I just saw Nuggets vs Thunder Game 1. A B S O L U T E C I N E M A. But aside from the awesome fucking game, one thing was clear, the Nuggets have absolutely no depth and it's eating at their top 6. CB and Russ play like they have constant energy which is great, but they're all still playing 44 mins a night which is absolutely tiring on a game to game basis and will eat at them as the playoffs continue. This team used to be the King of depth come playoff time and now they are playing Julian Strawther, Jalen Pickett and DeAndre Jordan playoff minutes just to give their guys some rest. Owners in Mile High City have been accused of being cheap and there is major truth in that, I think this offseason should be where that lack of roster construction ends.
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Financials
Total Salary: $200.8M
Cap Space: -$66.8M
Luxury Tax Room: -$11.2M
First Apron Room: -$4.7M
Second Apron Room: $7.14M
No Important Cap Holds, Should Renounce Cap Hold On Multiple Players
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Trades/Moves
3 Team Trade - DEN: Moussa Diabate, Trendon Watford, Ziaire Williams / CHA: Julian Strawther, 2026 ATL 2nd, 2027 LAL 2nd / BKN: Zeke Nnaji, Josh Okogie, Jalen Pickett, Hunter Tyson, 2027 POR or NOP 2nd, 2028 DEN 1st
Sign-And-Trade Ziaire Williams for a 3 year contract worth $11.9M
Sign-And-Trade Trendon Watford for a 3 year contract worth $28.2M
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Free Agency
Sign Bruce Brown to a 2 year contract worth $23.4M
Sign Caris LeVert to a 3 year contract worth $33.4M, Last Year is a Team Option
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Lineup
PG: Murray, SG: Braun, SF: MPJ, PF: Gordon, C: Jokic
PG: Westbrook, SG: Levert, SF: Watson/Williams, PF: Holmes II/Watford, C: Diabate/Holmes II
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I figure it's easier to get people to care more for my explanations if I first lay out how the trade works beforehand, so I'm trying it out rn. Now why do the Nuggets go through all this trouble?
Well for one, Jokic needs some rest and an actual big needs to be on the court when he does, not DeAndre Jordan, and before you say it, no, Gordon at the 5 is not all that good of an idea. Moussa Diabate can give them that, especially during the regular season where he can safely play 18-22 minutes a game and is more than capable of playing at least 9-11 minutes a game in the playoffs which doesn't seem like much, but the layoff of having to play 44 minutes being brought down to somewhere like 40-38 mins only is huge for Joker. I originally thought DaRon Holmes II would be the back-up 5 but then I heard the management foresees him as a 4 going forward so then I thought some changes for the 5 spot need to be made and Diabate is an excellent backup. He's currently playing 3rd string center mins at Charlotte behind Mark Williams and Nurkic, but he's very capable of running out in transition, being a roll guy off the screen, cleaning the glass and getting 2nd chance opportunities. A swap between him and Strawther from the Nuggets, alongside 2 2nds coming from Brooklyn in this deal, would not be a bad trade for Charlotte as Strawther was able to consistently score 9 pts a game on limited minutes during the regular season. As a wing, he is capable of putting the ball on the floor though his overall shot creation needs more time to develop, he's a really good spot up guy and has shown flashes of being able to play well off ball, as such he would be a premier feature in Charlotte's rotation. Though Strawther's not ready for playoff basketball just yet, a few years to develop as a role player next to one of the best assist guys in the league (LaMelo Ball) would make him a very solid feature on this Charlotte squad.
Charlotte also enjoys two 2nds from the Nets here which let's talk about right now.
The Nets have quietly become, next to Indiana, a place where players rejuvenate their careers in. Guys who got waived or were simply added in trades as salary dump have all quietly had incredibly solid seasons which may signal a cool transition into being high quality role players for championship contenders. The two guys I want Denver to take chances on most are Trendon Watford and Ziaire Williams. I know they are upcoming free agents, but I feel like the Nets will be determined to bring them back considering how well they played this season, and I know it would be pointless to enter a bidding war with a team who has the most cap space in the league when your owners themselves are pretty cheap. Instead, you offload your own bad contracts onto Brooklyn and give up a first round pick in 2028 for said players who they sign and trade onto your team, they're also still in that early stage of outplaying their expectations so the asking price would really be at the lowest it will ever be because I assume it's just gonna get higher and higher as the next season goes on. But why go through the trouble, you ask? Trendon Watford has quietly been a really solid role player since he's come back from injury, though a slow start in November and an Injury in December kinda took him out of his comfort, he's really stepped up since and had multiple games of scoring 11 pts or more in 18-21 minutes of playing time, consistently creating his own shot like he's not a 6'9 power forward. And Ziaire Williams has legitimately revived his career, he's still not who he was projected to be out of high school don't get me wrong and his defensive issues are still there, but since being on the Nets he does most things really well now. He's quietly worked on his defense and in a matchup vs the Celtics he hounded Jayson Tatum all game holding him to just 20 pts and -15 on the night while he ended up with 14 pts and a +15 box score. He's become a really damn capable POA defender, not an amazing one, but in a sense something along the lines of how the Mavericks used DJJ last year, he's on that track. And offensively he's turned into not just a capable shooter but a willing one, where if you leave him open he's gonna shoot it with confidence, granted he's only shooting about 4.8 a game and making just 1.6 of them, not all that great but it can be worked on and along with all the positive he brings, like being a lengthy off ball movement player as well which is a dream for the Nuggets bench, they should really be looking more at these players who no one else seemingly are. I mean most of the running they'll get up to is in the regular season anyways, come playoff time their playing time is only gonna be like 16-18 mins at most, what's the harm?
Free agents! Boy I think this is where Denver should really do most of their work because they don't exactly have much assets to work around a trade with, unless you just wanna keep using first round picks to get 20 mins a game role players which is a bullet no one wants to have to bite more than once. I made this move in my last Denver related post, but they have to admit they were wrong and get Bruce Brown back, just own up to it. Bruce Brown was so integral to their championship, he was pretty much their entire bench throughout those playoffs, doing everything and I do mean everything. Right now his value is much lower than his last offer of 23m a year, I believe he'll be somewhere around the 11-15m range and signing him at that price is absolutely worth it. Caris Levert! It's funny to think about, we don't really talk about him anymore, but he just quietly had one of the most efficient 6th man seasons out of anybody this year, granted he was traded by seemingly the best team in the league at the time, but post the trade he actually got better, he went from 10 pts to 15, 45% to 48% from the field, his shooting inside the arc went from 50% to 60% on higher shot attempts as well, only his three point shot went down and yeah it went way down from 40% to 34%, but he was also attempting it a lot more over at Atlanta so you take that info however you will. Overall his game as a spark plug off the bench is perfect for this team who need just that at times when they can't get anything going. Levert would be a perfect fit on this team and so would all the other guys that I think they should go out and acquire.
Then again, I'm not an avid Nuggets fan so this is mostly from the outside looking in, am I wrong about certain somethings here? Is there anything at all that I haven't accounted for yet or is one of these team once again not saying yes here because of whatever reason, you let me know.