![]() From skating lessons then, the two have worked their way to the NHL, where they are now teammates on the Chicago Blackhawks.) Sons Caleb and Seth were interested in hockey, so Popeye asked Joe Sakic from the Avalanche for advice. ![]() (His one year in Denver as a player proved perhaps more fruitful for other members of his family. He averaged 7.0 points and 7.4 rebounds with the Mavericks, Raptors, Celtics, Nuggets, Wizards and Golden State. Popeye Jones was certainly one of those team-oriented guys as a player. He said, ‘It’s when the open man gets the ball.’ ![]() Jones paused a moment and went on, “You know, the one year I worked for Doc Rivers in Philly, I remember one meeting Doc said, ‘You can tell when a team is ready to win a championship.’ What he said next has really stuck with me. You’ve still got to use what you have, but it helps everyone when the ball is moving.” I think teams already try to, but maybe they’ll get away from the more ball-dominant guards. It’s a copycat league, and you may start to see teams try to move the ball more. But the way we played as a team is an example. It just takes a collective group that everybody’s pulling the same way, and that’s what happened. You understand that to win a championship it takes not only your starting five, but it takes your whole team, even guys that weren’t in the rotation - veteran guys, young guys that are bringing energy every day - and then the whole coaching staff, the front office. “Obviously he was a big part of it, but everybody was. There was more to the Denver championship than Jokic, of course. I just went to Joker and said, ‘Thank you.'” It was so surreal when it first happened. “I didn’t know what to say right after we won. “I was a rookie in ’93, so I’ve been after it a while,” Jones told Heavy Sports. Sure, it helped having a colossus like Nikola Jokic as the hub of the enterprise, but having a star play the way he did is instructive, as well. The kind of ball movement and unselfishness they displayed, accompanied by concerted defense, is a nice blueprint for youth league teams on up. He’s learned quite a bit in those decades, and there may be something for people at all levels of the game to take from the way the Nuggets won their title. Jones is obviously clear-eyed as he and the Nuggets turn the page, but the afterglow and the celebration humor remain. He’s been at this a long time, through seven stops and six teams as a player (Dallas twice) and 17 years and five teams as a coach. The laugh that followed was hard-earned, not just through the development of a title team in Denver, but of Jones’ more than 30 years in professional basketball. LAS VEGAS - Early during the NBA‘s summer league here, I asked Nuggets assistant coach Popeye Jones when everyone from the club had sobered up following the championship celebrations.
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