Jalen Pickett on connection to Michael Malone-Calvin Booth rift: ‘It’s kinda crazy’

DENVER — The maelstrom swept through Ball Arena a week and a half ago, the fallout of the reported Michael Malone-Calvin Booth rift erupting in one shocking day, sweeping up all the Nuggets’ mainstays in its wake. Nikola Jokic’s long-term future suddenly lies more uncertain. Michael Porter Jr. and Jamal Murray’s contracts dangle in the balance.

And at the eye of the storm, the heart of this conflict that led to Denver firing its head coach and general manager in the span of a few minutes, was a reserve guard who’s played 76 games in his NBA career.

“To be mentioned in these things, it’s kinda crazy,” second-year point guard Jalen Pickett told The Denver Post on Friday after he was asked if it was strange to see his name explode amid sweeping change. “But growing up, you always want to be on this stage. So you gotta just accept everything that comes with it, at this point.”

The 25-year-old Rochester native was but a three-star recruit out of high school in Rochester, N.Y., and began his college career at mid-major Siena. The Nuggets selected him in the second round of the 2023 draft. But in many ways, through no fault of his own, Pickett hit every pressure point of the Malone-Booth cold war. As reported by The Post’s Bennett Durando, Malone played ex-two-way guard Collin Gillespie over draftee Pickett last year; Booth wanted the opposite. As reported by The Athletic, Malone closed games with erratic veteran Russell Westbrook down the stretch of regular-season games; Booth wanted Pickett.

On Friday, though, the dust settled under interim head coach Rick Adelman, Pickett stood after the Nuggets’ practice and shrugged off the bluster around his role. Calm, like his game, as chaos erupted around him — and over him.

“Can’t really focus on that type of stuff,” Pickett said. “Can’t control anything that happens in this business, as you can see from this year. But, just when my number’s called, I’m going to be ready each and every time I step on the floor. And that’s whatever the team needs me to do at this stage.”

By all measures, the Nuggets will likely need a fair amount. Pickett has grown into a steady change-of-pace option from Westbrook behind starting point guard Jamal Murray. With Murray sidelined in Adelman’s first game as interim coach April 9, Pickett both started and closed against the Kings. The second-year guard responded with 18 points on 5-of-7 shooting from deep.

Pickett’s still not a final product, as Murray put it Wednesday. He’s still learning to play with Jokic, the traffic conductor of Air Denver. But his feel playing off the Nuggets’ MVP is “definitely more instinctual now,” Pickett said Friday.

On multiple possessions in that Kings matchup, Pickett recalled, he was stationed to space in the corner with Jokic operating from the post. Instead, Jokic urged him to flash to the middle.

“I was wide open,” Pickett recounted. “Like, wide-open shots, like at the middle of the paint. I mean, he’s just so great. He sees things two, three possessions, or two, three plays right before it happens.”

He’s played a total of 11 playoff minutes in his short NBA career. But postseason basketball is “more my game,” Pickett told The Post. He earned the nickname Grandpa for his methodical pace growing up. He plays a unique brand of “booty ball,” a synonym of bully ball, a 6-foot-4 guard using his mass against smaller guards. He posted a 4.46 assist-to-turnover ratio in 2024-25, seventh in the NBA among players who appeared in more than 40 games.

And he’ll have his chance to plant his flag this postseason.

“Jalen got to play in some big games,” Adelman said of Pickett on Thursday. “I mean this, the Sacramento game felt like a playoff game, and he seemed very comfortable in it. And his shot’s been falling this week.

“So you have to rely on those guys.”