Nuggets Rumors

Offseason In Review: Denver Nuggets

November 18th, 2014 at 11:36am CST by Chuck Myron

Hoops Rumors is in the process of looking back at each team’s offseason, from the end of the playoffs in June right up until opening night. Trades, free agent signings, draft picks, contract extensions, option decisions, camp invitees, and more will be covered, as we examine the moves each franchise made over the last several months.

Signings

Alonzo Gee: One year, $1.063MM. Signed via minimum-salary exception.

Extensions

Kenneth Faried: Four years, $50MM (plus incentives).

Trades

Acquired 2014 pick No. 16, 2014 pick No. 19, and the less favorable of Chicago’s and Portland’s 2015 second-round picks from the Bulls in exchange for 2014 pick No. 11 and Anthony Randolph.
Acquired Arron Afflalo from the Magic in exchange for Evan Fournier and 2014 pick No. 56.

Waiver Claims

None

Draft Picks

Jusuf Nurkic (Round 1, 16th overall). Signed via rookie scale exception to rookie scale contract.
Gary Harris (Round 1, 19th overall). Signed via rookie scale exception to rookie scale contract.
Nikola Jokic (Round 2, 41st overall). Playing overseas.
Erick Green (2013, Round 2, 46th overall): Signed via mid-level exception for three years, $2.333MM. First year is partially guaranteed for $50K. Second and third years are non-guaranteed.

Camp Invitees

Jerrelle Benimon
Pops Mensah-Bonsu
Marcus Williams

Departing Players

Rookie Contract Option Decisions

None

Perhaps the greatest additions the Nuggets made to their lineup this offseason were simply the healthy returns of several players who missed significant time with injuries last season. Danilo Gallinari and JaVale McGee, two would-be starters who accounted for nearly $20.9MM in payroll, appeared in a total of five games put together during 2013/14. J.J. Hickson and Nate Robinson, two key acquisitions from the summer of 2013, suffered torn ACLs. A roster that was largely unchanged from a 57-win squad in 2012/13 sunk to just 36 wins, 13 games out of the playoffs.

The Nuggets entered the summer without the capacity to create cap room short of a trade and seemingly little motivation to make a substantive change, short of the availability of a superstar. They were reportedly involved in trade talk for Kevin Love, and at one point they were apparently Minnesota’s most favored trading partner outside of the Cavs and Warriors, but it never looked as though a deal was close. Denver had already acquired another team’s leading scorer by the time July began, bringing back Arron Afflalo from his two-year sojourn in Orlando, where he’d taken on much of the offensive load for a still-developing team. GM Tim Connelly used the sizable trade exception left over from the sign-and-trade deal that sent Andre Iguodala to Golden State the year before, and since it was Iguodala whom the Nuggets acquired to replace Afflalo back in 2012, this summer’s deal completed a circle.

The now 29-year-old Afflalo returns to Denver a more accomplished player than when he left, and one who showed a greater knack for making it to the free throw line even as he took a career-high 4.1 three-point attempts per game last year. Afflalo is also closer to the end of his contract, which pays him $7.5MM this year and would do the same in 2015/16, though he appears poised to opt out this summer. The cost to the Nuggets seemed low at the time of the trade, as Evan Fournier had yet to show why former GM Masai Ujiri spent the 20th overall pick of 2012 on him, but the Magic reportedly chose the shooting guard over other Afflalo trade packages that would have given them a future first-rounder. The wisdom of Ujiri and Magic GM Rob Hennigan is more readily apparent as Fournier has averaged 17.3 points per game to start the season in Orlando, nearly as many as Afflalo put up last season, though Fournier’s 50.9% three-point shooting suggests a regression is in order.

In any case, with a veteran to slot in at shooting guard, where Denver had been weak after the departure of Iguodala, Connelly and his staff decided two mid first-round rookies were better than one, trading the No. 11 overall pick in this year’s draft for Nos. 16 and 19. The presence of Afflalo, Randy Foye and a healthy Robinson will keep 19th pick Gary Harris from having a significant effect for a while, but 16th pick Jusuf Nurkic is already nudging his way into the rotation at center. Coach Brian Shaw has at times given Nurkic, McGee and Timofey Mozgov all meaningful minutes during games, a three-headed center rotation that worked for Shaw’s mentor, Phil Jackson, with the Bulls in the 1990s but is far from ideal. The Cavs showed consistent trade interest in Mozgov this past offseason, and while the Nuggets seemed just as consistent in turning them away, Nurkic’s development adds an intriguing subplot to Mozgov’s situation.

