Simply getting Jamal Murray (ACL) and Michael Porter Jr. (back) on the court again in the fall will raise the Nuggets’ ceiling for the 2022/23 season. However, head coach Michael Malone suggested in his end-of-season press conference on Wednesday that the team has to do more than just wait for everyone to get healthy in order to capitalize on its title window.
“This might be the biggest offseason, at least for me, in my perspective, since I’ve been here,” Malone said, according to Mike Singer of The Denver Post. “… We have a window, and I think windows are only open so long. We have a 27-year-old phenom, who will hopefully soon be named a back-to-back MVP. We have to capitalize while we have a player, a special player in Nikola (Jokic), and do everything we can as an organization — and I know we will — to put the best players around him.”
As Singer writes, it will be important for the Nuggets to get the right “fringe” pieces around their perennial MVP candidate using the No. 21 overall pick in the draft and/or their cap exceptions in free agency. Denver was among the league’s worst teams at protecting the rim in 2021/22, so a backup center to help spell Jokic and a wing who can take some defensive pressure off of him could be priorities this summer, Singer adds.
“You can’t bleed at the rim the way we bled at the rim this year,” Malone said.
Here’s more out of Denver:
- Both Malone and general manager Calvin Booth spoke highly of free-agent-to-be Austin Rivers on Wednesday. As Singer relays (via Twitter), Malone praised Rivers’ defensive tenacity and said his two years in Denver “speak for themselves,” while Booth said the veteran guard is a player the team would look to bring back.
- Asked about how big a priority it is to re-sign DeMarcus Cousins this offseason, Booth said the Nuggets will talk to the veteran center’s reps, but Harrison Wind of DNVR Sports (Twitter link) didn’t get the sense that Cousins is a lock to be back.
- The Nuggets like some draft prospects in the No. 21 range, but aren’t “married” to their pick and will explore all their options with it, according to Booth (Twitter link via Singer).
- Booth hinted that Denver will look to add more shooting this summer. “You don’t have to watch basketball for five minutes to know that Joker likes to have shooters around him,” the GM said (Twitter link via Singer).
DEN’s FO has been very good at bringing in talent, at least when AK was there. But NOT so good at building a team around Jokic. He’s “only” 27, but the main issues they have now are the same ones they had 4 years ago, and the resources they had then to address those issues have now been largely used on other things. The type players they need to address their issues aren’t “fringe pieces” – or, at least, they will be very difficult to acquire for the price of fringe pieces.
Jokic will be the MVP, should be unanimous, dude had the best individual season of any player in the last 40 years!!!
They must keep DMC he was out of this world in the playoffs!
Duncan Robinson would be a good trade target for the Nuggets. Joe Ingles would be another shooter.
Except that Ingles will be out all next season, he doesn’t do you a whole lotta good if you want to win now.
Murray and Porter are shooters. They do need shooters around Jokic. But those guys healthy means more. Next yr should be a very good yr.
We’ll see if Porter finally makes it thru a season. He starts a new 4yr (130 mill) contract next yr. ???????????? Still a question mark.
McGee is a FA next yr. He can be their rim protector backing up Jokic.
GM Booth: ““You don’t have to watch basketball for five minutes to know that Joker likes to have shooters around him,” the GM said.”
That kind of language makes me suspicious about what their verdict is. It is bad ideas from people that start a sentence like that. I would not have called it a fact, that Jokic needs shooters. I would have said slashers, that he could connect to on their cuts to the rim.
When you prioritize shooting, or any single quality, you have to sacrifice other qualities, like athletes or confronters.
By acquiring slashers, you could also expect to get cover defenders in the same athletic package. Shooters however are not always good on defense.
HC Malone said they were “bleeding at the rim”. The best way to stop that is defenders not allowing the drive, not a long backup that does not give you what Cousins does offensively when Jokic comes out. Anyway, when Jokic is in, expect a weak defense, not one you can win a title with.
Denver used to have the athletic Jeremi Grant, but cherished the gifted shooter Micl Porter, so Grant left, and their defense got soft when Millsap left too.
And how does Barton fit in the system they chose? It’s a mess.
I gave up on DEN last offseason.
The assumption of top players needing shooters around them started with Lebron— but even that was iffy, and Jokic is different.