To get playing time in the regular Nuggets rotation this season, rookie Michael Porter Jr. will have ... [+]
The Denver Nuggets are back, and ready to open their season on the road tonight with a revenge game against a Portland Trail Blazers that ousted them from the playoffs in game seven of the Western Conference semifinals last May. It is the first of many tests to come for a team which, despite having silenced many doubters about their mettle as a postseason heavyweight, still has a long way to go to prove it truly belongs among the NBA's elite title contenders.
As the Nuggets tip off their next campaign with championship aspirations now squarely in the center of their radar screen, it's once again time to make predictions for their upcoming season. As with last season's prognostications, many of which fortunately hit the mark, these lean toward the optimistic side based on the premise that Denver will continue on its trajectory of methodical improvement. Some of these takes are markedly spicy, others a bit on the milder side, but all fall within what I consider to be a realistic range of outcomes. (Also click here for my Denver Nuggets season preview which is part of Forbes' 2019-20 NBA season preview series.)
After finishing last season with 54 wins and the second seed in the West, is it realistic that Denver can continue getting better? There is a meme-like bit of conventional wisdom in circulation around Nuggets social media that this season Denver just might well be an improved team but nevertheless end up with a worse record than last season.
This is certainly possible, but two factors which raise the Nuggets' floor - a very deep roster and a youthful team which will not be as dependent on load management as other conference powerhouses - could just as plausibly help propel the team their fifth straight year of winning more games than the previous season. Combine that with a schedule that's front-loaded with home games and lottery-bound opponents (see the next prediction), as well as the continued internal development of Denver's young players, and as a regular season team the Nuggets should be right in the mix with the best of them.
As I wrote about in my Nuggets 2019-20 schedule breakdown, 19 of 32 Nuggets games (almost 60%) from the beginning of the season through December 29 will be played on their home court in the Pepsi Center, including 11 of their first 18. Additionally, the Nuggets have the sixth-easiest strength of schedule in October and November according to Jared Dubin's number-crunching on Twitter.
This sets the table for the Nuggets to get off to another great start to the season, as they did last year when they went 10-5 out of the gates. And considering their high rate of continuity, Denver should be able to hit the ground running better than the many teams who made more dramatic roster changes over the offseason.
In the first playoff appearance of the Jokic Era, the Nuggets got to within four points of winning game seven of their second round series against Portland. This effectively means that the only way to improve on that performance would be to at least make it to the Western Conference finals. Now Denver is armed with a solid dose of playoff experience and a roster with fewer weaknesses to expose, and are well-positioned to secure home court advantage at least through the first two rounds of the postseason.
The path to reaching the conference finals will almost inevitably go though at least one of the newly-formed "superstar duo" teams in Los Angeles or Houston, and that will be no small feat. But the Nuggets team that enters the playoffs six months from now in 2020 stands a good chance of being considerably better than the current incarnation, so Denver just might be up for the challenge.
Last season Jokic finished fourth in MVP voting, and while he may be facing stiffer competition this year, he is also surrounded by the strongest team ever assembled through the course of his Nuggets career. If he simply replicates his performance from last season he should be firmly in the mix, and if he can find ways of improving (see the next prediction), he should emerge as one of the front-runners.
Last July I wrote for Forbes on why I believe the Nuggets' three-point shooting will bounce back this season (click the link for the deep dive). According to Cleaning the Glass, which discards end-of-quarter heaves to get more accurate shooting percentages, the Nuggets were 19th in the league in three-point percentage last season at 35.6%, down from 9th at 37.4% in 2017-18 and 11th at 37.5% in 2016-17. The cause in part was the drop-off in percentages by all four of Denver's four most voluminous three shooters from the season before to last.
With the likelihood that at least two or three of Jamal Murray, Gary Harris, Will Barton and Nikola Jokic will bounce back, along with the replacement of Trey Lyles (25.5% from the arc last season) with Jerami Grant (39.2%), conditions for the Nuggets to get back up above 37% and into the top 10 in the league look favorable.
