DENVER (AP) — A couple of things gleaned from Thursday's media day for the Denver Nuggets: Nikola Jokic can grow a first-rate beard/goatee, Jamal Murray has aspirations to be an MMA fighter and Aaron Gordon held one impressive yard sale this summer as he cleaned out his closet.
Oh, and that not defending their crown sat well with absolutely no one. They're eager to scale that NBA mountaintop again only with a different look. Gone are Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Reggie Jackson. Brought in are Russell Westbrook and Dario Saric.
Of course, there are the mainstays in Jokic, now a three-time NBA MVP, and Murray, who's fresh off signing a 4-year, $208M max contract extension. The Nuggets are coming off a season in which they tied the franchise's NBA record for wins (57) only to be eliminated in the second-round of the playoffs to Minnesota. Denver squandered a 20-point second-half lead in Game 7 at home.
“After a season where everybody says we failed, it’s my job to make sure that we don’t believe all that (expletive),” said Nuggets coach Michael Malone, who guided the team to their first NBA championship in 2022-23. “We’re a good team. The last six years, no one in the West has come close to doing what we’ve done. Remind yourself of that, but also challenge yourself to not be satisfied. Push yourself and push your teammate to become even better."
Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth estimated that Jokic has a 10-year prime contention window and they're about halfway through it.
“You hit one of them it's great,” Booth said. “It's going to be incredibly hard to win another one.”
On the docket for Booth, negotiating a contract extension with Gordon, which he can do starting Friday. Gordon is coming off a season in which he averaged 13.9 points and 6.5 rebounds in his do-a-little-bit-of-everything role.
“I really love this organization,” Gordon said. “I hope we get it done.”
Gordon switched his jersey to No. 32 this season to honor his brother, Drew, who died four months ago in car crash in Oregon. Aaron Gordon said his teammates helped him through it.
“These guys have been there for me every step of the way,” Gordon said. “These guys have really developed into people that I would call my brothers.”
Gordon has long been a fan favorite. That was evident when he opened up his wardrobe to fans this summer. His pop-up event was well received.
“Just a yard sale,” he cracked. “It just happened to get a little out of hand. It's a great community. They've accepted me and I'm just grateful for it."
On Thursday, Murray wasn't exactly in an expansive mood during his time at the podium, but he did reveal his affection for mixed martial arts. He worked out with former UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski.
“I might have a career there after this,” said Murray, who struggled for Team Canada over the summer at the Paris Games. “But I’m doing this right now.”
Murray forms quite an on-court partnership with Jokic, who showed up with a beard/goatee he's already contemplating nixing. Jokic enters training camp on the high of helping Serbia to an Olympic bronze medal in Paris. He has already picked up his first assist of the year, too, by playing a role in bringing Westbrook to town.
“Great, great player for us," said Jokic, who earned his third NBA MVP award in four seasons after a regular season averaging 26.4 points, 12.4 rebounds and nine assists. "He's going to bring us all the good stuff.”
Westbrook joined the Nuggets in an effort to capture the one thing missing from his distinguished resume — a title.
“As long as we as a team put our best foot forward, we can live with the results," Westbrook said. "If it's a championship, I'm grateful for that. If it's not, I'm also grateful for the opportunity.”
Westbrook was in a jovial mood Thursday, playfully mimicking Murray’s signature “Blue Arrow” pose as Murray took pictures. It brought a grin to Murray.
That's just Westbrook's personality.
“People confuse intensity with competitiveness,” Westbrook said. “When I’m on the floor, I don’t want to be walking around, shaking hands, kissing babies. I'm there to kick some (butt). Of the floor, I'm chill."
Notes: Altitude announced a deal to offer Nuggets and Avalanche games through a streaming app along with a handful of games on local broadcasts. Altitude TV has been in a long-running dispute with Comcast, the state’s largest cable provider, which has not carried Altitude since their previous deal expired in 2019. ... The contenders to join Murray, Jokic, Michael Porter Jr. and Gordon in the starting lineup appear to be Christian Braun and Julian Strawther. ... Porter, who's had back issues in the past, took advantage of a healthy offseason by getting in even more work on the court.