The Nuggets can also go three deep at power forward with Kenneth Faried, Hickson and Darrell Arthur, but that didn’t stop the team from investing heavily in Faried. The dreadlocked former 22nd overall pick made noticeable strides in his game last season and over the summer with Team USA. Connelly and company reportedly gauged the trade market for Faried about a year ago, but nothing came of early season rumors connecting him to the Knicks and Iman Shumpert, and the Nuggets reaped the benefits of Faried’s improvement.

Still, a report this week suggested that Denver isn’t as thrilled with his on-court performance as his four-year, $50MM extension would indicate, further asserting that the PR benefits of the deal played into the team’s thinking. Failing to extend Faried would have left some unanswered questions about the franchise’s future, but it also would have given the team a greater degree of flexibility. As it is, the Nuggets have about $58.2MM in commitments against a 2015/16 salary cap that’s likely to check in around $66-68MM. Some combination of Afflalo’s player option and non-guaranteed salary for Wilson Chandler and Foye could eat up whatever modest cap room Denver would otherwise be able to clear.

Perhaps leaving some questions unanswered and taking Faried to restricted free agency might have been the wisest move, particularly if Denver’s front office still has doubts about his game. The Nuggets have in the post-Carmelo Anthony era treaded the perilous waters of mediocrity, in true contention neither for the title nor the No. 1 overall pick. The team’s early season struggles have it lower in the standings than usual, but that’ll probably change once Denver’s coterie of players returning from injury get their legs back. It’s difficult to see just what the Nuggets are planning for the future even though they’ve invested in Faried as a major part of it.

Connelly’s ultimate aim appears to be packaging the team’s multitude of steady contributors in a trade for a star, as this summer’s talks involving Love suggest. Doing the Carmelo trade in reverse seemed to have been Ujiri’s end game, too, but as difficult as it can be to trade a superstar, it’s much harder to obtain one. For now, it’s a waiting game, and for Denver, it’s possible that over time Faried, Nurkic and maybe others will continue their development and become stars in their own right. It’s probably more likely that they fall short of that level, as most do. All of it leaves Denver in a position that’s not particularly appealing, one with which the Nuggets have become all too familiar.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

Nuggets Rumors: Connelly, Faried, Trades

November 17th, 2014 at 3:20pm CST by Chuck Myron

Nuggets GM Tim Connelly isn’t overreacting to his team’s slow start, as we passed along earlier, but he nonetheless acknowledges that no player’s job is entirely secure, writes Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.com.

“Every player on our roster is a movable asset,” Connelly said. “Certainly you don’t want to view players as assets, but there’s a part of you in the front office that has to be brutally honest with how these guys are viewed leaguewide. We don’t have a guy on the roster we’d have to heavily incentivize to move.”

Arnovitz paints a bleak picture surrounding the 2-7 Nuggets in his piece, and it’s worth a full read, particularly for Denver fans. We’ll pass along the highlights here:

Multiple sources tell Arnovitz that Denver still isn’t sold on Kenneth Faried but signed him to his four-year, $50MM extension last month in part as a PR move, given the power forward’s popularity among fans and his Team USA performance. Some within the Nuggets “take exception” to the deal, Arnovitz hears.
The Nuggets leaked the initial terms of the deal, which were five years at $60MM, because they weren’t aware that the Designated Player rule, which any five-year rookie scale extension would trigger, required that the first-year salary be for the maximum amount, according to Arnovitz. The team’s lack of collective bargaining agreement knowledge wasn’t isolated to Faried’s contract, as the Nuggets called another team to propose a trade that wouldn’t have worked under the league’s rules, as a rival executive tells Arnovitz.
The ESPN scribe hears from a source who suggests that when owner and team president Josh Kroenke was looking for a new GM in 2013, what appealed most about Connelly was his relative inexperience and willingness to defer to Kroenke.

Western Notes: Kerr, Nuggets, Kings, Pondexter

November 17th, 2014 at 12:55pm CST by Chuck Myron

Stephen Curry was one of the most vocal supporters of former Warriors coach Mark Jackson, but new coach Steve Kerr impressed the All-Star guard with the way he made a special effort to win the team’s trust. Curry shared his thoughts with TNT’s David Aldridge, who writes in his NBA.com Morning Tip.

“It’s always that kind of uncertainty, what it’s going to be like,” Curry said. “He did a great job over the summer of reaching out to every single player, getting to know us, talking about what his expectations were, which made us a little more comfortable, for sure. But we’re all grownups. We all can kind of compartmentalize your relationships, knowing that in situations Coach Kerr’s coming in prepared for the job and trying to take us to the next level, and our job is to go out and play. He did a great job during training camp of keeping it light, keeping it fun, doing some things that are different.”

