DENVER – If there is a bright side to how Bruce Brown’s 2023-24 season is going, it’s that he should be free to attend CMA Fest in Nashville this June.
The four-day festival is billed as the ultimate country music fan experience, bringing together some of the biggest names in the genre for the festivities.
Brown — who was introduced to country music through his high school girlfriend in Massachusetts, near Boston — has attended in the past but had to give it a pass last year given he was busy winning an NBA championship in his one season with the Denver Nuggets (a worthwhile compromise).
But for the boot-wearing, Carhartt overalls-having, cowboy hat enthusiast, getting to go to Nashville in the off-season is going to be something to look forward to after a season of upheaval and change. In fact, more change could be coming for Brown this summer, as he could end up being re-signed by the Toronto Raptors, traded or headed to free agency.
At least being free in early June won’t be an issue. Brown joined Toronto in mid-January as part of the trade that sent then-Raptors star Pascal Siakam to the Indiana Pacers, where Brown had signed as a free agent following his title run with Denver.
And while the Raptors harboured thoughts of perhaps pushing for a spot in the play-in tournament even as they began rebuilding in earnest, those plans evaporated roughly at the point that Scottie Barnes, and then Jakob Poeltl, each required surgery to repair hand injuries, effectively ending their respective seasons. The Raptors are 2-12 with Poeltl out of the lineup this year and 1-3 without Barnes.
It hasn't helped that Brown has now missed four games with knee inflammation, on top of all that. He’s been ramping up his workouts in the past couple of days so there is some optimism he could be back in the lineup to face his old team Monday night, which'll be Toronto's third stop on a four-game road trip that winds up in Detroit on Wednesday.
“I always looking forward to coming back here,” said Brown, who faced the Nuggets and picked up his championship ring as a member of the Pacers back on January 14th, three days before he was traded to the Raptors. “Great fans, great fan base, excited to see my previous teammates. It will be great to see everyone.”
Normally when a player with experience against an upcoming opponent is on hand, the coaching staff might pick their brain on possible tactics, personnel and the rest of it.
There’s not much point in that with Brown and the Nuggets. Not that Brown doesn’t know Denver’s schemes inside and out, because when you play 26 minutes a game for a team that plays 20 playoff contests on their way to a championship, you get about as deep into a team’s playbook as possible. It’s just that Denver is pretty much a riddle that remains unsolvable for opposing defences.
They don’t surprise teams, they simply put the ball in the hands of two-time MVP Nikola Jokic and figure things out as they go along.
Jokic and Canada’s Jamal Murray provide the structure with their devastating, cat-and-mouse two-man game. The pair combined to average 56.1 points a game over the playoffs on 52 per cent shooting, including 42 per cent from three. Opponents were required to pick their poison, and they died regardless.
“That two-man is definitely tough,” Brown said. “When you have [three-point threats] KCP (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope) and MPJ (Michael Porter Jr.) on the wings and then Aaron Gordon in the dunker spot ... what are you going to do? You just got to hope they’re going to miss shots. Jamal is elite in the mid-range, Joker is elite with the ball in his hands, it’s kind of like just hope they miss.”
Brown says his "welcome to Denver moment" came in his first game with the Nuggets when Jokic found him with passes he didn’t expect and he fumbled them out of bounds.
"When I got here I was just told: 'You got to be ready at all times, he'll throw a no-look pass right to you.' I dropped the first couple in a game against Golden State, but after that, I caught every one."
And Murray?
The two had history going back to high school, and the Kitchener-raised star was quick to remind Brown that he had hit a game-winner over him back in the day, but after the initial re-introductions, Brown quickly saw the Murray who is the other engine driving Denver’s post-season success.
“He’s a great teammate, he just wants to win. It didn’t matter if he had a good night, or I had a good night,” Brown said. "I remember in Game 4 of the Finals, I had my hands on the ball at the end of the game and he was like 'Go, do your thing' … there’s just great people over there.
“He’s a big guard so when he gets to his spots he can rise up and he’s one of the best shooters I’ve ever played with, at any level,” Brown continued. “And he’s sneaky athletic. He will dunk on you. He tries on defence. He’s just an all-round good player. He’s got no holes in his game.”
Brown’s got a few holes in his Colorado bucket list. While he loved Denver for its adjacency to the country music scene — you’ll run into folks wearing cowboy hats, boots, and Wrangler jeans in the airport or even walking downtown — and that the thin mountain air did wonders for the carry distance of his driver when he played golf, he regrets never being able to see a live act at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, the famous concert venue in the sandstone formations southwest of the city.
He won’t manage it this time around either, but there is always Nashville in June.
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