6. Denver Nuggets
Key additions: Isaiah Thomas (FA)
Key losses: Wilson Chandler (trade), Kenneth Faried (trade), Darrell Arthur (trade)
THE JOKER HAS ARRIVED. Post All-Star break last year: 21.7 PPG, 11.0 RPG, 6.5 APG, 53-46-85 %’s, 124 ORtg, 20.6 game score (Basketball Reference‘s version of PER). He’s the best offensive center in basketball and possibly the best passing center since Bill Walton. His combination of IQ, playmaking, shooting, and rebounding give me incredible poor man’s Larry Bird vibes (this isn’t an outlandish take; wildly similar, Jokic’s first three years were statistically better on a per-minute basis than The Legend’s).
Combined with Jamal Murray‘s ball handling and elite shooting ability and Gary Harris‘ tremendous two-way play and upside, the Denver Nuggets have one of the best young big 3’s in the game moving forward.
At some point you have to feel bad for Isaiah Thomas. A year and a half ago he was confident he’d be receiving a five-year max contract offer from Boston; the Nuggets will bring him on for one-year on the veteran’s minimum. Let’s play a quick game of how to lose $200 million in an eighteen-month period, by Isaiah Thomas:
- 5-foot-9 and unable to defend at your local LA Fitness in a league that predicates heavily on three-point shooting, ball movement, and player movement.
- tear the labrum in your right hip.
- play through the injury for another two months, which he ultimately regretted.
- completely bomb in Cleveland, proving to the league you’re closer to playing in China than the 2017 All-NBA 2nd team version of yourself.
- have the team you were traded to, trade you away after 17 games to take on Jordan Clarkson‘s salary, who just had one of the worst individual runs in NBA playoff history.
- have arthroscopic surgery on that same hip at age 29
While Isaiah could probably still work off the bench in his pre-Celtics role as a Jamal-Crawford-type “microwave” scorer, he doesn’t offer much of anything else and he’s never been a great locker room guy (the Cleveland situation was the icing on the cake; I can only imagine the conversations LeBron had about him behind his back. Wouldn’t it be awesome to hire Chris Harrison and a camera crew to cover toxic NBA locker rooms?).
Plus, the Nuggets just re-signed Will Barton for the same role, who happens to be much better. IT kind of feels redundant to Denver’s all-offense approach. You can’t play him and Murray together for long stretches unless you want to give up 150 every night, so his role will likely be somewhat limited by Mike Malone. Expect him to play somewhere in the 15-20 minutes per game range unless he clicks.
While they have nice pieces, Denver is still a few years away. They’re a dark horse contender for the West Finals.
Nuggets projected record: 49-33
Nuggets chances of beating the Warriors in a series: 3-5 percent