Joe Abunassar doesn’t want to get your hopes up. He also digs Zeke Nnaji too much to drop a baby grand onto the kid’s shoulders. Or set expectations that the Nuggets’ first-round draft pick is going to have to lug around for the next 15 years like a dead weight.
“One of the general managers came in and talked about him,” offered Abunassar, the founder of Impact Basketball and star trainer to the NBA elite. “And (the GM) said, ‘The worst he can be,’ although he didn’t say it that way, ‘is, OK, Channing Frye.’ Who had a great career.”
Abunassar knows careers. And stars.
His roster of alumni clientele includes Chauncey Billups, Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh and Paul Pierce. He took Nnaji under his wing in Las Vegas for roughly five months and change earlier this year, helping the teen put on 15 pounds of muscle — on a vegan diet, no less — while shaving the rough edges off of footwork and shooting form.
“Look, I trained KG,” Abunassar said. “At 19 years old, he has the tools. I believe (Nnaji) is going to be a long-time starter in this league. And I think what makes him really great for Denver is that he can play for Denver right now — guarding, rebounding and taking shots.”
It’s the former that worries you. Especially given that the Nuggets no longer have the services of two of their best and most versatile wing defenders, Jerami Grant and Torrey Craig — rangy types who could guard the two through four spots on the floor, and even smaller fives, if push came to shove.
“I told him (last week), ‘There are two guys on the Denver team with the names of (Nikola) Jokic and (Jamal) Murray who shoot a lot of basketballs,’” Abunassar laughed. “‘You’re not there to lead the team in scoring, brother. You get to guard big men and you get to guard (small forwards).’
“That’s what’s great about Zeke, is that he can guard multiple positions. While that offensive (side) is something he’ll grow into, absolutely.”
“Go go against the best”
Zeke Nnaji doesn’t want to get your hopes up. But when Tim Connelly, the Nuggets’ president of basketball operations, and Calvin Booth, the team’s GM, sketched out their master plan for his role, the dude couldn’t stop grinning.
“They said they really want me to be able to guard threes through fives, and I think I’ll be able to do that,” the 6-foot-11 forward told The Post last week.
“My ultimate goal is to be able to guard one through five consistently. I want to be a lockdown defender no matter who I’m guarding. But the biggest thing right now is working on that three through five and just being versatile, no matter what role I’m playing.”
It’s not fair to expect a 19-year-old to walk in here, as a rookie, and keep everybody from Donovan Mitchell to Anthony Davis in check, let alone in front of them. But Nnaji also knows the A-list assignments — eventually — are part of the job description, whether he likes it not. Especially in a Western Conference stacked with stars.
“Oh, yeah, we talked about (big names) a little bit,” the reigning Pac-12 Freshman of the Year said. “But I feel like I’m not someone who shies away from the best. I feel like I want to go against the best and try to outplay them. And beat them.
“I think that’s really just my competitive side. I don’t like to lose. I want to win and dominate everything.”
The Twin Cities native has been taking careful notes when it comes to the Nuggets’ recent roster makeover, too. Nnaji is eager to prove he’s worthy of that trust — that defensive trust, especially — sooner rather than later.
“I’ve been preparing for this my whole life,” Nnaji said. “If I have to guard the other team’s best player, you know what? I’m going to do that. And I’m going to do it to the best of my ability. I’m going to be working on that at practice a lot, doing whatever I can do to improve, so I can be that lockdown defender.”
“No one’s going to outwork him”
Jeremy Miller doesn’t want to get your hopes up. But Miller, Nnaji’s AAU coach at D1 Minnesota, thinks you’ll be surprised at the dude’s handles. And that the bulk of the Nuggets locker room, grizzled playoff veterans now, are going to fall head over heels for the new guy.
“No one’s going to outwork him,” Miller said. “The veterans on (the Nuggets) are going to love him because he’s going to be a guy that’s not caught up in all the glitz and glamor.
“He’s very grounded. They’re going to be happy that this 19-year-old is going to work as hard as them. He’s not a hey-look-at-me kid. His parents are phenomenal people and they just really grounded him … he was raised as a renaissance man, in a lot of ways. He just has really high character.”
Nnaji was raised in a home of musicians, athletes and disciplinarians. He didn’t have a cellular phone until his junior year of high school. His happy place off the court isn’t scrolling through Instagram or TikTok. It’s composing songs on the keyboard, learning new instruments, and expanding on a Spotify library that bounces from Ray Charles to Coldplay, Stevie Wonder to Frank Sinatra, Fleetwood Mac to Bob Marley.
“The two instruments I’m learning right now are harmonica and Spanish guitar,” said Nnaji, a multi-sport, multi-instrumental prodigy who’s been playing the piano since he was in first grade.
“There’s this one song, ‘Piano Man’ by Billy Joel — I (want to) play the harmonica and piano at the same time, so I’ve got a little neck brace that goes around me.”
Miller plays you a memory, this one from Indianapolis a few years back. Nnaji was playing behind forward Matthew Hurt at D1, who would eventually sign with Duke. But it didn’t take long for him to start turning heads as a Euro-style big with reach and range, a hidden gem who just needed to bulk up.
“Brian Snow, an analyst at 247Sports, he came to watch us and was like, ‘You didn’t tell me you had another pro on your team,’” Miller recalled with a chuckle.
“We tell our big guys to push it. We tell them to shoot 3s. We tell them to step out of that traditional big guy role. And (Nnaji) just blossomed playing with other really high-level players.”
“A physical specimen”
We don’t want to get your hopes up. But if the floor is Frye, the Nuggets could be staring at a potential skyscraper.
After all, the pro compared to Nnaji made the NBA first-team All-Rookie squad as a center with the Knicks back in 2006. Frye was a double-digit scorer, on average, five times over his first eight seasons. And an eventual NBA champion, at age 33, as a role guy with LeBron’s Cavs.
If that’s the floor … what’s the ceiling?
“The ceiling is very high,” said Abunassar, who worked Zeke out five-and-a-half days a week, five to six hours per day, having him shoot from every conceivable angle.
“The one thing you cannot teach, and I’ve been doing this for 25 years, is his athleticism. We did a good job expanding upon it. But this kid is a physical specimen.”
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