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Shapeshifting Nuggets look ready to terminate the rest of the league’s hopes

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WKND 20251017 ShapeShiftingNuggets

I have a Pavlovian response to wanting popcorn when I’m watching a movie that has pulled me in hook, line, and sinker. I’ll mindlessly destroy an unconscionable amount of popcorn if something has carried me away. I left Top Gun: Maverick and Deadpool and Wolverine borderline sick because they had so thoroughly captured me… and because I’d foolishly purchased the hot-tub-sized bucket. To be fair.

The first time I remember going through popcorn like that was as a teen watching 1984’s Terminator. Sarah Connor, her unborn son John (spoiler alert if you haven’t caught it these first 41 years), Kyle Reese, and the Titular Termie all spend most of the film at odds over whether Sarah and John – who also happen to be the salvation of the human race, by the way, more spoilers – should be alive. Or not. The computer-driven-and-somehow-still-deeply-Austrian-antagonist has a mission in mind, and it’s pointed straight at John’s demise. While he seems unstoppable, and for most of the film proves to be so, there is (almost always) a solution to the seemingly-unstoppable force. Turns out in this case, it simply takes an exploding gas tanker, a pipe bomb, and a hydraulic press to get you there. Easy. Peasy. And SO MUCH POPCORN.

I am grateful I don’t crave popcorn for Denver Nuggets games, though I may take up the habit if they can go back to the dominance of their one-and-only championship season of 2022-23. In the couple seasons since, it turns out there have been solutions to the seemingly oft-unstoppable force that is the Denver Nuggets of these last few years. It ended up taking the basketball equivalent of a pipe bomb and a hydraulic press, but stopped they were after two unsuccessful Game Sevens. The patterns and methods that had gotten them over the top once were now being anticipated by the opponent, and they didn’t have much flexibility in what they would do to counter.

If I thought I’d gotten lost in that first Terminator flick, I was carried even further away by its successor, Terminator 2 – Judgment Day (though I don’t recall popcorn intake for that that film, blessedly for you). While the franchise had smartly turned our antagonist into a slightly-more-understandable anti-hero, our sleek new villain was terrifying. Malleable. A shape-shifter of perfect proportion, able to not just emulate and counter whatever it was against, but to shift into shapes of any sort to achieve its goals. Which is much more what this new version of the Denver Nuggets looks like. They are shape shifters in the extreme, with the success they saw this preseason across a variety of lineups. Two Bigs? Looks great. No Bigs? Why not. Zone D morphing to man-to-man or vice-versa? All over it. Pick and pop to roll and reverse? Sure! Whatever that opponent is weakest at, it’s where this team intends to throw it’s punch.

In ways, it makes a ton of sense. It almost as if the team took the idea of building around Nikola Jokic to the level, more the notion of extending his reach in every direction. Every guy they have around him has that sort of multi-tool set that can take them from ballhandler to post-up player. From screener to slipper. Most of last season, that sort of player ran 3-and-a-half deep on this squad. This year, it’s not just the starting five with that identity, it’s the first nine or ten guys on the floor. That gives new head coach David Adelman some dizzying options to try. Small ball to Big balls. Whatever suits his whim to unlock what’s on the other side.

That second terminator didn’t reach its idealized goal either, thought it took a literal meltdown to make that happen, something akin to what it may take for the Nuggets to not realize their goals for this season. They are truly showing themselves able to morph into whatever the season calls for, and have barely gotten to know each other, in ways. Several of the guys look to already be in late-season form, and we’re just under a week shy of opening night. The future looks very much up to these Nuggets to decide what shape it may take. Somebody pass the popcorn.