- Windhorst wonders if the Nuggets might try to find a small forward capable of slowing down stars like Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James in the postseason. Torrey Craig is Denver’s best option for now, but if the team seeks an upgrade, Andre Iguodala could be a target. Using Mason Plumlee‘s $14MM expiring salary, the Nuggets might be able to put together an offer that appeals to the Grizzlies, says Windhorst.
[SOURCE LINK]
No NBA team has played more than four games in the first seven days of the 2019/20 regular season, but only four clubs didn’t lose during that stretch. The Sixers, Nuggets, Spurs, and Timberwolves are all 3-0.
It’s no surprise that Philadelphia and Denver are off to strong starts. Both teams are expected to finish near the top of their respective conferences this season — I had them as the No. 1 seeds in my preseason predictions.
However, the early three-game winning streaks from San Antonio and Minnesota are a little more unexpected. Neither team has had a brutal schedule to start the season, with the Spurs picking up home wins vs. the Knicks, Wizards, and Trail Blazers, while the Wolves won in Brooklyn, in Charlotte, and at home against the Heat.
Still, their hot starts have been promising. Karl-Anthony Towns is putting up MVP-caliber numbers in the early going for the Wolves (32.0 PPG, 13.3 RPG). The Spurs have had a more balanced attack, led by DeMar DeRozan (22.0 PPG) and LaMarcus Aldridge (21.3 PPG, 8.0 RPG) and complemented by players like now-healthy guard Dejounte Murray (14.7 PPG, 8.3 RPG, 6.0 APG).
The four undefeated teams have the following games on tap as they look to extend their winning streaks to start the season:
- Sixers: vs. Min (10/30), @ Por (11/2), @ Phx (11/4), @ Utah (11/6), @ Den (11/8)
- Nuggets: vs. Dal (10/29), @ NO (10/31), @ Orl (11/2), vs. Mia (11/5), vs. Phi (11/8)
- Spurs: @ LAC (10/31), @ GSW (11/1), vs. LAL (11/3), @ Atl (11/5), vs. OKC (11/7)
- Timberwolves: @ Phi (10/30), @ Wash (11/2), vs. Mil (11/4), @ Mem (11/6), vs. GSW (11/8)
The Spurs have a brutal three-game stretch on tap beginning on Thursday, though at least one of the Sixers or Wolves will have lost a game by that point, as those two teams are set to face one another on Wednesday. Even if the 76ers beat Minnesota, they have a tough Western road trip up next, with games in Portland, Phoenix, and Utah before they’d get a chance to face Denver. Of course, the Nuggets’ schedule isn’t exactly a cakewalk up until that point either, starting tonight vs. Luka Doncic and the Mavs.
What do you think? Which of this season’s undefeated teams will keep its streak going the longest and be the last to lose in 2019/20?
Vote in our poll, then head to the comment section below to share your two cents!
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Hoops Rumors is breaking down the 2019 offseason for all 30 NBA teams, revisiting the summer’s free agent signings, trades, draft picks, departures, and more. We’ll evaluate each team’s moves from the last several months and look ahead to what the 2019/20 season holds for all 30 franchises. Today, we’re focusing on the Denver Nuggets.
Signings:
- Standard contracts:
- None
- Two-way contracts:
- Non-guaranteed camp contracts:
- PJ Dozier: One year, minimum salary (Converted to two-way contract).
- Jorge Gutierrez: One year, minimum salary (Waived).
- Elijah Millsap: One year, minimum salary (Waived).
- Tyler Zeller: One year, minimum salary (Waived).
Trades:
- Acquired the draft rights to Bol Bol (No. 44 pick) from the Heat in exchange for either the Nuggets’ or Sixers’ second-round pick (whichever is least favorable) and cash ($1.2MM).
- Acquired Jerami Grant from the Thunder in exchange for the Nuggets’ 2020 first-round pick (top-10 protected)
Draft picks:
- 2-44: Bol Bol — Signed to two-way contract.
Draft-and-stash signings:
- Vlatko Cancar (2017 draft; No. 49 pick) — Signed to three-year, minimum salary contract. Third year non-guaranteed. Signed using mid-level exception.
