the dang way or risk being eaten alive.
But behind the ferocious Manimal mask, there’s a raw vulnerability, perhaps the result of Faried being told so often he wasn’t good enough to be a big-time college recruit or learn to shoot in the NBA or make Team USA. So when former Nuggets coach Brian Shaw picked and poked at each little negative aspect of his skill set, Faried blew up. The Denver locker room got slimed in the explosion.
“If you don’t have a coach that believes in you, then what’s the point of going out there and playing?” Faried said. “If your coach doesn’t have faith in you and puts you out in the fire against all these great players, you’re going to get torched.”
You could probably think of a couple of reasonable responses to the question — personal pride in your individual performance, for one; a responsibility to earn the money you’re paid, for another. And yet, Faried’s comments serve as a reminder that even in a bottom-line-oriented, results-above-all-else business, interpersonal relationships still matter. A lot.
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The Nuggets got torched plenty last season, finishing 30-52 — the franchise’s worst record in a dozen years — while ranking in the bottom third of the league in both points scored and allowed per possession. Now, though, the only one getting torched is Shaw, who waited a while to get a shot at a top job, only to watch his maiden voyage wind up on the rocks in less than two years.
A respected assistant during his time with the Los Angeles Lakers and Indiana Pacers, Shaw was installed after the firing of reigning Coach of the Year Karl and the exit of reigning Executive of the Year Masai Ujiri, and promptly saw excellent swingman Andre Iguodala decamp for Golden State in free agency. After overseeing an awkward attempt to turn a run-and-gun roster into a more measured half-court attack, leading to a disappointing 36-46 campaign by that ended a decade-long playoff streak, Shaw sought to switch things up in Year 2. He reportedly consulted literature about how best to communicate with millennials, and tried to connect with his players by rapping scouting reports to them.
These efforts failed.
Shaw didn’t hide his displeasure with the mounting losses. He wondered aloud whether his team was actually trying to lose in a kidding-on-the-square sort of way. He clashed with his players and questioned their effort as the season circled the drain.
The players reciprocated. Not only did they turn in listless play resulting in a 2-19 record between mid-January and March 1; they seemed to openly court the end of their dismal season, breaking a huddle late in a blowout loss to the Utah Jazz by chanting “1-2-3 … six weeks!”
Shaw and several players disputed reports that the chant had to do with the season ending in a month and a half, claiming it referenced the team’s six-week-long home losing streak, but that didn’t seem to matter. Shaw’s season would come to an end shortly thereafter, earning Denver’s players some stick from veterans around the league who believed the Nuggets had failed their coach, rather than the other way around.
From there, under interim head coach Melvin Hunt, the Nuggets began to turn things around. Renewed fervor and a long-awaited return to form for the oft-injured Danilo Gallinari sparked a 10-13 finish. Faried attributed Denver’s late-season uptick to good vibes and a supportive atmosphere, according to Brett Martel of The Associated Press:
Kenneth Faried says the Denver Nuggets have had “fire in their eyes” since interim coach Melvin Hunt took over. […]
“People think a lot of things about us, but we’ve got a great coach at the helm in Melvin Hunt who just kept believing in us,” said Faried […] “We just keep finding ways to win and we’ve got great players who are going to step up.”
Despite Hunt’s strong audition, Denver tabbed Malone, whom many believed got a raw deal when he was fired by the Sacramento Kings, to take the Nuggets’ reins this summer. (Hunt has since linked up with the Dallas Mavericks.) While their relationship’s still in an embryonic stage, Faried seems convinced that Malone — whom multiple Kings, most notably All-Star center DeMarcus Cousins, loved — will be a supportive figure, too. From Doug Ottewill of The Coloradoan:
So I ask: “You say you want to be the player you want to be. Do you feel like Mike Malone has embraced that player more than anyone else in the past?”
“Yes!” Faried says. (Note the exclamation mark, one of my least favorite pieces of punctuation, but necessary in this case.) “I feel as though he embraced me as soon as we met, as soon as we locked eyes and had a conversation. He said, ‘I love the way you play. I want you to play like that, but we just want to expand some things for you.’ After that, it was just a sigh of relief, and that’s why I’m talking to y’all with a smile on my face.”
Another reporter asks: “Coach is talking about getting up and down the court a little more than you did last year. Is that music to your ears?”
Faried starts to giggle. He can’t hide the happiness: “Yes! Yes! I’m excited. As long as I get to run, I’m having fun. […] I feel a sigh of relief, because I can play my game.” […]
“How crazy it is, me and him talked at [Team] USA Training Camp,” Faried explains. “I came to him and we had a great conversation. I was nervous at first because I didn’t know what to expect. I watched film of him; I knew he was an intense coach, that he wanted the best out of his guys and gave energy while on the sideline. But I’d never experienced it until I talked to him and had a conversation.
“Me and him were just going back and forth — it felt like me and Steve Hess in the weight room. So, it felt great for me to be able to talk to a coach, and he had the same energy level as me.”
“Energy level” is an important characteristic when it comes to Faried, who’s made his reputation (and his money) by being a relentless offensive rebounder, transition lane-filler and pick-and-roll finisher, but who has rarely shown the same commitment on the other end of the court. Malone referenced Faried’s “motor” multiple times, and in a very specific context, in an interview with Grantland’s Zach Lowe this summer:
In regard to Kenneth, he has a great motor. But I need Kenneth to buy in on defense. [The Nuggets have] gotten away from that the past two seasons. They still run, but they’re not defending.
He’s one of those guys who runs much harder from defense to offense than the other way around, right?
I made that exact point to DeMarcus when I got the Sacramento job. It’s the same thing in Denver with Kenneth. I’ll take it a step further: We have a great offensive rebounding team in Denver, but we’re a poor defensive rebounding team. There’s the reward of points on offense. Defense is the dirty work. If you want to run, you have to rebound first. […]
Faried does come to mind when you think of big men who at least have the speed to switch like Draymond [Green]. But does he have the feel?
Obviously, Draymond is different. But what Kenneth has, you can’t teach. He has that motor. That’s why he’s made it in the NBA. Now, we just have to make sure he’s playing with that same motor on defense.
The trick for Malone will be getting Faried and the rest of a Nuggets roster that, again, isn’t exactly awash in greybeards and veteran leadership to buy what he’s selling, to give that kind of maximum effort on both ends, and to do so without grinding them down to the point where they no longer listen. In other words, he must succeed where Shaw failed; he must show a club that seems closer to the start of a rebuild than to the pursuit of the postseason that he believes in them, and restore their belief in themselves.
The early returns sound positive, but so does almost everything in the early days of training camp, and belief can be a fragile thing. Just ask Brian Shaw.
Hat-tip to ProBasketballTalk.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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