A sleepy-eyed English bulldog that unconditionally loves the most powerful and reviled 35-year-old man in Denver sports is snoring under my chair. So I leaned in to make certain Nuggets president Josh Kroenke truly believes what he’s saying: After nearly four decades of failure, sometimes in comically bad fashion, his NBA team really can bring a championship to the Rocky Mountains?
The goal, Kroenke stressed, is not to win 50 regular-season games and lose in the playoffs, but to relentlessly build a core of players in Denver, led by a legitimate star, that can pry open a window of opportunity to win it all. “We’re going to be aggressive this summer as an organization, and continue to be aggressive until we feel we have the roster that can truly compete for something special,” he said Thursday.
While a sum-greater-than-its-parts approach did bring success to Denver under former coach George Karl, the philosophy was born out of necessity when Carmelo Anthony forced a trade. In the long term, Nuggets management believes serious pursuit of a championship does require an elite-level star who can be equally adept at swishing the pressure shot at crunchtime and setting a professional, never-surrender tone in the locker room.
RELATED: Josh Kroenke: Nuggets have had “several conversations” in coach search
“You have to have a guy who’s a true No. 1 option,” Kroenke said.
A year ago, as I insisted repeatedly at the time, Denver made an aggressive push for all-star forward Kevin Love, although the Cleveland Cavaliers ultimately closed the deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves, presenting a more attractive package that included No. 1 overall draft choice Andrew Wiggins.
Was it far-fetched and fanciful for the Nuggets to pursue Love? Yes. But there are no big rewards without risks inherent in big dreams. Denver figures to have significant money to spend in free agency when the salary cap begins a rapid, dramatic escalation in 2016, which could coincide with the best free-agent class in league history.
WATCH: Share on Google Plus
Chris Dempsey: Denver Nuggets Need a core guy
Are the Nuggets doomed to be a fly-over NBA city condemned to also-ran status because LeBron James did not grow up in Colorado and the lights of LoDo will never shine as brightly as the glitz of Hollywood?
“I think there’s a lot of talk about that. I’ve seen that, I hear that. I’m not a believer in that. I think if you build an organization that people can identify with and believe in, winning speaks volumes,” Kroenke said. “There’s a lot of ways to skin the cat. But one of them is through free agency, one of them is through the draft and the other one is through trades. We’re going to try to improve our roster until we truly have that core of guys who can compete for something for a lengthy period of time.”
After requiring nearly two years to recover from a knee surgery that Danilo Gallinari believes was initially botched, the 26-year-old forward finally regained his form late last season and appears now to be a centerpiece in the Nuggets’ rebuilding efforts, as is center Jusuf Nurkic, recently named one of the league’s 10 best rookies.
While Kroenke steadfastly refuses to offer specific names when talking about plans to aggressively retool the roster prior to opening night of the next NBA season, it’s realistic to expect point guard Ty Lawson or forward Kenneth Faried or both to be part of trade discussions prior to the June 25 draft.
The office where Kroenke resides in the Pepsi Center is comfortable, but cozy enough that there’s no little room for opulence or a bloated ego. A bumper sticker from the University of Missouri, where he averaged 2.6 points per game as a reserve guard from 1999-2004, can be seen leaning against the windows. The biggest extravagance in the workplace seems to be two overstuffed dog beds shoved in a corner for Kroenke’s pets.
As an heir to a Walmart fortune whose parents are estimated to be worth in excess of $10 billion, Kroenke is routinely bashed with all the usual, tired stereotypes fed us by a silver spoon with charges of nepotism. Since meeting him almost 15 years ago, however, what has struck me most about Kroenke is an inclination to keep his nose to the grind of business on his cellphone, even at times when the sake flowed around him.
RELATED: It looks like Hunt vs. D’Antoni to become Nuggets’ new coach
While every young sports executive makes missteps, what concerns me about Kroenke isn’t his intelligence or his diligence. It’s the fact as a junior partner in his father’s worldwide sports empire that young Kroenke’s name has been plastered high in the organization chart of pro basketball, hockey and soccer franchises. That’s a lot of balls, not to mention a bucket of pucks, to juggle.
So I asked: As a sports executive, are you spread too thin?
“Oh, man. That’s a tough question,” said Kroenke, pondering all that’s expected from a curator of pro teams in a sports-crazy town. Then, he added: “I’m not spread too thin.”
Mark Kiszla: mkiszla@denverpost.com or twitter.com/markkiszla