The Nuggets ranked seventh in offensive efficiency last season with an offensive rating of 112.9, but it's safe to say that if Gary Harris, Will Barton and Paul Millsap had all remained healthy (injuries to the first two contributing to their drop-off in shooting percentages), they would likely have finished in the top five. With the majority of their rotation returning, and nearly all players entering the season in good health, Denver should be able to pick up where they left off and then some.
For the Nuggets to be a top-three offense will likely require that Jamal Murray takes another big step which includes more focus on creating for others so Denver can diversify their offense beyond the Jokic-Murray two-man game. Likewise to that end, Jokic's teammates will need to be mindful of moving, cutting and spacing the floor to optimize his playmaking opportunities. But all the ingredients are already present for the Nuggets to have not just a very-good but downright elite offense provided they stay relatively healthy.
Nikola Jokic has been progressively ramping up the number of triple-doubles he nets each season, with six in 2016-17, 10 in 2017-18, and 12 last season. This prediction dovetails with the above projection for Denver's all-around improvement on three-point shooting, which if it comes to pass should help boost Jokic's assist numbers. Those dimes may also get a bump from the increased defensive attention Jokic will now receive as a bona fide superstar, with a more frequent need to pass out of double-team coverage.
Since he was drafted in 2018, Nuggets fans have eagerly awaited the debut of Michael Porter Jr., and pondered the impact he might be able to make as a rookie on an already-established playoff team. And as he put in arguably the best performance among the four players in the Nuggets' "open competition" for small forward minutes, it seemed he might be working his way into the rotation. But as reported by The Athletic's Nick Kosminder, it now appears that Porter may start the season out of the rotation and in a situation where in order to get playing time, head coach Michael Malone will expect him to "earn it."
But given just how naturally proficient Porter looked on offense in preseason games (his shaky but try-hard defense notwithstanding), and his undeniable skill and physical tools, the chance that he will indeed earn regular minutes is very much in play. Malone sees bypassing this process as potentially stunting a player's growth, which fits within the organizational philosophy of not skipping steps. So the hope is that he rises to the challenge, and by all appearances he should be capable of doing so to at the very least earn a bench rotation spot.
When the Nuggets first traded for Jerami Grant last summer, his potential to bolster Denver's defense as a wing with size was perhaps his biggest appeal at first glance. Through four preseason games, however, he quickly demonstrated that he will be so much more. Grant is six-foot-nine wing with a seven-foot-three wingspan and, alongside Malik Beasley, is probably now one of Denver's two most athletic players. Combining his defensive prowess with the aforementioned ability to stretch the floor with his three-point shooting, as well as a knack for cutting and diving to the rim, Grant looks poised to be one of the Nuggets' better two-way players. He'll have a more visible role in Denver than he did in Oklahoma City, and it will be no surprise if he gets recognition for his contributions.
The deadline for extending Malik Beasley and Juancho Hernangomez recently passed without deals being reached with either, despite the Nuggets' efforts to do so. They will now both become restricted free agents when the season ends, and the financial likelihood of Denver getting outbid on their valuable players upon hitting free agency is looming large. As with the small forward position battle, players' minutes are already starting to cannibalize each other, and the Nuggets' need to consolidate their abundant talent is reaching a tipping point.
The good news is that, as potential trade targets emerge throughout the season, Denver has the ability to put together some of the more competitive trade packages around the league, with enough players in the deeper bench pipeline to replenish the future rotation. If a high-impact player became available, it would likely require combining a young player (Beasley or Hernangomez) with a larger contract (Plumlee's $14 million expiring or Barton's $12.8 million guaranteed through 2022, per Early Bird Rights) and possibly draft picks. The resulting two- or three-for-one would allow Denver to distil its talent and, ideally, become even more competitive in the process.
[All stats via NBA.com and Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.]
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