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba
FILE - Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray (27) argues after called for a foul on Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns (32) in the second half of Game 7 of an NBA second-round playoff series in Denver, May 19, 2024. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
FILE - Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) in the second half of Game 7 of an NBA second-round playoff series in Denver, May 19, 2024. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday vowed to carry out “full force” strikes against Hezbollah until it ceases firing rockets across the border, dimming hopes for a cease-fire proposal put forth by U.S. and European officials.
Israel carried out a new strike in the Lebanese capital, which killed a senior Hezbollah commander, and the militant group launched dozens of rockets into Israel. Tens of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese people living near their countries' border have been displaced by the fighting.
Netanyahu spoke as he landed in New York to attend the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting, where U.S. and European officials were putting heavy pressure on both sides of the conflict to accept a proposed 21-day halt in the fighting to give time for diplomacy and avert all-out war.
Nearly 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week as Israel dramatically escalated strikes, saying it is targeting Hezbollah’s military capacities. Israeli leaders say they are determined to stop the group's cross-border attacks, which began after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack that ignited the war in Gaza.
Israel’s “policy is clear," Netanyahu said. "We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with full force. And we will not stop until we reach all our goals, chief among them the return of the residents of the north securely to their homes.”
Just before his comments, the Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah drone commander, Mohammed Hussein Surour, in an airstrike in the suburbs of Beirut. Hezbollah later confirmed Surour's death.
The Health Ministry said two people were killed and 15 wounded in the strike. Associated Press photos of the scene showed a gutted apartment in a residential building in Dahiyeh, the mainly Shiite suburb where Hezbollah has a strong presence.
Until recently, Israel had rarely targeted sites in Beirut during the low-level conflict with Hezbollah that has been ongoing since October. However, in the past week, Israel has struck Beirut’s southern suburbs several times.
Over the past week, Israel has carried out several strikes in Beirut targeting senior Hezbollah commanders. One strike in eastern Lebanon on Thursday killed 20 people, most of them Syrian migrants, according to Lebanese health officials.
Israel hit 75 sites early Thursday across southern and eastern Lebanon and launched a new wave of strikes in the evening, the military said. Throughout the day, Hezbollah fired some 175 projectiles into Israel, the Israeli military said. Most were intercepted or fell in open areas, sparking some wildfires, though one rocket hit a street in a town near the northern city of Safed.
Israel has talked of a possible ground invasion into Lebanon to drive Hezbollah -- an Iranian-backed Shiite group that is the strongest armed force in Lebanon -- away from the border. It has moved thousands of troops to the north in preparation. Some 100,000 Lebanese have fled their homes in the past week, streaming into Beirut and points further north.
Israeli military vehicles transported tanks and armored vehicles toward the country’s northern border with Lebanon a day after commanders issued a call-up of reservists. Several tanks arrived in Kiryat Shmona, a hard-hit town just several miles from the border.
On another front, Israel’s military on Friday said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen that set off air raid sirens across the country’s center. Sirens rang out across Israel’s populous central area, including the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv. Another missile from Yemen landed in central Israel about two weeks ago.
The escalation has raised fears of a repeat – or worse – of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah that wreaked destruction across southern Lebanon and other parts of the country and saw heavy Hezbollah rocket fire on Israeli cities.
“Another full-scale war could be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said after talks with his British and Australian counterparts in London.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was at the U.N. meeting with Israeli officials over the truce proposal. Speaking in an interview with MSNBC, he said major powers, the Europeans and Arab nations were united, “everyone speaking with one clear voice about the need to get that cease-fire in the north.”
“I can’t speak for him,” Blinken said of Netanyahu.
Hezbollah has not yet responded to the proposal. Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed it, but his government has no sway over the group.
Netanyahu’s office downplayed the initiative, saying in a statement that it was only a proposal.
One of Netanyahu’s far-right governing partners threatened on Thursday to suspend cooperation with his government if it signs onto a temporary cease-fire with Hezbollah – and to quit completely if a permanent deal is reached. It was the latest sign of displeasure from Netanyahu’s allies toward international cease-fire efforts.
