MINNEAPOLIS — Jalen Pickett just smiles and returns the nod as two-time NBA MVP and teammate Nikola Jokic lumbers on by, winking at Pickett as he heads into the Denver Nuggets’ locker room.
If anything can summarize the change in Pickett’s life, it’s that. Oh, and the fact today is the first time Pickett has been paid as an NBA player.
“It’s unbelievable,” he says with a laugh. Safe to say the next time Pickett makes the trip back to his native Rochester, the Garbage Plates will be on him. Although as he is quick to note, he has an accountant, so be careful what you ask for.
For now it’s hard to really wrap your head around how much has gone on in Pickett’s life recently, months removed from earning second-team All-America honors while leading Penn State to its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 12 years. Just days earlier he scored in his first NBA game, watched his teammates put on NBA Championship rings, and glanced down the court to realize he was one substitution away from being on the same floor as LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
City after city, game after game, practice after practice. It’s flying by. His teammates are a multiple MVP winner and one of the best guards of the modern era. He has played with these guys more on NBA 2K than in real life. It’s nothing if not surreal.
And there is something humbling in all of it too. No longer is Pickett the biggest fish in the pond. Now he’s a member of a franchise that can lay its claim to having been the best basketball team on the planet in 2023. The Denver Nuggets are a better team for having Pickett around, but when push comes to shove the Nuggets would be just fine without him. And that is, for better or for worse, a reminder this is all business. And you either fit in, or you don’t.
So you grind. Because you didn’t come this far to stop now.
“This team won a title last year so I’m just trying to come in and learn as much as I possibly can,” Pickett said. “So if somebody gets hurt or I get into the rotation or whatever they need. I’m going to be available to try and help us get back to that [title.]”
There is something to be said for that, the power of being ready when the moment comes. And in a lot of ways Pickett is in the perfect situation with a four-year deal that affords him the time to hone his craft alongside some of the best players in the league, led by one of the best coaches in the league.
For Nuggets’ head coach Mike Malone, there is probably a balance to strike in the moment between coaching up the end of his bench and winning with the front of it. His team begins the long grind through the season with all the pieces in place, the cornerstone players to work with and far more established role players than a newly minted NBA rookie. That said, a former guard himself, Malone isn’t afraid to defend Pickett for what he is: an NBA player. Orthodox or not, flashy or not, Pickett got here for a reason, and Pickett is a Denver Nugget for a reason.
“I remember [Penn State alum and Nuggets’ GM Calvin Booth] was talking to me about him, and I didn’t know much about him,” Malone said pregame. “But obviously, Calvin and our scouts scouring the college landscape knew the impact that he had on a very good Penn State team, their best team in a while down there. And obviously, Jalen was a big part of that. His fingerprints were all over that team and their program. So he contributes to winning. He’s tough.
“Is he a throwback player? He’s an NBA player. He’s strong; he’s physical. He sees the floor. I know that they asked him to do a lot of things down there and obviously on this team, you know, he probably won’t be asked to do all those things at this level as a rookie, but for him right now just continuing to get the work and staying ready mentally and physically so when that night happens when your number’s called you can go play to the best of your ability to take full advantage of that opportunity.”
And opportunity is the word. Pickett heads into each day looking to make the most of his opportunity, and how could you not, given the chance to watch two of the great players in the league each and every day? If anything, there is a funny kinship in the way Pickett plays the game — an unconventional back-to-the-basket style that runs in the face of many guards in the league — and the jack-of-all-trades style that Jokic plays with. The two might see their similarities diverge from there, but in a way they’re both two guys playing the game their own way.
Of course, one of them has won league MVP twice while the other has scored in an NBA game twice. But even Jokic had to score his first points.
“I mean, to see the way he sees the floor and where he catches the basketball, he sees the plays and [Jamal Murray] see the plays before they [happen] and manipulate the defense to open up the passer,” Pickett said, almost shaking his head in awe. “So to see somebody read the game like that, I mean, it’s just been great to watch film from both of those guys and how they play the pick and roll. Just their cohesiveness and how they share the ball. Their reads before they actually make the pass.”
In all of this there is also a desire to fit in too, and maybe a small amount of wanting to prove to yourself that you belong. This isn’t a team trying to get back to the playoffs or a team full of young scrappy players taking part in a rebuild. This is a team looking to win a championship, a team that doesn’t need to carry around dead weight, a team that understands what winning takes.
And that is, even for the best of players, a big jump to make from the intense but ultimately mild proving grounds of college basketball. Somewhere in all of this you want to see the ball go in the hoop and to have some moments when you no longer have to wonder if this was all a mistake, that yes you do in fact belong.
“You have some scrimmages and you play a couple of live events prior to this training camp. And I’ve played pretty solid there,” Pickett said. “But once I really get some time, maybe in a game you really start thinking [I belong]…. you can see moments [in practice] but definitely I want to put together a whole game to really feel comfortable in that situation.”
And who can blame him. Confident? Sure. Capable? Absolutely. But there’s also that part of everyone who wants to find out that playing at the highest level is something they can do and that all that work wasn’t for nothing.
Which is maybe why scoring — twice now — was so satisfying. Whatever Pickett’s NBA career looks like, he will always have that. Nobody will ever be able to take that away from a kid who used to play his grandmother one-on-one in the driveway or hide WWE action figures in her purse. They started somewhere, and they got to the finish line. In many ways the rest is icing on the cake.
“To get that first [shot] to go down, it takes a lot of pressure off,” Pickett said. “There were a lot of emotions — especially on ring night. So for me to make my first basket there, it gave me a sense of you know, I helped out the team, even though the game was over. It was just really a special moment for me and to have my whole family there, 15-20 people at that game since my first basketball game so I mean, that was great.”
It’s fitting that Pickett is back in Minneapolis even just for the night, the Nuggets going on to lose to the Minnesota Timberwolves. A year earlier Pickett sat at a table on the same Target Center court and talked about Penn State’s upcoming season at Big Ten Media Days. At the time he was asked to predict something that would turn out to be true about Penn State and Pickett staked his claim without hesitation: the Nittany Lions were going to be good and they were going to make the NCAA Tournament.
And he was right.
A year later and a lifetime away Pickett is checking in at the scorers table this time, once again looking down the floor to see more NBA stars watching him play, once again scoring in how own way, and once again asked to predict what might be true of himself in a year’s time.
“Jalen is going to be an NBA champion,” he said, smiling like he always does.