Jackson won plenty in Golden State, but Kerr is keeping it up, with the Warriors at 8-2 to start the season. Here’s more from around the Western Conference:

The Nuggets are off to a sluggish 2-7 start, but GM Tim Connelly isn’t about to resort to drastic measures, observes Chris Dempsey of The Denver Post. “Certainly we’ve struggled,” Connelly said. “But it’s early.” Nonetheless, ex-Nuggets coach George Karl has an interest in returning to coaching and has been keeping an eye on the team, as one of his former assistants tells Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports.
The Kings have recalled Eric Moreland from the D-League, the team announced. The power forward averaged 15.0 points and 13.0 rebounds over a pair of weekend games.
The four-year extension that Quincy Pondexter signed last year with the Grizzlies just kicked in for this season, and he’s fallen out of the rotation, as Chris Herrington of The Commercial Appeal notes in his subscription-only Pick-and-Pop column. The length of his deal dictates that Memphis look to trade him if he can’t find his way back onto the floor, Herrington opines.

Northwest Notes: Barea, Wolves, Shaw, Leonard

November 16th, 2014 at 1:01pm CST by Arthur Hill

J.J. Barea confirmed to Kent Youngblood of the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he gave up some guaranteed money to get out of his contract with the Timberwolves. Barea said he was paid a portion of the $4.5MM the Wolves owed him, and then signed with the Mavericks for the veterans minimum. “I think we finished on good terms,” he said. “We communicated pretty good. They wanted to go another direction. We talked about it and came up with the decision and went from there.” Barea played five seasons in Dallas before signing a free agent deal with Minnesota in 2011.

Western Notes: Leonard, Robinson, Jazz

November 9th, 2014 at 10:45am CST by Arthur Hill

The Spurs‘ Kawhi Leonard is battling blurred vision brought on by conjunctivitis, reports Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News. “My right eye, the vision’s not all the way back yet,” Leonard said. “Hopefully I can heal up soon. I’ve just got to keep competing so I can get used to it and get my rhythm going.” The MVP of the 2014 NBA Finals, who has been plagued by poor shooting early this season, said his eye goes cloudy at times. He said doctors have told him the condition has to “run its course” and should improve in time.

Also in the Western Conference:

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich blames effort, not injuries, for the defending champs’ 2-3 start, tweets Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News. “We need to start playing with (the) same intensity people bring at us who want to kick out butt,” Popovich said after Saturday’s loss to the Pelicans.
Pain can be part of the NBA lifestyle, which is why the Nuggets‘ Nate Robinson tells Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post he’s not letting knee rehab and a hamstring injury keep him out of the lineup. With starting guard Ty Lawson sidelined by a sore ankle, Robinson played 26 minutes Friday in a loss to Cleveland. “I want to play through injury; I don’t care,” Robinson said. “But I want to be here for the long run, I want to be here for the rest of the season, so I don’t want to tweak anything else. Just take it day by day.” Robinson joined the Nuggets in July, signing a two-year guaranteed deal worth $4.1MM.
Former Nuggets coach George Karl says Lawson’s bum ankle explains a lot of Denver’s 1-4 start, Dempsey writes. “I don’t see Ty playing at a high level,” Karl said. “I think he’s their engine.” Karl, now an NBA analyst for ESPN, guided the Nuggets for eight years before being let go after winning Coach of the Year honors in 2013. He offered some advice for his successor, Brian Shaw. “One thing I think Brian is kind of caught up in a little bit is he’s playing too many players,” Karl said. “I don’t think he can play three centers. I don’t think he can play that many big guys on the court when your team plays well when it’s fast and small.”
The Jazz are thinking long-term on lottery reform, writes Tony Jones of The Salt Lake Tribune. Utah, like many teams, voted against changing the current system because of its small market status. “We looked at the long run, and how this may affect us and teams like us,” GM Dennis Lindsey said. “We think that we have a chance to outperform expectations. But we voted no because we were looking at the next 30 years — not now or in the short term.”

Chris Crouse contributed to this post.

Western Notes: Kobe, Durant, Spurs, Nuggets

November 3rd, 2014 at 2:03pm CST by Chuck Myron

Kobe Bryant rejects the notion that he should push for a trade to a contender and professes his loyalty to the Lakers in an interview with Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. The team’s lack of success in attracting marquee free agents this summer hasn’t left him questioning whether he wants to remain with the franchise.