“If a temporary cease-fire becomes permanent, we will resign from the government,” said National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the Jewish Power party.
If Ben-Gvir leaves the coalition, Netanyahu would lose his parliamentary majority and could see his government come toppling down, though opposition leaders have said they would offer support for a cease-fire deal.
Hezbollah has insisted it would halt its strikes only if there is a cease-fire in Gaza, where Israel has battled Hamas for nearly a year. That appears out of reach despite months of negotiations led by the United States, Egypt and Qatar.
One day after Hamas’ Oct 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel, bringing Israeli counterfire and a cycle of reprisals that has gone on near daily since. Hezbollah says its barrages are a show of support for Palestinians and that it is targeting Israeli military facilities, though rockets have also hit civilian areas.
Before this week, the cross-border exchanges had killed about 600 people in Lebanon, mostly militants but including more than 100 civilians, and about four dozen people in Israel, roughly half of them soldiers and the rest civilians. The fighting also forced tens of thousands to flee homes on both sides of the border.
Israel says its escalated strikes across Lebanon the past week are targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and other military infrastructure. Since Monday, strikes have killed more than 690 people in Lebanon, around a quarter of them women and children, according to local health authorities.
The campaign opened with what is widely believed to be an Israeli attack on Sept. 18 and 19 detonating thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, killing at least 39 people and maiming thousands more, including civilians.
Hezbollah in turn has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel. Several people in Israel have been wounded. On Wednesday, the group fired on Tel Aviv for the first time with a longer-range missile that was intercepted.
Early Thursday, an Israeli airstrike hit a building housing Syrian workers and their families near the ancient city of Baalbek in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley. The Lebanese Health Ministry said 19 Syrians and a Lebanese were killed, one of the deadliest single strikes in Israel’s intensified air campaign.
Hussein Salloum, a local official in Younine, said most of the dead were women and children. The state news agency had initially reported that 23 people were dead.
Lebanon, with a population of around 6 million, hosts nearly 780,000 registered Syrian refugees and hundreds of thousands who are unregistered — the world’s highest refugee population per capita.
Mroue reported from Beirut, Lidman from Tel Aviv. Associated Press journalist Sam McNeil contributed to this report from Kiryat Shmona, Israel.
Lebanese soldiers cordon off the area at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A resident checks an apartment that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept rockets that were launched from Lebanon, as seen from Haifa, northern Israel, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
A damaged building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A man carries a damaged bicycle at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Saksakieh, south Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A man carries pictures of his relatives standing at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Saksakieh, south Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Displaced children sit in a classroom in Beirut, after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in the south with their families, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Displaced children play in a classroom at a school, in Beirut, after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in the south with their families, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A displaced boy sleeps in a classroom in Beirut, after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in the south with his family, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Displaced youth hug as they take shelter at a school in Beirut, after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in the south with their families, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Displaced people gather in the hallway of a school in Beirut, after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in the south, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Volunteers distribute clothes to displayed women at a school in Beirut, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Displaced women smoke waterpipes as they sit in a school in Beirut, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Displaced people sit in a school yard in Beirut, after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in the south, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Displaced women and children sit in a classroom in Beirut, after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in the south, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
People take cover as a siren sounds a warning of incoming rockets fired from Lebanon, in Safed, northern Israel, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
People run to take cover as a siren sounds a warning of incoming rockets fired from Lebanon, in Safed, northern Israel, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Ali Abdel Rahman Zorout, 5, who was wounded in an Israeli airstrike, poses for a picture at the Alaaeddine Hospital in Sarafand, south Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Fatima Abdel Rahman Zorout, 7, who was wounded in an Israeli airstrike, is wheeled on a gurney at the Alaaeddine Hospital in Sarafand, south Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A man carries a damaged bicycle at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Saksakieh, south Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A man stands on top of a damaged car at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Saksakieh, south Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A man reacts in a damaged apartment at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Saksakieh, south Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
An emergency worker cuts concrete blocks as he searches for survivors at the scene of an Israeli airstrike in the town of Maisara, north of Beirut, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
