Strike 1: As you might expect in a playoff series that’s knotted at two games apiece, there aren’t many mismatches on display that two opponents can exploit. In the case of the Denver Nuggets vs. Oklahoma City Thunder however, there is one glaring mismatch.
It’s in the general manager’s chair. And the Thunder are exploiting it.
The current OKC roster was put together by veteran Sam Presti – the newly crowned NBA Executive of the Year who already has three rings from his tenure as the assistant GM in San Antonio. Not only did the Thunder have the best record in the NBA this season, but Presti and company also constructed a roster that’s more than 10 players deep while still being the youngest squad in the NBA.
The Nuggets roster, put together by recently fired Calvin Booth and company, doesn’t have 10 players on it that belong on an NBA playoff roster.
There’s no argument that Denver, while flawed, still has one of the best starting units in the league. This group has the heart and soul of a champion. Problem is, they don’t have the flesh and blood.
The Nuggets bench – other than ageless Russell Westbrook – continues to be a huge liability, even when they’re playing fewer minutes during the postseason. In their narrow, five-point loss to the visitors in Game 4 at Ball Arena, the Nuggets bench was outscored by OKC 35-8.
This is nothing new, and it’s all on the former GM. While he was in charge, Booth signed (to his credit) Bruce Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, two very important pieces in the Nuggets title run in 2023. But after losing – and not replacing Brown and Jeff Green, Denver’s bench was awful in 2024, leading to exhaustion among the starters that manifested itself in a Game 7 playoff meltdown against Minnesota a year ago.
An offseason later, after not being able to re-sign KCP, they’ve gotten even worse. Booth does deserve the credit for signing KCP and Brown in the first place, but the over reliance on his draft picks has replacements – only one of whom, Christian Braun, has stepped up to prove he can be an every night contributor – led to his firing.
Now the salary cap hamstrung Nuggets need a brand new general manager and an offseason miracle to get back to having a title-contending team while they still have the best player in the world on their roster.
The burning question moving forward is this: Will the Nuggets go the route of the Colorado Rockies and simply promote from within? Or will they conduct a national search and eventually hire the best GM candidate they can find, the way the Thunder franchise (then located in Seattle) did back in 2007 when they nabbed Presti away from San Antonio? Or will they go the way of the Rockies and just remove the “interim” tag from Ben Tenzer, who’s been with the organization since 2005 and make him a first time GM and then expect him to try something different?
While interim head coach David Adelman has done an admiral job after replacing the fired Michael Malone back in mid-April, he’s not guaranteed to be the full time coach moving forward. It will be important for the new head coach and the new GM to be on the same page at Ball Arena. That’s been an issue up until now.
The series with OKC is putting on display everything about the Nuggets, the good (the foursome of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Christian Braun and Aaron Gordon, plus the heart and hustle of Russell Westbrook), the bad (the injury and inconsistency issues for overpaid Michael Porter Jr.) and the ugly (a bench that features a well past his prime DeAndre Jordan and a group of G-League level players.) Only a new GM hired from the outside will be able to give an unbiased review of this squad over the summer, and then facilitate the changes that could negate the Thunder’s only overwhelming advantage going into next season.
