Among the six nights separating his first NBA Draft as general manager of the Denver Nuggets and the opening of free agency on June 30 of last year, Calvin Booth took Monte Morris to dinner. The 27-year-old point guard performed admirably as Denver’s floor general while starter Jamal Murray nursed a torn ACL for the 2021-22 season. Even with Murray set to return alongside two-time MVP center Nikola Jokic for this campaign, and despite mounting trade speculation about the man sitting across the table, Booth said he viewed Morris as a key piece of the Nuggets’ chase toward the Western Conference title.
“We talked about what this year looked like, what we need to do, what his role was gonna be,” Booth told Yahoo Sports. “And you realize that … that’s a scenario, frankly, I didn’t keep my word.”
The Nuggets and Wizards had already discussed a deal surrounding the Wizards’ Kentavious Caldwell-Pope during the hours before last February’s trade deadline, when Booth’s predecessor, Tim Connelly, led negotiations with Washington. Booth, 46, had risen through the scouting ranks to Connelly’s trusted second in command and shared the idea Jokic needed more defensive specialists at his side to double as ball movers and perimeter marksmen. Then the week of May’s NBA Draft Combine, as league personnel flocked to Chicago, Timberwolves ownership made Connelly an offer to spearhead Minnesota’s front office that he couldn’t refuse. The league’s unforgiving clock ticked toward draft night anyhow, leaving Booth in pole position of the Nuggets’ basketball operations and overseeing this build around Denver’s generational talent from Serbia.
Sometime after his meal with Morris, Booth reconnected with Wizards general manager Tommy Sheppard. The whole league understood Caldwell-Pope was still available, and a significant fraction of NBA transactions result from groundwork laid during a previous window of activity. Those are the trappings of a fixed marketplace, not to mention an industry ingrained with competition, where a champion is crowned and where dealmakers often repeat talks with trusted allies over unfamiliar foes. Someone trusted like Booth, who is hailed among NBA executives for his constitution as much as his scouting…