Kenneth Faried is having a rejuvenated career with the Houston Rockets, after having a limited role with the Brooklyn Nets. He quickly reminded everyone that he’s still one of the quickest, most athletic forwards in the league. But it wasn’t that long ago when Faried was playing the same, if not better, during his stint with the Denver Nuggets. He spent seven and a half years there, and was a double-double machine, but for some reason, his role changed and he saw very little action during the 2017-18 season.
Faried was interviewed by NBA.com’s Sekou Smith ahead of the Rockets’ match-up against the Nuggets tomorrow, and the eight-year veteran admitted that he’s not happy that things didn’t work out for him in Denver.
“Yeah, it felt like a slap in the face to me, to be honest with you. All the hard work and the time you put it in. It was like Isaiah Thomas when he was in Boston. The hard work and the grit and you’re hurt or something out of your control happens, you are still there to play basketball and I understand that. But at the same time, you’ve got a lot of outside stresses going on. For me, it was ‘hey, I hurt my back one season and I’m still trying to fight through it.’ And we still wanted to go to the playoffs but didn’t make it. So, let me fight through this and, come to find out, at the end of the season, I have a tear in the top of my gluteus maximus. On the right side I caught a tear and they were like, ‘you tore this and it was pretty bad.’ Talking about surgery and everything.
But I didn’t do that. I did rehab. And it was like, ‘hey Denver, I did that rehab, worked out all summer and I’m ready.’ They said ‘no, we really don’t care, we brought in Paul Millsap over you.’ And that’s after bringing in [Nikola Jokic] and [Jusuf] Nurkic and trying to play them together. And I’m sitting there looking like ‘hey, I’m still here. I’m still a four-man and can you give me a chance?’ I’m going to prove everybody wrong. I didn’t fall off. I didn’t stop working. I kept working. But I just don’t have the opportunity. And coaches just didn’t believe in me. And now everybody’s so surprised that I’ve re-emerged, this new me. And no, I’ve been here the whole time. I just happened to fall into a situation where the coaches believed in me.”
Kenneth Faried refusing to undergo surgery is probably the reason why the Nuggets have decided to move on from him, but if things will be based on how well he’s been playing, he clearly proved that he didn’t need it.
It may have not ended the way both sides envisioned it to be, but Faried and the Nuggets are both in a better place since parting ways.
Kenneth Faried is having a great run with the Rockets, while Denver is one of the top teams in the Western Conference.
A potential playoff meeting could add an extra motivation for The Manimal.
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