2017 NBA Season Preview Series: Denver Nuggets
Not a bad choice of these options, as I am a firm believer that the Denver Nuggets are going to be one of the more fun teams to watch on NBA League Pass this year. This is a team that has taken it’s time to “rebuild”, is stocked full with promising young talent, and made a big time summer addition. If they played in the East they are probably in the same tier as WAS, but instead they’ll be fighting for a playoff spot. Can they do it? Well, let’s talk about it
2016-17 Season Highlights
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The Denver Nuggets are an interesting team. For a while last year, they never really had their identity. They couldn’t make up their minds on who to play, for example their best player, Nikola Jokic, started just 59 games. They were a team that should have been better because of what their roster was on paper, but they underachieved. Since the George Kal era ended, it’s been a tough climb back to playoff basketball. Brian Shaw wasn’t the answer in his two years, the Nuggets never had a winning percentage over 43, and it got as bad as a 30-52 record in his final year. Then enter Mike Malone, who slowly has this team on the rise. A 33 win his first year, and 40-42 last year, there’s no denying the Nuggets are headed in the right direction. For example, last year the Nuggets had an offensive rating of 113.2. That is the highest in the franchises’ 50 year history. How is this team so effective offensively? Well it starts with the roster
A few things stand out here. First, look at Nikola Jokic’s salary. Look at it!! The best player on the team, and a guy you could argue is a top 20ish player, makes $1.4M. That is absolutely key to any successful rebuild in my opinion. It’s like Curry pre max deal, like Isaiah and the Celtics, and why it’s important for these smaller market team to nail their drafts. When something like Jokic happens, you can get much better real quick due to the cap flexibility. The same can be said for Garry Harris and Jamal Murray. Now Harris just got his big extension, but that doesn’t kick in until next year. As a whole, the Nuggets have the 18th most expensive roster at $108M, so not only do they have around $13M in luxury tax space, but they also have a $4M room exemption for this season that they can use if they wish. When you look at this roster, it’s a combination of win now players (Millsap/Chandler/Faried) with a solid core of really young talent (Jokic/Harris/Mudiay/Murray). There is the rule that in the NBA, young teams don’t really win, but based on what we saw from the Nuggets last year, I’m thinking they can break this trend. Here’s why
Last season, they finished 3rd in points per game (111.7), 8th in fastbreak points per game (14.2), 1st in points in the paint per game (49.8), third in assists per game (25.3), 2nd in total rebounds per game (54.9), 5th in effective FG% (53.0%), 5th in shooting efficiency, 2nd in FGM per game, 7th in 3PM per game, and were a top 10 FT shooting team. No matter where you looked offensively, Denver was among the best in the league. Post All Star break they went 15-11, and averaged 114 points a game. When you think of all the areas teams try to climb the ranks in during a rebuild, Denver is checking a lot of boxes.
Efficient offense: Check
Great ball movement: Check
Solid rebounding: Check
Elite Inside/Outside game: Check
One of the things that makes the Nuggets so unique, is how different they are in terms of where they get their production. For example, take their frontcourt. I’m not sure any team in the NBA other than like GS has this combination of passing big men and bigs that own the glass. Between Plumlee and Jokic, they get nearly 10 assists a night. That’s insanity.
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I can’t lie. I love Nikola Jokic. The Nuggets are going to have to pay this man the max when his time comes, and that couldn’t be any more of a no brainer. He’s just 22 and he is DOMINATING. If you want to see how his passing helped Denver become a top offense, this video breaks it down nicely
But the future of the Nuggets isn’t solely dependent on Jokic, a lot will have to do with the development of their other young cornerstones, Jamal Murray and Gary Harris. Let’s start with Harris. Here’s a player that has improved pretty much each of his three years in the league, posting career highs in points, rebounds, assists, FG% (50%), 3P% (42%) last year. Unfortunately, he played just 57 games, but he has solidified his spot as the starting two guard for this team. Harris took a leap mostly because he vastly improved as a spot up shooter. He averaged 1.21 points per spot up possession last year, shot 44.5% and was in the 91st percentile. As a point of reference, he was at 0.98 with 38.2% shooting and 59th percentile the year before. Denver makes sure to put him in these spot up situations a lot within the flow of this offense, so that jump is encouraging. Where I’d like to see Harris improve though is coming off screens. He struggles a little in this area, shooting just 40% and was in the 54th percentile last year. Harris is not an isolation player like some of the other SG’s in his conference, so finding and improving on new ways to get open and score within this offense is only going to make him more dangerous.
For Jamal Murray, it’s a little different. He’s a bit more raw. It’s promising that he made over 1.0 three a night but from what I’ve read about the Nuggets so far this summer/preseason, they aren’t planning on playing a traditional point guard despite having Nelson/Mudiay on the roster. Instead, it appears Murray is going to get the majority of the “point guard” duties. That’s a little concerning, considering his advanced metrics showed a 14% assist percentage and a 12.6% turnover percentage last year. He did show positive flashes in the last two months of the season in this area, finishing with 64 assists 38 turnovers. Not great, but certainly passable. He’s obviously only 19 years old so he is nowhere close to being a finished product, but there is some risk with this decision.
A young team like this desperately needed a strong veteran presence, and while he may not have been a fit for a bunch of teams this summer, especially given his price tag, Paul Millsap on this Nuggets teams makes all the sense in the world. In essence, he’s exactly what they needed. He fits their style of play immediately, brings accountability, and most importantly, he brings defense. Sure he may be 32, but he is without a doubt still an elite defender. He posted a 104 Drtg on the Hawks last year, and for his career is a 102 rating player. If there’s one thing this team was missing, it was someone who actually plays defense. Of their starters/main rotation players, no one in the top 10 had a rating lower than 109 (Jokic). In fact, the main guys (Harris, Murray, Barton, Nelson, Mudiay) were all in the 114 range. That is bad, real bad.
The beauty of Millsap’s deal is just this season and next are guaranteed, so ideally the Nuggets will get to squeeze out the last bit of production before he rapidly starts to decline. Putting him next to Jokic is going to be really, really fun to watch, mostly because it now means Plumlee can come off the bench. You never want too much Plumlee if you’re looking to make a playoff push in the West.
Now the big question for the Nuggets in terms of their roster, is what are they going to do with the Manimal. He’s on pretty good money for a player at his position with his skillset, and he’s clearly unhappy. He wants to start, or be traded to a team that will appreciate him. The Nuggets were down this road just last year with Nurkic, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see them move Faried at the deadline once they identify an area of need. He has two years left on his deal before he becomes an UFA, and the Nuggets would be silly to simply let that contract run out, or wait too long and lose a shit ton of leverage. Faried had the lowest minutes per night average of his career last year, so it’s clear Malone isn’t crazy about him. With a team so young and with so much promise, don’t sleep on the damage a disgruntled player can cause. All Nuggets fans should be keeping an eye on this.
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If the Nuggets can show some form of life on defense, I think they are every bit deserving of that 7/8 seed. If there are injuries and they stay healthy, who knows maybe the 6 seed. I really think they are going to be lumped into that group of POR/UTA/MEM who will all be fighting it out just for the opportunity to be swept by GS. Gotta start somewhere though
Official Greenie Prediction: 47 wins