On Tuesday morning, Phoenix Suns point-guard Eric Bledsoe was traded to Milwaukee in exchange for Greg Monroe and a first-round draft pick, leaving the Denver Nuggets bridesmaids in the race for another prime NBA talent once again.
This is the latest in a string of potential deals that the Nuggets, for whatever reason, haven’t completed, and it’s a glaring concern for a team that is still at least one or two steps from joining the upper echelon of the NBA.
What seems to be an inability — or lack of interest — in dealing for premier talent could have everything to do with overvaluing the talent already sitting on the roster. Why not take a short-cut on player progression for your anticipated end result, and deal the young talent you have now to get to that desired finish, years early? It’s almost impossible to believe that the Nuggets couldn’t have bested Milwaukee’s offer. If you’re a successful team, the first-round pick becomes far less important, and with all due respect to Monroe, he’s an 11-point, six-rebound player so far in his career.
Reports that the Nuggets were opposed to dealing Jamal Murray this summer in return for talents like Kyrie Irving or Jimmy Butler lend credence to the notion that they’re overvaluing their talent and seemingly misinterpreting true market prices.
Irving and Butler were All-Stars last season. Murray was not. These are facts.
In a ‘superteam’ era, acquiring established superstars helps lure more of them. If that can happen in Oklahoma City — see Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony — why can’t it happen in the Mile High City?
The signing of Paul Millsap was Step One in a process of making an all-in push towards a championship, but like a teenage boy who fails to spit out any sort of coherent sentence when finally approaching the girl he’s been attracted to for months, Denver is left at the doorstep, standing on the sidelines while someone else boldly swoops in and gets the girl. Again.
Trading for established talent has worked for Golden State, Miami, Boston, and has put Houston, Minnesota, Oklahoma City and now, Milwaukee, on the map as serious contenders for the NBA title. Collecting superstars is the recipe for victory in the NBA — Period. Denver’s inability to acquire them has stalled their success as the NBA continues to evolve. Why even go to the starting line and run the entire race, when you can go straight to the finish?
In an NBA filled with egos and players demanding exactly the perfect landing spot, there’s absolutely a possibility that Bledsoe’s people may have told Denver that he didn’t want to play for the Nuggets. If that were somehow the case, it’s best for the Nuggets that news never gets out.
Knowing that Denver has a clear plan on how they want to proceed is admirable; many franchises don’t. At the same time, though the Nuggets know what they want to do, it’s hard to avoid the sinking feeling that they may have blinders on, unable to notice that the teams running alongside them have been beating them to the punch in the race to acquire enough superstars to compete for a championship.
