Basketball, my friends, is back.
We’ve waited a long time, we’ve endured a lot of pain, but on Wednesday night, the Nuggets will tip off against the the Houston Rockets, and we can put all that behind us. As the Denver Nuggets have told us themselves, “It’s a new day.”
Erase the atrocity that was the 2014-15 Nuggets from your mind, and let’s move on. Bask in the glory of a star rookie. Revel in the fact that Danilo Gallinari is healthy and motivated. Get excited for the European towers that will make up our front line.
This Nuggets team may not be as good as the one that won 57 games, but they have a chance to be just as fun.
But before we hit tipoff, let’s take one more close look at Denver’s rotation. Here are the seven best Denver Nuggets players heading into the 2015 season:
(Spoiler: J.J. Hickson DID NOT make the list)
7. SG/PG Randy Foye
I had a hard time picking between Randy Foye and Gary Harris, but in the end, veteran experience won out. And while Foye isn’t a star by any means, he’s an NBA player, and he’s surprisingly versatile.
In the past, Foye has spent time moonlighting as a point guard for the Denver Nuggets, but that won’t and shouldn’t be his role this season. What the Nuggets need from Foye is the same thing they need from Harris and about three other guys: to stand in the corner and make threes.
That’s exactly what Foye, a career 37 percent three-point shooter, can do.
6. PG Jameer Nelson
Jameer Nelson isn’t half the player he was during his heyday in Orlando, but his role in Denver may be one of the most important of his career.
As we saw last season, this young Nuggets roster lacks leadership. Once things started going bad in Denver, they spiraled out of control, culminating in the firing of Brian Shaw and the ousting of Ty Lawson. Now, along with Mike Miller, it’ll be on Nelson to right the ship and teach these young guys how do be professionals, on and off the court.
Obviously, Emmanuel Mudiay is the point guard of the present and future in Denver, but they’ll be plenty of opportunities where the Nuggets need Nelson to direct the offense, allowing Mudiay to play off the ball. In those smaller lineups, the Nuggets could become deadly, especially if Nelson’s shot is falling.
It seems like every time the Nuggets have been successful they’ve had a wise, old point guard on the lineup; this year, it’s Jameer Nelson’s turn.
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[adrotate banner=”9″]5. C Jusuf Nurkic
If you were expecting Nurkic to be higher, I’m not surprised. Many view the Bosnian big man as the future of the Nuggets franchise, even with Mudiay now being added into the mix. But for me, there are enough question marks that I can’t justify putting him any higher than fifth.
First off, he’s injured; that’s the obvious mark against him. And in reality, that means a lot more than just missing the first 10 games of the season. The real issue is that he essentially missed an entire offseason of training, an important part of any young player’s development, especially a player who’s only spent a calendar year in the United States.
Second, I’m no doctor, but I get nervous any time a big man has surgery on his knees, feet or any other part of his legs. I’ve seen too many careers take a turn for the worse after what originally looked like a routine injury.
And given that the Nuggets seem to be taking a much more long-term approach this season and going forward, don’t be surprised if those 10 games stretch towards 15 or 20.
And that brings me to my final point … he’s got competition. Nikola Jokic may be a rookie, but he’s hitting the ground running. The Nuggets, their fans and basketball junkies everywhere may love Nurkic — I know I do — but they may quickly learn to love Jokic, too. And the last time I checked, there aren’t many teams that play two 7-foot-tall Eastern Europeans at the same time.
4. PG Emmanuel Mudiay
Listen, we’d all love to put Mudiay at No. 1, at least inside the top three, but we can’t get too ahead of ourselves. I mean, I’m higher on the Nuggets than the majority of people, but even I know that a rookie point guard, no matter how great he may be, is still a rookie point guard.
They’ll be nights where Mudiay goes off and he’ll look like one of the five best guards in the NBA, but they’ll also be plenty of nights where he has seven turnovers and goes 4-20 from the field.
And that’s totally fine.
Really, in a perfect world, Mudiay will use his other-worldly talents — mainly, his court vision and passing — to make the rest of the team look great. If he can do that, while we’ll all see his importance, it’ll be the team that garners a lot of the credit.
3. SG/SF/PF Wilson Chandler
Yes, Wilson Chandler is a SG/SF/PF — AKA the ultimate hybrid — and that’s what makes him so important. In fact, as I wrote last week, Chandler may be the key to the Nuggets taking a much further leap than anyone expects.
As a guy who can play all three of the wing positions, Chandler is going to be critical in every one of the Nuggets lineups, and there could be a lot.
Michael Malone has options on options on options. Want to play big? Stick Nurkic and Jokic in at center and power forward, keep Gallo at the three and slide Chandler back down to the two-guard. Small? Put Faried and Chandler up front, play Harris at the three and fill out the guard spots with Mudiay and Nelson.
I can think of about five or six other intriguing, explosive lineups, and every one of them includes Wilson Chandler.
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[adrotate banner=”7″]2. PF/C Kenneth Faried
I think everybody has a sour taste in their mouth when it comes to Kenneth Faried, but I’m not so sure that’s fair. A few years ago, when they were the run-and-gun Nuggets, Faried was the city’s darling. Suddenly, he’s overrated?
From my perspective, the Brian Shaw-led Nuggets could not have been a worse fit for Faried — having Ty Lawson around didn’t help, either. Shaw was constantly asking Faried to do things that (a) he’s not good at and (b) take away from what he is good at. Then, when it didn’t work — and it rarely did — he’d quickly find himself sitting in the doghouse.
That’s not going to happen this year; we’ve seen the last of Faried inching down into the post, calling for the ball and throwing up an abysmal hook shot.
As any casual basketball fan could tell you, there are three things Kenneth Faried should be doing: playing defense, getting rebounds and bringing energy to the floor. Those are the three things that make Faried special, the things that make him the Manimal.
If there’s one player I expect to have a breakout season under coach Malone, it’s Kenneth Faried.
1. SF/PF Danilo Gallinari
Maybe we’ve forgotten because he missed a year and a half with injury and when he did return most people had already tuned out, but Danilo Gallinari is really good.
It’s hard to tell because his last three seasons have been derailed and delayed by injury, but when looking at his per-36 numbers, Gallo has actually gotten better every year in Denver, going from 16.7 to 17.9 and then 18.5 points per game.
During the Nuggets final two months last year, when Gallo finally got back into the rotation as a full-time starter, he was absolutely fantastic, scoring 19 points a game (shooting 40 percent from three) in just over 30 minutes. And while I know 90 percent of you didn’t watch the Italian team play in EuroBasket, I can promise you that Gallo was equally impressive over there, too.
If that’s the guy we get in Denver this season — a true No. 1 scoring option — then I have no doubt that the Nuggets will be one of the NBA’s biggest surprises of the year.