ESPN NBA reporter Tim Bontemps clearly had a point he wanted to make Tuesday morning on Get Up, but he picked one of the worst possible players to use as an example.
Discussing Monday night’s faceoff between the Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors (which was on ESPN), Bontemps set his sights on superstar duo Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. Not to highlight how Jokic has set Denver up to be within reach of a top seed in the Western Conference, or to illustrate how the Nuggets rose to the moment to steal a win while Jokic was sidelined with an elbow injury and Murray dealt with a sprained right ankle.
No, Bontemps made the segment about Jokic missing the game. In fact, in a rare television appearance, Bontemps used the occasion to slam Murray and the Joker’s absences as a “horrible look for the league.”
“This is why the NBA put in the Player Participation Policy,” Bontemps said. “Your stars are supposed to play. Nikola Jokic plays all the time…he’s been banged up with a bunch of stuff. You could look ahead at the schedule if you’re the Nuggets. They play the Washington Wizards, the worst team in the league, at home on Saturday. Sit these guys in that game, have them ready to go for today’s game and Wednesday’s game against the Lakers.”
Immediately, Denver fans called out the numerous holes in Bontemps’ argument.
“It’s a horrible look for the league.”
—@TimBontemps on the Nuggets not playing Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray vs. the Warriors pic.twitter.com/WQ3ElVeQce
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) March 18, 2025
For starters, Murray turned his ankle on Saturday and left the game for a beat. The injury-riddled point guard has missed just eight games this season. Jokic has missed just seven and is one of the NBA’s most durable stars, a fact that has helped his case as an MVP candidate this entire decade.
Beyond that, the NBA policy Bontemps referenced only applies to players recently named to All-Star and All-NBA teams. Murray would not qualify.
Local radio and TV host Vic Lombardi called Bontemps’ credibility into question and referenced the reporting Bontemps does for his MVP “Straw Poll” project at ESPN.com.
“I’m sick of these national guys thinking they know,” Lombardi said. “You don’t know jack. You’re assuming.
“You know what you did in my book? You lost all credibility.”
This is clearly the take of a national pundit who’s never watched the Nuggets.
The guy who runs the official NBA MVP straw poll doesn’t watch Nuggets basketball?? Really??
“You know what you did in my book? You lost all credibility.” – @VicLombardi #MileHighBasketball https://t.co/hKC9QvmSUZ pic.twitter.com/NU8VoL0nZR
— 92.5 FM – Denver’s Altitude Sports Radio (@AltitudeSR) March 18, 2025
Nuggets analyst and YouTuber “Swipa Cam” used the situation to highlight how ESPN consistently chases off-court drama and big picture narratives over the stakes of the games and on-court moments.
Even Jack Coyne, an NBA researcher for Stats LLC who lives in Denver, got in on the Bontemps-bashing, posting numbers that highlight just how available Jokic really is for nationally televised games.
Coyne wrote that Jokic has appeared in nearly 94 percent of Denver’s national TV games since he was drafted, which is third in the NBA over that span.
There is no doubt that Bontemps is highlighting a real issue. The NBA does have a star availability problem, and that is why they instituted the PPP.
But Denver is one of the last teams that should be held up as an example of the issue. Just because the game was on ESPN and Bontemps wanted to watch the best players on the court, injuries happen. And the Nuggets have earned the benefit of the doubt that those are real injuries, not load management or rest.