Mile High Sports

Strong finishing kick redefines Nuggets in tumultuous, transitional season

Apr 11, 2018; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Denver Nuggets guard Will Barton (5) reacts to a call in overtime against Minnesota Timberwolves at Target Center. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

I come here not to bury the Denver Nuggets, but to praise them. Sort of.

The Nuggets missed the postseason — again — despite a roster with enough talent to not only make it, but perhaps even reach the Western Conference’s three-seed; a goal that eluded them by a mere three games. Much of the blame for that will fall upon the shoulders of coach Michael Malone.

At the same time, the Nuggets team that finished the season no longer resembled the one that started it. Malone, who isn’t a glamorous head man and certainly has room to improve his in-game decision-making, nonetheless bumped and bounced his way through a tumultuous season in which the Nuggets ended as a team with an identity — one of the most difficult things to create in the NBA. Malone matured along with his team, and his position as the Nuggets’ head coach should be secure.

Consider the hand that Malone was dealt:

Even with all of that, the Nuggets finished 10 games over .500 in a Northwest Division that sent four teams to the playoffs — fully half of the Western Conference’s field. Moreover, the Nuggets finished the season playing their best basketball after evolving into a squad driven by their three best players: Jokic, Murray and Gary Harris.

With a pecking order finally established, the Nuggets began to play like a team to believe in. While Jokic, their best player by far, filled up the stat sheet every night, his passive nature doesn’t make him a good fit as the team’s leader. Enter Murray, a sharpshooting, cocksure firebrand whose personality began to shine through in March and April. Murray’s relentless approach fills that need for the Nuggets. Harris, the team’s best one-on-one defender, has a varied skillset that allows him to fill in whatever gaps the Nuggets may have on any given night. The trio finally meshed with Millsap near the end of the season to create a flexible and dangerous group of starters.

It’s a start. The end result is that the Nuggets still ended up one game out of the playoffs — exactly where they were last season; there’s no avoiding that. Even though they appear to be on the right track, it’s clearly not enough, and a pivotal offseason approaches for the Nuggets’ front office, who need to deal Malone a better hand than they did in this campaign.

Chandler and unrestricted free agent Will Barton almost certainly won’t be back — and after missing the playoffs again, failing to trade them means they’ll walk away for nothing. The Nuggets made the same mistake last year with Danilo Gallinari, believing that the potential of claiming the eighth seed was more valuable than adding assets to climb even higher next season. At ages 37 and 35, respectively, it’s hard to envision the Nuggets retaining either Richard Jefferson or Devin Harris; both are unrestricted free agents.

They’ll need to find a starting small forward — and trying to convert slender power forwards Lyles or Hernangomez won’t cut it against the West’s hyper-athletic wings. A veteran backup point guard would be helpful, but one would hope the age is closer to 25 than 35.

Most importantly, Denver has to find a way to shed the salaries of Faried and Arthur; albatross deals that inhale the cash that will soon be needed to sign Jokic to a long-term contract. Jokic will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of next season, and make no mistake — if Jokic isn’t signed by then and hits the open market, he’s history. For the greatest talent the Nuggets have had since Carmelo Anthony, that’s unacceptable — they must get Jokic signed this summer, and they’ll have to free up the $21 million that Faried and Arthur are set to make to do it.

Whether the Nuggets believe it or not, they are — and were — a team in transition. This offseason, they’ll have to act like one if they want to believe in themselves as contenders.

The clock’s already ticking.

 

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