The inexplicable secret to unlocking Bruce Brown’s jumper was to introduce stakes — real or otherwise.
Shooting has never been his strength on the basketball court, even during his previous stint with the Nuggets, but he was especially raw as a burgeoning prospect at Vermont Academy. “He could not shoot in high school,” admits Alex Popp, his prep coach.
It’s easy enough for Popp to understand why that was. Brown had a gangly, disproportionate wingspan, great for ball-hawking (in basketball and football) but potentially obstructive to shooting mechanics. He also had enough natural talent relative to his peers that he didn’t need to rely on the 3-pointer. “It’s like, well, if you can get to the basket, that’s a higher point-per-possession opportunity,” Popp said.
What still eludes his grasp is how Brown could suddenly shoot the lights out when those lights were brightest. How his efficiency skyrocketed against Vermont’s toughest opponents. How, in practice, “the second we would do shooting drills, he would find a way to beat the guys who were going to college as 3-point specialists.” Guys like Corey Johnson, who went on to be a high-volume marksman at Harvard.
In an empty gym, with bragging rights on the line, Teenage Bruce could refine his form and match Johnson’s precision.
“It’s why analytics can only get you so far, right?” Popp said. “We’re still humans.”
Brown has defied conventions and percentages throughout his career, and he defied the conventional wisdom of NBA free agency this summer by treating Denver as a dream destination. After two years of exploring life without each other, he and the Nuggets are back together for another season. He signed a one-year, $3 million contract in July that’ll cost the team $2.3 million against the salary cap.
His earliest coaches can see why it’s a perfect match. They noticed years ago what Denver experienced in 2023 and coveted again in 2025: the temperament, the diverse skill set, the willingness to adapt. The qualities, those coaches say, of a winning player.
“Winning smile,” former Wakefield High School coach Brad Simpson said. “He put me at ease, and I’m sure puts a lot of people at ease.”
But Brown hasn’t played much winning basketball since he left Colorado to sign a $45 million contract with Indiana. He was out of Denver’s price range after the championship, by CBA law. Life-changing money awaited on the open market. “Brucey B had to go get a bag,” as Aaron Gordon summed it up simply.
Brown spent those two years playing for Indiana, Toronto and New Orleans, but often thinking about Denver, envisioning a chance to return. He stayed active in a group chat with teammates. He kept a compilation of his 2022-23 highlights saved on his phone. He sat court-side at a playoff game between the Nuggets and Clippers “to prove a point that I wanted to be back,” he said recently at a local private event hosted by Jackson Family Wines. He followed through on that point by taking the Nuggets’ offer amid interest from other teams, including the Lakers and Suns, league sources told The Post.
“I was like, ‘You know what, I don’t care how much (I get offered). If I get somewhere more, I don’t care. I’m just gonna go back to Denver because I just think it’s a perfect fit for me,’” Brown said. “Playing style, and I mean, I want to win again. So I think it was a pretty quick answer for me once I found out they wanted me back.”
Bruce Brown (11) of the Denver Nuggets lets the Miami Heat crowd know his name in the first half of the Nuggets’ 108-95 win during Game 4 of the NBA Finals at the Kaseya Center in Miami on Friday, June 9, 2023. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
What explains the magnetism? It could be Brown’s appetite for big games, his innate knack for rising to the moment like he always did for Popp, or like he did when he scored 11 points in the last five minutes of NBA Finals Game 4. It could be that Denver has functioned on ball movement, body movement and team-oriented offense around Nikola Jokic for years now, and Brown has always fashioned himself as a malleable part of his five-man ecosystem, not as a one-man show — even when he really could’ve been.
Simpson likes to tell a story about the margin between Brown’s talent and ego. It was the summer before his freshman year at Wakefield, a high school in the suburbs north of Boston. Some of Wakefield’s team was competing in an informal summer league together, and Simpson got a call one morning from a player asking if his friend from the city, whose mom had enrolled him at Wakefield, could suit up.
Simpson sat in the bleachers that night, watching with a couple of other coaches as the skinny newcomer warmed up. When Brown threw down a vicious slam dunk, they fell backward from amazement. Then Brown defied Simpson’s expectations.
“He could’ve taken over that game,” he said. “But he passed the ball, found the open man, didn’t take many shots.”
Brown became a two-sport star at Wakefield, showing early signs of FBS potential as a wide receiver or defensive back. His AAU program, the BABC Academy, had certain non-negotiable demands.
“We press the whole game, every game, for 49 years,” coach Leo Papile said. “It’s just something we like to do. Today, a lot of guys have different ideas of how they view themselves. They may think of that as beneath them. Like, ‘Hey, I can really play. This is for guys who can’t play. It’s the way they get on the court.’ Not with Bruce.”
Brown was delighted by the full-court defensive system. It was a convenient outlet for his cornerback skills, after Vermont Academy dissolved its football program the year he transferred there. Papile played him at various positions in the press, whether up top or in the middle of a 1-2-1-1. A decade later, at Nuggets training camp, Brown proudly told reporters unprompted that he and Peyton Watson were pressing full-court at practice. “He just loved running around, like a hyena,” Papile said. “Go get the ball. I think that’s what has earmarked him, why teams value him.”
Brown’s competitive wiring was tenacious, but his default setting was always easygoing. Popp remembers him getting recruited by then-Rhode Island coach Dan Hurley, who tried to convince Popp why Brown might not be ready for a power conference yet and how he could benefit from Atlantic 10 hoops. “I’m like, I get that,” Popp said. “But once you spend a couple months around Bruce, you quickly realize that so much of what makes him special as a player is who he is.”
Bruce Brown (11) of the Indiana Pacers flashes his championship ring as he stands beside former teammate Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (5) of the Denver Nuggets before the first quarter at Ball Arena in Denver on Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Brown’s well-established fixation on the cowboy aesthetic might be the final form of his free-and-easy demeanor — and another reason Colorado calls to him. He has a home in Nashville and spends free time on a ranch near Denver when he can. It was all a natural progression for someone who’s spent his whole life branching out into new environments, from an upbringing in Boston proper to high school in the suburbs, from prep basketball in rural Vermont to college in tropical Miami.
“I think he was enthused by culture change, physical change,” Papile said. “A lot of us end up living and dying on the same block. We go to the same church. We eat the same food. Bruce is more of a global ambassador. He enjoys folks from all walks of life.”
He also feels loyal to the formative places in his life. He returns to them. A couple of years ago, Simpson and his wife were walking their dogs around a lake in Wakefield when they recognized two young adults riding past on bikes: Brown and one of his former teammates. They stopped to say hi. Simpson beamed. “Back in Wakefield again!”
Brown couldn’t stay away from a place that he considered home.