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Not only are the Nuggets in the playoff race, but you can make a legitimate case that they’re the favorites for the eight seed. As of January 15, the Jazz are currently in that final spot, with the Trail Blazers and Kings in between them and the Nuggets, but the Nuggets team that has gotten to this point is not the Nuggets team we should expect to see going forward.
They’re just getting rolling!
We’re two-and-a-half months into the season, and Wednesday night against the Warriors was the first time all year that Michael Malone entered the game with a full roster — sorry, J.J. Hickson, I doubt you would have seen the court with or without the root canal — and look what happened. They beat the Warriors!
Now, I’m not saying a healthy Nuggets team is better than the Warriors — they’re not — but the truth is, we have no idea how good they are. Maybe they’re just a borderline playoff team, but maybe they are just as good as a team like the Mavericks or Grizzlies. I doubt it, but I can’t say for sure.
Until last night, some combination of Jusuf Nurkic, Emmanuel Mudiay, Gary Harris, Kenneth Faried, etc., etc., etc., has been sitting on the sidelines, doing nothing for the Nuggets on the court. That’s debilitating, especially for a young team with a brand new head coach.
For 39 games, Malone has been like the NBA’s version of MacGyver, assembling lineups out of new materials every night. How can we expect him, or the players, to create any kind of stability when you have a starter or two missing at all times.
And remember, this team is almost entirely built of first- and second-year players who are still learning how to play NBA basketball. Whether it’s them missing time or the guy next to them, there’s no question that their development as a team has been stunted, and yet Malone has still done a great job in getting all of these young guys to surpass expectations.
You’d hope that as they get (and remain) healthy, they’re only going to get better from here. And if they think they’re in position to make a late push up the playoff picture, then why not turn some of these assets into someone who can push you over the edge?
Right now, Denver has five big men deserving of starter’s minutes; they’re not getting that here. So why not turn Kenneth Faried and the Trailblazers’ lottery-protected first round pick (if it doesn’t transfer this season, it becomes two seconds), into a stretch four like Ryan Anderson?
How dangerous would the Nuggets become if they trotted out a starting lineup that included four perimeter shooters in Jameer Nelson, Gary Harris, Danilo Gallinari and Anderson, with Jusuf Nurkic bodying up guys on the inside? Heck, Nelson and Anderson have already run a very successful offense that did just that when they were in Orlando with Dwight Howard.
The counterpoint to making a move like that would be that even with the eighth seed, the Nuggets would only be trounced by the Warriors in the first round. My counterpoint to the counterpoint: Who says the eight seed is the ceiling? Denver is 6.5 games out of the fifth seed, and if the Nuggets really can make a move that turns them into a truly competitive team, I’m not so sure that’s an insurmountable number.
