Denver Nuggets: 3 Reactions to Monday’s Media Day

The Denver Nuggets held their media day on Monday, the mood in the room was excited, encouraging but resolute.

First, let me say it’s such a relief to be writing about actual basketball things, not fighting off the “Hey, what would you trade for Paul Mokeski in his prime” nonsense.  Basketball is real again and the Denver Nuggets are ready for the 2018-19 season.

Buried in the positivity and determination was a bit of bad news:

Isaiah Thomas, Jarred Vanderbilt and Michael Porter, Jr. are all recovering from injury.  None have been cleared for 5-on-5 activity and none have a timeline for return.

While this may be standard practice these days, I’m increasingly curious about the subterfuge that the Nuggets are engaged in with regards to player injury. Why is everything such a secret?  It applies to trade-deadline and free-agent news cycles as well.  What is the danger in opponents, fans or media knowing a team’s intentions?  The trio of injured Nuggets timeline can’t be accelerated or stalled by transparency.  It just strikes me as curious.

Otherwise, the day was full of uplifting messages from players, coaches and executives.  The fans excitement at the prospects for this team is shared by the team and particularly by it’s players.

There were a couple of themes that ran throughout the day, here are three we picked up on: