Kevin Durant scrimmages with Suns, but ruled out Friday vs. OKC

But Thursday there was a new energy within the team as Durant played 5-on-5 with his new teammates for the first time.

"When guys watch him work, I think it's something that inspires people to get after it in their own workouts," Williams said. "Because they're not going to find anybody that goes as hard as Kevin. When he's doing his individual stuff it's amazing to watch."

During the All-Star break, Durant worked out at the Suns' facility with teammates, including Devin Booker. The two played several one-on-one games, though Booker firmly refused to announce who came out the winner.

"It was hard to put into words, I can't wait until we do it against other teams," said Booker, whose arms were scratched up, illustrating the intenseness of the workout. "A lot of teams have one good defender or two good defenders, now you have to find who you're going to put them on."

Durant's work ethic is already making an impact on the team. Players have noticed he comes early and stays late.

"I think everybody's competitive level has risen a little bit," center Deandre Ayton said. "The atmosphere around the facility has, I won't say gotten intense, but it's definitely a little denser when it comes to business. Ain't no more playing games or, you know, less smiles, more seriousness and getting a job done."

FORMER NUGGETS VICE president of analytics, Tommy Balcetis, had pages of analytical data on Gordon heading into the 2021 trade deadline. Digging into numbers for the current Denver assistant general manager was -- and still is -- his bread and butter, and the numbers suggested Gordon would be the ideal player who could help the Nuggets take the next step forward.

"We were looking for someone who can guard the LeBrons [James] of the world, the Lukas [Doncic] of the worlds," Balcetis said. "And some of our internal metrics ended up flagging [Gordon] as the best defender for those guys. Aaron is always among the best defenders for those kinds of guys."

Gordon is one of 64 players to defend 2022-23 All-Stars for at least 400 matchups in the half court, according to Second Spectrum tracking. Among that group, Gordon ranks fourth in player points allowed per 100 matchups behind just Golden State's Draymond Green, Chicago's Ayo Dosunmu and Philadelphia's Tobias Harris.

In terms of what Gordon could bring to the Nuggets' offense, no advanced metrics were needed. He had passed the eye test.

"We needed a body like Aaron's," Balcetis said. "We needed someone with such athletic ability [that] we've never really had an athlete like that on our team. Having a 25, 26-year-old, whatever he was at the time, who looks like that, who jumps like that, we knew that if we paired someone like that with Nikola, good things were going to happen."

Trading for Gordon meant sending guard Gary Harris to the Orlando Magic. The chemistry Jokic shared with Harris was special. Nuggets forward Vlatko Cancar says it was some of the best on-court chemistry he's ever seen.

Jokic recorded 290 assists to Harris from 2016 to 2019, the most assists by a center to a specific player during that span.

"Gary Harris was the first guy to figure out, hey, if I run the floor and move without the ball alongside Nikola, I am going to get a lot of easy baskets," Nuggets coach Michael Malone told ESPN.

But the chemistry Jokic has with Gordon is different. Gordon gave Jokic something he never had in any of the other tandems he was a part of: A big target who thrives in the dunker spot.

"The load that he can carry ... he is a really strong guy," Jokic told ESPN. "He's making sure he's taking that advantage really seriously. It's always an option for us ... I know where to find him, how to throw him the ball. And he knows how to box his guys out to give me the space to throw him the ball."

Jokic has assisted Gordon 114 times this season, good for fourth-most among passer-scorer combos. Sixty-seven of these 114 assists have been dunks, the most by any passer-scorer combo in the league, per ESPN Stats & Information.

Jokic's passing overall has been at another level this season. The Nuggets have a 66% effective field goal percentage directly off his passes, the highest percentage in a season in his career and the second-best rate in 2022-23 among 50 players with 400-plus assist opportunities, trailing only Philadelphia 76ers star James Harden.