JaMychal Green leaving the Los Angeles Clippers to join the Denver Nuggets wasn’t exactly one of the biggest moves anyone made in free agency this year. His absence hurts the Clippers a little and he brings value to the Nuggets, but while he’s a good player, his move didn’t make waves during a frenzied free agent period.
Still, Green did make some waves on Tuesday afternoon during his introductory press conference in Denver. As basketball fans recall, the Nuggets rallied back from a 3-1 series deficit against the Clippers in the 2020 Western Conference Semifinals, a shocking result in which Denver just kept fighting en route to a major series upset. Green brought this up in his presser, saying that he was so impressed by what he saw in that series that he was inspired to make the jump.
“Blowing the 3-1 lead, you know they had heart. It wasn’t a tough decision.”
JaMychal Green on choosing to join the Nuggets.
— T.J. McBride (@TJMcBrideNBA) December 1, 2020
This is obviously a way for people to clown on the Clippers and a major source of pride in Denver, but it’s also interesting to see how this narrative hangs over L.A. The team was expected to, at the very least, make the conference finals for the first time in franchise history, and despite having one foot in the door, they were unable to make it there. This narrative will — rightly, to be clear — hang over them for some time. There’s only one way to shake it, and we’ll bet they wouldn’t mind having to beat the Nuggets to make that happen.