“It was really tough to land those free agents just because of the opportunities that they had,” Bryant said. “You got [Carmelo Anthony] going back to New York, LeBron [James] going back home to Cleveland. The odds just weren’t in our favor. But I took comfort in the fact that the Lakers did absolutely everything possible to make it happen. Absolutely everything possible. We offered Pau [Gasol] an incredible deal. I saw them put the work in. It’s much different than in 2007 when I felt like they were just sitting on their hands. This is not that case. They were going after it and being aggressive. I will fight for that till the end. They tried, tried and tried and it didn’t work out. I stand behind them 110%. I bleed purple and gold.”

Bryant has been preaching patience amid an 0-4 start for the Lakers, but as the losses mount, we’ll see how long the Black Mamba can remain serene. Here’s more from around the Western Conference:

Kevin Durant cited exhaustion when he withdrew from Team USA this summer, but he reveals in a documentary film that Paul George‘s gruesome leg fracture weighed heavily on his mind, as Michael Lee of The Washington Post chronicles.
Injury marked the unofficial end of Spurs draft-and-stash prospect Erazem Lorbek‘s time with FC Barcelona before he officially left the Spanish club this summer, but he has his eye on joining San Antonio after he recovers, as he tells Gigantes Del Basket (translation via HoopsHype). The Spurs were reportedly close to signing Lorbek, a 2005 second-round draftee, in 2012, but the now 30-year-old re-signed with Barcelona instead.
The Nuggets, who voted for the league’s failed lottery reform proposal, are one of the NBA’s most vociferous opponents to tanking, as Chris Dempsey of The Denver Post writes in his mailbag column. Still, most teams aren’t nearly as concerned about the phenomenon as fans and the media generally are, Dempsey adds.

Nuggets To Pick Up Mozgov’s Team Option

November 2nd, 2014 at 9:34am CST by ChrisCrouse

The Nuggets are expected to pick up their team option on Timofey Mozgov‘s contract for the 2015/16 season, Christopher Dempsey of the Denver Post reports. The option will pay him nearly $5MM, which is the final year of his current deal. With Mozgov’s contract on the books Denver will have approximately $61.2MM in guaranteed salary commitments for the 2015/16 season. This figure does not include Arron Afflalo‘s player option, which is worth $7.5MM. With Denver picking up Mozgov’s option, he will now become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2016.

The Nuggets’ decision to pick up Mozgov’s option isn’t necessarily a sign that they won’t trade him. Denver has shown willingness to trade players right after they have signed with the team, as is evidenced by their 2012 trade that sent Nene to the Wizards the same season that the Nuggets re-signed him. The Nuggets also have JaVale McGee, who is set to be paid $12MM in 2015/16, and 2014 draftee Jusuf Nurkic on the roster at center, making Mozgov potentially expendable.

The Cavs were one of the teams with interest in acquiring Mozgov either this season by trade or next through free agency. Cleveland coach David Blatt is familiar with Mozgov, having coached the player on the Russian National team. And with Mozgov off to a good start to the season averaging 11.5 PPG in just 21.5 MPG in his first two starts for the Nuggets, his trade value is upped accordingly. Mozgov’s career numbers over 214 games are 6.1 PPG, 4.4 RPG, and 0.9 BPG. His career slash line is .515/.143/.739.

And-Ones: Hornets, Celtics, D-League

October 29th, 2014 at 10:33pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The contracts of Alonzo Gee (Nuggets) and James Ennis (Heat) both became fully guaranteed today, and a partial guarantee of $250K has kicked in for Dewayne Dedmon (Magic), since both Dedmon and Ennis were on their teams’ respective rosters come opening night, and Gee was still on his team’s roster past October 29th, as is shown on our schedule of contract guarantee dates.

Here’s more from around the league:

The Celtics look to improve upon their 25-win season of a year ago, and began their quest at home tonight with a 121-105 victory over the Nets. In his season preview, A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com believes Boston’s outlook has improved, and Rajon Rondo will have a strong season as he looks to silence his doubters and maximize his value heading into next summer.
In a separate article, Blakely looks at the top five players who changed teams and donned new uniforms this summer. Blakely also examined the five best rookies making their debuts this season, including Elfrid Payton, Jabari Parker, and Marcus Smart.
Hornets owner Michael Jordan believes that the addition of Lance Stephenson gives his team a legitimate shot to contend in the Eastern Conference, the Associated Press reports. Jordan especially likes Stephenson’s “fight,” saying, “One of the reasons why I admire his game is he takes on challenges. For us to get any place in the East, we need someone to challenge LeBron. He challenged LeBron.”
Former Sixers coach Larry Brown slammed the organization’s rebuilding through “tanking” plan, John N. Mitchell of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes. “I hate what’s going on in Philly,” Brown said. “They don’t have a basketball person in the organization. It makes me sick to my stomach.”
Malcolm Turner of Wasserman Media Group has been hired as the president of the NBA D-League, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports (Twitter link).
Roger Mason has been hired as the NBPA’s director of player relations, Howard Beck of Bleacher Report tweets. It is unclear if accepting this position would prevent Mason from continuing his playing career. The 34-year-old Mason made 25 appearances for the Heat last season, averaging 3.0 PPG in 10.4 minutes-per-game.

