The Denver Nuggets don’t want to be good today. Why would they? The Western Conference is currently the holder of two of the greatest teams in NBA history. Behind them, the Thunder and Clippers, who could contend for a championship in nearly every other non-Jordan era, are afterthoughts.
Heck, the entire Eastern Conference playoffs is no more than a formality; everybody knows the Cavaliers or whomever comes out of there will end up getting smoked by the Warriors in five or six.
So, again, I ask you: Why would the Nuggets want to be good right now?
The San Antonio Spurs may be one of the five greatest regular season teams in NBA history — they almost undoubtedly would have won 70 games if the Warriors hadn’t stood in their way — and you’d still be hard pressed to find a single person that would pick them in a seven-game series against the Warriors.
And if you’re counterpoint is that winning is everything, fine. That makes sense. I, though, was under the impression that in Denver, championships were everything.
Silly me …
So when I look at the landscape of the NBA, I say: Fine … let the Warriors get their three-peat, let LeBron James‘ clock tick a few more years off, let the Thunder and Clippers fall back down to the pack; once that happens, that’s when the Nuggets should plan on being good, possibly even great.
And luckily, they’re right on track.
Next to the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Nuggets may have more potential than any other franchise in the lottery. And while potential doesn’t always equate to success, it’s as good of an indicator as you’re going to get, especially when we’ve already seen that potential in action.
Between the Nuggets young trio of Nikola Jokic, Gary Harris and Emmanuel Mudiay, Denver has a core they can build around for the future.
Check out their numbers since the All-Star break:
Jokic: 10.8 points; 9.0 rebounds; 3.3 assists (24.8 minutes)
Harris: 14.3 points; 3.0 rebounds; 2.3 assists (33.7 minutes)
Mudiay: 14.9 points; 3.7 rebounds; 5.1 assists (30.7 minutes)
Now, none of those numbers scream superstar, and that’s because they aren’t, at least not yet. But if one of them — just one — can develop into a perennial All Star, well, let’s just say the Nuggets won’t be last in attendance again.
And to expect that of either Jokic or Mudiay is completely within the realm of possibilities.
For the season, Jokic nearly averaged a double-double (10 points and 7 rebounds), and he did it in just 21.7 minutes per game. Per 36, he averaged 16.5 points, 11.6 rebounds and 3.9 assists. Any guess how many players in the NBA reached those numbers this season? Two, Nikola Jokic and Pau Gasol.
Want to guess the last rookie to reach those number while playing over 1,000 minutes in their rookie season? 1955 … when Maurice Stokes was leading the Rochester Royals at center.
And Jokic’s 21.5 PER is the 24th highest ever for a rookie. The 23 above him include 11 Hall of Famers, Tim Duncan, Karl Anthony Towns, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Anthony Davis, Chris Webber, Andre Drummond and … Kenneth Faried.
That’s good company.
And Jokic is just getting started. Remember, when the Nuggets brought him over this offseason, they weren’t even sure he was going to remain with the team through the regular season, let alone likely earn First-Team All-Rookie honors, which he should garner. He’s hardly a finished product. He’s skinny, young and ever-improving. I know not many people watch the Nuggets, including those in Denver, but Jokic is truly one of the most-exciting young players in the NBA today.
The sky is the limit, and the Nuggets are hoping he gets there.
With Mudiay, the key is perspective. This is a kid who played at a high school that was disbanded the moment he left, a kid who spent the majority of his time in China injured (not getting the development he needed), and a kid who, well, is a kid. The fact that he came slow out of the gates should surprise nobody. Unfortunately, for most people around the league, the only Nuggets games they watched this year came in the first two months of the season. If they’d been paying attention during the last two, they’d be looking at a much different player.
In the Mudiay’s final 21 games, he averaged 17.3 points, 4.0 rebounds and 5.1 assists. More importantly, he shot 41 percent from the field and 38 percent from three — a huge jump from the 34 percent and 27 percent he was averaging before the All-Star break.
And the numbers only tell a fraction of the story. You could tell that the game had slowed down for Mudiay — it was still fast, but slower than before — and he was understanding how to better use his body, find passing lanes and choose the correct shot.
The future All-Star point guard is very much in Mudiay; it’s just shrouded in inexperience and inconsistency.
And all this is without even speaking about the Nuggets’ future assists (three first round picks) or their current ones (Danilo Gallinari, Kenneth Faried, Will Barton etc.).
Going forward, the Nuggets have flexibility: They could spend big in free agency, they could trade for a star or they could stay put and let the group they already have come into their own. You can make a case for all three, but what’s important is that they have the choice; we can evaluate their decision after it’s done.
Now, there’s still a group of fans out there that think Tim Connelly is incompetent; they’re likely the same group of fans that can’t speak about the Nuggets without yelling, “We should have never fired George Karl!”
They’re also the same group of fans that haven’t watched more than 48 minutes of Nuggets basketball this season.
The truth is that Connelly has gone about this rebuild the right way. Yes, he whiffed on Brian Shaw, but he was quick to fix his mistake. And after one season, Michael Malone looks every bit the part.
Nuggets fans were spoiled when they were able to lose Carmelo Anthony and somehow get better — that doesn’t happen. When George Karl and Andre Iguodala left, there was no escaping the tear down. Three years later, there’s a plan in place, the talent is in house and the future is bright.
Depending on how draft night goes in a couple of months, the “rebuilding process” could officially be over, if it isn’t already.