It has been an eventful offseason for the Nuggets and The Athletic’s Tony Jones breaks down all the meaningful developments. They lost Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in free agency but the front office is convinced Christian Braun can handle a larger role. The Nuggets are also encouraged by Julian Strawther‘s Summer League performances and think he’ll add much-needed shooting to the rotation.
The Nuggets believe Russell Westbrook will fortify their offense and they’ll also need free agent addition Dario Saric to produce in a backup frontcourt role, especially with first-rounder DaRon Holmes having suffered a torn Achilles during Summer League action. If Saric doesn’t deliver, the Nuggets could be forced to use Aaron Gordon as the de facto backup center, Jones writes.
We have more from the Western Conference:
- If the Jazz plan on trading Lauri Markkanen, they’re certainly doing a good job hiding their intentions. Marc Stein reports in his latest Substack post that the Jazz recently sent multiple coaching staff representatives to Finland to assist Markkanen in workouts with second-year guard Keyonte George. That gives the impression they’re not looking to deal their starting power forward, regardless of whether he signs an extension.
- The Mavericks had a solid offseason with the addition of Klay Thompson in a sign-and-trade with Golden State. They also signed free agents Naji Marshall and Spencer Dinwiddie and acquired Quentin Grimes in a trade. Eddie Sefko of Mavs.com takes a closer look at what each player could bring to the defending Western Conference champions.
- The Thunder‘s front office is wise to keep a roster spot open on the 15-man roster, Rylan Stiles of Sports Illustrated opines. Any free agent they could bring in now probably wouldn’t play much and keeping that spot open could facilitate a trade involving multiple players, Stiles notes. It could also make it easier to add a player in the buyout market during the season to fill a need.
Grimes is a great player. NY will regret giving him up especially since Burks and Bojan are gone. IMO Burks should have been brought back instead of signing Payne. I always envisioned Grimes like he was the next Allan Houston
Burks is absolutely cooked give me a break.
Warriors are actually afraid to get Markkanen. Who knew.
No team is going to give up 5 1st round picks and 4 young players for him. Ainge set the price so high nobody is paying that price. I don’t see any other team willing to pay the price too.
Afraid? How did you come to that conclusion? It sounds more like Utah was afraid to trade him. But, I always expect that sort of statement from you. You’ve said the same thing about a 1,000 times now.
@Giants74 And yet here you are foaming at the mouth at every comment I make? Toughen up…
I wouldn’t say they’re afraid. More like they value what they have more than giving it up for Markkanen.
Besides, the Jazz have no intention of trading him anyway. They merely were testing the market to see how badly teams wanted him.
It’s not impossible to get him, but based on the offers reported it was never realistic.