Nuggets Waive Miller, Benimon, Williams

October 27th, 2014 at 12:53pm CST by Chuck Myron

12:53pm: The Nuggets have officially waived Miller, the team announced.

MONDAY, 12:40pm: Miller’s release no longer appears on the RealGM transactions log, and the team has been looking to find a taker for him via trade, tweets Chris Dempsey of The Denver Post. However, the Nuggets haven’t found any trade partners and are set to release Miller in advance of today’s 4:00pm Central deadline for teams to submit their opening-night rosters.

WEDNESDAY, 1:52pm: The Nuggets have waived Miller, according to the RealGM transactions log, though the team has yet to make an official announcement about him.

1:10pm: Denver has officially released Benimon and Williams, the team announced, though Miller remains with the team for now, according to Dempsey, who indicates that the Nuggets are thinking of keeping him right up until they have to let him go to make Monday’s opening-night roster deadline (Twitter links).

8:28am: The Nuggets are waiving Quincy Miller, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link), and the team will also release Marcus Williams and Jerrelle Benimon, according to Chris Dempsey of The Denver Post. The moves will drop the Nuggets to the 15-player regular season maximum and allow the team to keep Alonzo Gee and his non-guaranteed contract for opening night, Dempsey points out. They also signal that Erick Green will remain with the team into the regular season in spite of only $50K in guaranteed salary. Dempsey indicates that the Nuggets have already placed Miller on waivers, though the team has made no official announcement.

The Nuggets part ways with Miller in spite of his $150K partial guarantee, one that would have escalated to cover his entire minimum salary had he made it to opening night. The team drafted him 38th overall in 2012, but he struggled to recover from tearing his left ACL as a high school senior, when he was the fifth-best prospect in the country, according to the Recruiting Services Consensus Index. He averaged 4.9 points and 2.8 rebounds in 15.2 minutes per game last season, the first in which he felt fully healthy since the injury, Dempsey notes, but that wasn’t enough to save his spot on the roster for this year.

The Nuggets also owe a $35K partial guarantee to Benimon, who joined the team after going undrafted in June and appearing in summer league with Denver as well as the Heat. Williams, a forward from the University of Arizona not to be confused with the point guard by the same name, signed a non-guaranteed contract with Denver in an effort to make it back to the NBA for his first regular season action since the 2008/09 season.

Gee’s defense helped fuel the Nuggets decision-making, and he had four steals in Tuesday’s preseason game, as Dempsey points out. He earned a measure of stability after a summer that saw him go from the Cavs to the Pelicans to the Rockets to the Kings in a series of trades before Sacramento waived him, freeing the Nuggets to ink the 27-year-old small forward. Green, the 46th overall pick in 2013, signed with the Nuggets this year after playing last season with Montepaschi Siena of Italy.

Western Notes: Ballmer, Rockets, Canaan, Afflalo

October 26th, 2014 at 10:33am CST by ChrisCrouse

Steve Ballmer brings enthusiasm and loyalty to the Clippers as their new owner, writes James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times. Ballmer wants to be the NBA version of the Seattle Seahawks, whose fans are widely known as the 12th man for being the most passionate in the NFL. “We want better energy. I do. The players do. Doc [Rivers] does. Everybody does,” Ballmer said. “More. Better. We would love to be known for the most energetic fans in the NBA.”

Here’s more from the Western Conference:

Isaiah Canaan, who’s so far secured a roster spot with his preseason play, hopes his hard work translates into playing time in the regular season for the Rockets, writes Jenny Dial Creech of the Houston Chronicle. “I have to be strong in practice so that the coaches will feel like they can trust me out there,” Canaan said. “And when I get out there, I need to do my best, work hard and prove that I belong on the floor.”
The return of Arron Afflalo brings major changes to the guard rotation in Denver, writes Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post. Because of his improved game, Dempsey notes, Afflalo will surely take on a bigger role with the Nuggets than he had in his first stint with the team two years ago.
A lack of depth on the bench could be the Rockets‘ Achilles heel, opines Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio. In his season preview, Amico wonders whether there is talent on the roster to fill the void left by the departures of Chandler Parsons, Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik.

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