Contract extensions:
- Jamal Murray: Five years, 25% maximum salary. Projected value of $168,200,000. Starting salary can be worth up to 30% of the cap if Murray earns All-NBA honors in 2020 (full details). Starts in 2020/21; runs through 2024/25.
Departing players:
- Brandon Goodwin (two-way)
- Trey Lyles
- Tyler Lydon
- Isaiah Thomas
- Thomas Welsh (two-way; waived)
Other offseason news:
- Retained Tim Connelly as president of basketball operations after Wizards pursued Connelly.
- Exercised 2020/21 rookie scale team option on Michael Porter Jr.
Salary cap situation:
- Remained over the cap.
- Currently about $979K below the tax line.
- Carrying approximately $131.65MM in guaranteed salary.
- $4.82MM of taxpayer mid-level exception still available ($898K used on Vlatko Cancar).
Story of the summer:
After improbably finishing at the bottom of the Northwest in 2017/18 despite winning 46 games, the Nuggets were the division winners in 2018/19, earning the Western Conference’s No. 2 seed with a 54-28 record. The club then followed up its regular season performance by winning its first playoff series in a decade.
Nikola Jokic was the driving force behind Denver’s success, earning a spot on the All-NBA First Team, but it was the Nuggets’ depth that helped set them apart from many of the other contenders in the conference.
Ten players averaged 19 or more minutes per game for the Nuggets in 2018/19, and all 10 of those players remained under contract for ’19/20. While many of their Western rivals drastically transformed their rosters, continuity was key for the Nuggets, who retained a dozen players in total from last year’s end-of-season squad. As we detailed earlier this week, no team in the West brought back more players than Denver.
Continuity isn’t inherently a good thing. A front office won’t be praised for keeping together an aging roster that just won 35 games. But in Denver, the approach makes a lot of sense.
Jokic is still just 24 years old. Jamal Murray, the second option on offense, is 22. Gary Harris is 25. Rotation players like Malik Beasley, Monte Morris, and Torrey Craig are coming off breakthrough seasons and still have plenty of room to grow. And 21-year-old forward Michael Porter Jr., the 2018 lottery pick who missed his entire rookie season due to injuries, is now ready to contribute.
With so many promising young players still on the rise, the Nuggets can realistically count on improvements from within to keep them near the top of the standings in the West. And if they want to go out and make a splash, all those young prospects – and available future draft picks – give them the ammo to do so.
The Nuggets may not have made many changes to their roster this offseason, but they didn’t need to.
As of Monday’s roster cutdown deadline, no NBA team is carrying more than 17 players in total — 15 on standard contracts and two on two-way deals. However, not every team is making use of all 17 roster spots available to them.
Currently, a third of the league’s 30 teams have at least one open roster spot, either on their regular roster or in their two-way slots.
For most clubs, that decision is financially motivated — teams like the Magic and Nuggets are getting dangerously close to the tax line and prefer to avoid moving even closer by paying an extra player or two. The Thunder and Trail Blazers are already over the tax and won’t want to push their projected bills higher.
For teams like the Heat and Warriors, the decision not to carry a 15th man is dictated by the hard cap — neither club currently has sufficient room under the hard cap for more than 14 players.
Teams’ reasoning for retaining an open two-way spot is less clear. Those players earn very modest salaries and don’t count against the cap, so finances shouldn’t be a factor. Perhaps the teams with two-way openings are still considering their options before G League training camps begin next week, recognizing that any two-way player they sign now is unlikely to actually play for the NBA team this week.
Listed below, with the help of our roster counts breakdown, are the teams that aren’t carrying full rosters.
Teams with an open 15-man roster spot:
- Atlanta Hawks
- Cleveland Cavaliers
- Denver Nuggets
- Golden State Warriors
- Miami Heat
- Oklahoma City Thunder
- Orlando Magic
- Note: The Magic have two open roster spots, giving them two weeks to get to the required minimum of 14 players.
