The Nuggets won 57 games last season, but Monday’s loss to the Grizzlies ensures they’ll have a losing record in 2013/14. The focus in Denver is on boomeranging back up the standings next year, and we’ll run down the latest:
- Kenneth Faried‘s name was in plenty of trade rumors earlier this season, and he’s up for a rookie scale extension this summer, but Nuggets GM Tim Connelly tells Terry Frei of The Denver Post that he values the energetic power forward highly. “In the last six weeks of the season, there are only a handful of players in the league who have been better than Kenneth Faried,” Connelly said. “He rebounds like he’s 7-feet tall. His intensity and toughness overcomes his lack of size. His shooting percentage is high. And, of course, his energy level in contagious. In a lot of ways, Faried determines how we play.”
- Coach Brian Shaw considers Faried and Ty Lawson the team’s “cornerstones,” as fellow Post scribe Chris Dempsey observes.
- Sean Deveney of The Sporting News profiles several potential head coaching candidates with a slideshow and suggests former Nuggets coach George Karl‘s willingness to take a discount will determine whether he returns to an NBA bench next season.