Michael Singer: Paul Millsap on Mike Malone’s extension: “I’m very happy for him. He definitely deserved it for what he’s done over the course of the years. Now practices won’t be as tough.”
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Position: F-C
Born: 02/10/85
Height: 6-8 / 2.03
Weight:244 lbs. / 111.1 kg.
Salary: $29,230,769
Born: 02/10/85
Height: 6-8 / 2.03
Weight:244 lbs. / 111.1 kg.
Salary: $29,230,769
Utah took Kanter third overall in the 2011 draft. “I didn’t want to go to Utah,” he says. “They already had so many bigs.” For years, Kanter sat on the bench behind the likes of Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson, struggling to adapt to the NBA.
When Millsap came back from his wrist injury, he had a conversation with Jokic. The extent of the message: This was Jokic’s team to lead. “It felt good to me, when someone like Paul said something like that,” Jokic said. “He kind of relaxed me, so I can be confident in myself.”
Nick Kosmider: Paul Millsap says he’s been in the league long enough not to worry when his shot is still coming around early in the preseason. In fact, he said, “I’m glad when it doesn’t fall in the preseason. That’s normally a good sign. They’ll fall in the regular season, for sure.”
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Now factor in the return of a healthy Paul Millsap and that dynamic wing core of Jamal Murray and Gary Harris, and it seems all but certain that all this optimism will prove to be well-founded. But how good can they be? Title contenders, according to Malone, in the not-so-distant future. “Teams do it in different ways,” he continues. “And what I like about us is I never mortgaged our future for instant success. We didn’t trade a core young piece for instant gratification, for a season where maybe it would’ve helped us. But big picture, long-term, was not going to allow us to have sustained success. And by keeping Jamal, Nikola, Gary, Trey (Lyles), our young core, re-signing Will, we feel that we have a chance to be competitive and ultimately a championship contender at some point. I give our ownership credit. And I’m not just blowing smoke, because we haven’t made the playoffs in five years, and we all want to make the playoffs, but we know that the importance of ‘Let’s look long term. Let’s not be a checkers player. Let’s be a chess player and look two, three steps ahead of everybody.’”
Nikola Jokic is a star who needs to improve his defense. Gary Harris is a rock-solid two-way wing. And Paul Millsap is the ultimate fill-the-gaps big who nudged Jokic — by way of a late-season heart-to-heart, team sources say — into undisputed alpha dog position. Murray is the unknown. He’s going to be good. If he’s great — if he becomes a top-eight-ish point guard over the next few seasons — the Nuggets have a different trajectory.