- Portland Trail Blazers
Teams with an open two-way slot:
- Brooklyn Nets
- Phoenix Suns
Prior to Monday’s rookie scale contract extension deadline, the Nuggets aggressively pursued deals for Malik Beasley and Juan Hernangomez, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). However, while all sides made an effort in those discussions, neither Beasley nor Hernangomez signed a new contract on Monday.
As we noted this afternoon in our recap of this year’s rookie scale extension activity, Beasley and Hernangomez are two of the extension-eligible players who are now on track for restricted free agency next summer. It will be particularly interesting to see how things play out for Beasley, who reportedly turned down a three-year, $30MM offer from the Nuggets earlier in the offseason. If he repeats or improves upon last year’s numbers, he could be one of the best young players available on the 2020 market.
The Cavaliers have claimed rookie forward Tyler Cook off waivers, Chris Fedor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer tweets.
Cook was on a two-way deal with the Nuggets before Denver cut ties with him on Wednesday. The Cavaliers will now decide by Saturday afternoon whether to retain Cook or training camp invitee Marques Bolden with their second two-way contract, according to Fedor. Power forward Dean Wade has the other two-way contract.
Cook entered the draft this spring after his junior year at Iowa, where he averaged 14.5 PPG, 7.6 RPG, and 2.4 APG in 33 games (30.8 MPG) last season while shooting 51.9% from the field. After recovering from a high ankle sprain suffered during a pre-draft workout, the 22-year-old joined Denver for Summer League action and then for training camp, playing limited minutes in two preseason games.
The Nuggets have made roster moves with a pair of players on non-guaranteed contracts, announcing today (via Twitter) that center Tyler Zeller has been waived, while guard PJ Dozier‘s contract has been converted into a two-way deal.
Zeller – a former first-round pick who has spent time with the Cavaliers, Celtics, Nets, Bucks, Hawks, and Grizzlies – provided Denver with an extra body in training camp, but was always a long shot to make the regular season roster. The Nuggets are expected to enter the season with an open spot on the 15-man squad, since their team salary is dangerously close to the luxury-tax line.
As for Dozier, his path to a two-way contract opened up when the Nuggets waived Tyler Cook earlier this week. Nick Kosmider of The Athletic noted at the time that Dozier would likely slide into that newly-opened two-way slot after an impressive training camp.
Denver now has 14 players on guaranteed contracts and two on two-way deals, so the team’s roster is ready for the regular season. As one of two NBA clubs without their own G League affiliate, the Nuggets don’t need to make any additional roster moves to secure players’ NBAGL rights.
- The battle for the Nuggets‘ starting small forward job appears to be down to Will Barton and Torrey Craig, writes Nick Kosmider of The Athletic. Barton, who was more effective in Denver’s final preseason game on Thursday, has said he’d “prefer to start,” as Mike Singer of The Denver Post relays.
- Nick Kosmider of The Athletic writes that Nuggets forward Jarred Vanderbilt is concentrating on a specific skill set – rebounding – to make his mark in the NBA. “There’s always a spot for rebounding… every team needs that, whether it’s offensive or defensive. I feel like that’s guaranteed for me. I can get rebounds every night.”
The Nuggets have waived one of their two-way players, announcing today (via Twitter) that forward Tyler Cook has been released.
Cook, who entered the draft this spring after his junior year at Iowa, averaged 14.5 PPG, 7.6 RPG, and 2.4 APG in 33 games (30.8 MPG) in 2018/19, while shooting 51.9% from the field. After recovering from a high ankle sprain suffered during a pre-draft workout, the 22-year-old joined Denver for Summer League action and then for training camp, playing limited minutes in two preseason games.
With Bol Bol occupying one of the Nuggets’ two-way contract slots, the second one is now available. Nick Kosmider of The Athletic notes (via Twitter) that PJ Dozier has had an impressive training camp and appears poised to claim that spot.
Even though the Nuggets don’t have a G League affiliate of their own, Dozier received an Exhibit 10 contract when he signed with the team, tweets ESPN’s Bobby Marks. That will allow Denver to convert Dozier to a two-way deal without putting him through waivers.