What’s next for the Nuggets after losing Jerami Grant in free agency?

What lies ahead for the Denver Nuggets after losing Jerami Grant?

After losing to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Conference Finals this past season, the Denver Nuggets’ future looked bright, promising, and like it’d include plenty more trips that deep into the playoffs.

To preface this article, I still think their future is promising, but the moves and losses of this offseason are going to hurt Denver in the short-term and put a lot of pressure on their core players in the long-term.

Firstly, let’s take a look at everything that has happened so far:

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Mason Plumlee kicked off the entire free agency period and Troy Weaver’s puzzling string of moves by signing a three-year, $25 million deal with Detroit Pistons according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

The Nuggets then offered Jerami Grant a four-year, $60 million deal to return according to The Denver Post’s Mike Singer before he decided to sign the same contract with the Detroit Pistons The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported. One of the reasons Grant spurned the Nuggets and moved his talents to Detroit was the larger offensive load he’d theoretically get on the worse team.

Funnily enough, this is what I wrote a month ago about Grant’s impending free agency:

"“Atlanta and Detroit can give Grant the $16 million he wants as soon as he walks in the door with all their cap space but would hardly sniff the win count of the Nuggets next season. For that reason, I’m going to ignore those two as possible destinations. If those two teams try and price out the Nuggets, offering Grant more than his market value, around $20 million or more, fair play to them. But they’ve just committed a lot of money to someone whose best-case scenario would be the fourth or fifth best player.”"

Yikes.

Off the back of losing arguably their best defender and definitely best wing defender, the Nuggets re-signed Paul Millsap on a one-year, $10 million deal.

And then the team pulls backup wing Torrey Craig’s qualifying offer, making him a free agent and eventual Milwaukee Buck. I’m going to assume that the following “no love” tweet from Craig means he was amenable to returning to the organization that gave him a real NBA shot and played serious rotation minutes on a minimum contract, but again, assuming.

https://twitter.com/TCraig_23/status/1330277236960858116

They fill back up the frontcourt by adding JaMychal Green, signed Isaiah Hartenstein, and converted Bol Bol’s two-way contract to a full NBA contract, removing any maximum games played requirements.

And that should be it for the 2020 offseason. Are they better? The short answer no, but will they win more games or make the Conference Finals? Probably.

But that’s more pointing to the age of their young core in Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic, Michael Porter Jr., and heck, let’s throw Monte Morris in that conversation too.

Jerami Grant was their best option for guarding Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James in the playoffs and while both guys still got theirs, it’s not like Grant was insignificant. Also, he showed some flashes on offense that was enough to give Sam Hinkie a wet dream (Grant’s first shot in the NBA was with the Process-era Sixers).

Plus, his build is much better for guarding the bigger forwards, especially when Torrey got torched, Millsap was a bit on the slower side, MPJ wasn’t a great defensive player and Gary Harris is better guarding smaller players.

Another reason why Grant was a great addition for Denver was simply the scarcity of humans who could even think of guarding the bigger forwards. We often hear about how the most valuable player is a wing defender and it’s usually correct, these guys don’t grow on trees (like backup centers seem to).

What’s the hope for Denver when the 2020-21 playoffs come around and the team has to stop Kawhi again?

Unless there’s a free agent still out there, willing to take a near-minimum contract who can help them (there’s not), Denver either must hope the mid-season buyout market is especially juicy or someone on the roster develops into the stopper they need.

The list of potential guys who can develop into stopped starts and ends with MPJ next season.

Standing at 6-foot-10 with a 7-foot wingspan, MPJ has the physical tools to be an above-average defender and it’s those tools that have helped him become an elite scorer at a young age.

However, on defense, he gave up +6.2 points per 100 possessions when using the Cleaning the Glass filter, good for the tenth percentile in the league.

What’s promising outside of his physicals is how great a rebounder Porter has been in his rookie year and particularly in the playoffs. While it’s not always seen this way, rebounding is as much as part of defense since it closes the opposition team’s offensive possession.

He gets better on the defensive end when played at the power forward slot (approximately 15 percent of his minutes) as he keeps teams to a better number per 100 and jumps up to slightly above league average at forcing turnovers per Cleaning the Glass.

Maybe I’m grasping at straws there, but it’s not unheard of that a 22-year-old who has proven he’s elite on one end to get better on the other. Especially after a redshirt rookie season, we’ve only seen one season of development, who knows what his sophomore campaign will show us, usually the season great rookies put it all together.

So whether it’s in MPJ, someone on the roster, or someone I’m not even thinking of, I hope this Nuggets team finds the answer to all these questions because there’s a small chance that we look back on this era of Denver basketball and see two 3-1 comeback in the one playoffs as their greatest achievement. I hope it’s just the beginning.