NBA Pretenders or Contenders: Denver Nuggets
ORTG: 114.9 (5th)
DRTG: 111.2 (19th)
NetRTG: 3.7 (5th)
As much as I love what the Denver Nuggets did in the NBA restart last season, I have my concerns about this team. Losing Jerami Grant has hurt way more than perhaps many believed it would and Jamal Murray hasn’t been the same player he was during their playoff run.
That said, Nikola Jokic is an absolute NBA MVP candidate and could win the award if the Nuggets finish in the top 2 of the Western Conference. What concerns me about this team is their defense. Denver has the 19th ranked defense in the league and that’s not going to cut it in the playoffs.
Denver is worse on that end of the floor and lacks the depth that it had last season. Apart from those two big concerns, other contenders in the West improved over the offseason. The Nuggets will be a dangerous team in the playoffs and could even make a run to the conference finals again, but I don’t believe this is a championship contender.
Verdict: Pretenders