Strategizing for a 17-hour flight is a lot like scouting for an NBA game.
Prepare with lots of film.
The easier to binge, the better, in this case. That seemed to be the prevailing school of thought among Nuggets players leading up to their daunting departure Monday night: a literal globetrotting team trip to Abu Dhabi, where the NBA has scheduled their first two preseason games this year against the Celtics.
“Probably sleep half of it, and probably try to watch a trilogy or something,” a wary Michael Porter Jr. said. “Like ‘Lord of the Rings,’ or something like that.”
“I haven’t watched ‘Indiana Jones,’” DeAndre Jordan said, “so I think I may download that series.”
The games themselves don’t take place until Friday (10 a.m. MT) and Sunday (8 a.m.). But the Nuggets are traveling forward in time — 10 hours ahead, in addition to the time they have to kill on the plane. It’s a lot, even for one of the most geographically isolated teams in the NBA.
“I can’t say that I’m excited about the flight,” Christian Braun said. “But I am excited about being there.”
“Seventeen hours, man,” coach Michael Malone said. “That’s a long time.”
A long time doesn’t have to be such a bad thing, though, in his opinion.
“I’ve been pushing for (an international trip) for 10 years,” Malone said. “I’ve been part of these trips in the past on different teams. I think preseason trips where you get to travel, see the world, experience a new culture, but most importantly come together as a team — spend time off the court, go to dinner — I think it can only strengthen the bond and the brotherhood.”
Malone was mostly referring to the destination, not the journey. But that doesn’t mean the latter can’t be a little productive. Aaron Gordon‘s plans for the flight included a bottle of wine and a deck of cards.
“For fun, though; not for money,” Jordan clarified, winking.
If that accounts for a small fraction of the time, the rest still requires some fending for oneself. For Gordon, that means a lot of reading and maybe a little screen time. He just won’t be downloading any trilogies.
“My favorite movie of all time is ‘Inside Man,’” he said. “Denzel (Washington). Spike Lee. Jodie Foster.“
Surprising as it is that one of Denver’s oldest players hasn’t seen any of the “Indiana Jones” movies — “I mean, I know, like, the big rock rolling down the hill, but I haven’t watched the movies,” Jordan said in his defense — he’s also one of the more worldly personalities on the roster. He spent time in England last summer participating in a celebrity holiday special of “The Great British Bake Off.” One of the shows he considered downloading for the Abu Dhabi trip was a Japanese series. He’s been trying to learn a new language.
For others, this week represents a first time overseas. By Braun’s estimation, the longest flight he’s ever taken was to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico this summer. He vowed to take his flight prep seriously during training camp, speaking on the matter as if he was discussing offseason workout regimens.
“I’ve never done it. So I’m gonna try to learn,” he said. “Try to listen to some people that have done it.”
People like Nikola Jokic and Dario Saric, who are from Balkan countries. “It’s been the last — how many? — nine years, always two times per year,” Saric said, lamenting inconvenient layovers. “Sometimes 15, 13, 20 hours. … So I kind of learned. It’s gonna be tough, but at least it’s a straightforward 17 hours.”
Or people like Jamal Murray, who has made a tradition of flying to Australia during his free months to train with UFC fighter Alex Volkanovski.
“It’s funny, because every time I go more than like 12 hours, I just sleep and I’m only up for two,” Murray said. “So I’ll sleep for 10 hours and then I’m only up for breakfast when they serve it. So I’m good. It’ll be smooth for me. … I don’t sleep on planes, but if it’s a long flight, I’ll sleep the whole time. It’s crazy.”
The elephant in the cabin is exhaustion. From strictly a basketball standpoint, an international trip is the wonkiest way to start a preseason. Even with an early arrival and practice time, days in Abu Dhabi to overcome jet lag will be limited before the team plays its first game in months. Sluggishness can return home. Professional athletes are routine-obsessed. During the 2022-23 season, Avalanche players said they felt like they got off to a slow start in part due to unusual scheduling that included a trip to Finland.
Malone tried to plan accordingly. He initially scheduled only three official practices to take place in Denver over the weekend, but he decided to add a fourth on Monday before the flight. The Nuggets experimented with unorthodox lineups in a series of scrimmages, the last of which went to overtime and had to end in a tie after Murray made a clutch shot before the buzzer. They didn’t have time for a second OT.
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“The more I thought about it, we’ve gotta practice Monday,” Malone had said a couple of days earlier. “I wanted to make sure we had four good practices. … It’s probably gonna be a horse-(expletive) practice (in Abu Dhabi), because you’re dealing with that kind of jet lag. So we’ll be smart about it. We’ll try to make sure we’re getting guys moving, sweating, getting that flight out of their system accordingly.”
That is, if his players haven’t already been moving and sweating on the plane.
“The 17-hour flight is going to be very eventful, I’m sure,” Jordan said. “It’ll probably be a lot of Serbian folk music. Dancing up and down the aisle.”
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