Denver Post beat writer Bennett Durando opens up the Nuggets Mailbag periodically during the season. You can submit a Nuggets- or NBA-related question here.
What do you think the playoff rotation is going to look like if we have everyone healthy?
— Devon K., Denver
Do we have eight guys who can handle playoff minutes? Do we even have seven? I have serious concerns about Peyton Watson’s consistency and Russell Westbrook’s decision-making.
— Lucas, Littleton
Let’s get right to it then! These playoffs might require a different mode of thinking about the rotation. I think the Nuggets have a handful of players on the bench capable of making a worthy impact with hustle and energy, just in small stints.
Do they have a singular sixth man who can be used for 26.5 minutes a game, like Bruce Brown in the 2023 playoffs? Maybe not. I understand that fans’ mileage varies on Westbrook. On any given night, he can be one of Denver’s best players on the floor or his own worst enemy. Recognizing the difference in real-time will be an important aspect of Michael Malone’s lineup management. Some nights, Westbrook might be good for 35 minutes. Others, he might be good for 18.
This should probably be the mindset that extends all the way down the bench. Instead of a set eight-man rotation every time, Malone might have to piece it together game by game. He might need to use five total bench players throughout the playoffs but only two or three per night. The Nuggets might need a mini-scoring jolt from Julian Strawther during Game 3 of a series and a switchable defender like Zeke Nnaji during Game 4. Maybe there’s a first-round opponent they want to attack in transition and a second-round opponent that warrants a more methodical tempo (hello Jalen Pickett).
If Malone does opt for something closer to a set-in-stone rotation, I could see preferring not to extend more than seven deep. But either way, I think Watson is going to have to play. When he’s locked in, his defensive skillset is game-changing, even if his offense remains shaky.
Hey Bennett, what’s going on with Aaron Gordon’s injury? Are the Nuggets just time-managing him until he’s fully healed for the playoffs?
— Devon K., Denver
Don’t count on it going away entirely. Malone acknowledged earlier this season that Gordon’s calf strain is the type of soft tissue affliction that Denver will have to navigate until the end. We’ve seen Gordon suddenly leave games due to pain in the calf multiple times since the original injury, with flare-ups spread across four months at this point.
The latest of those incidents in OKC turned out to be pretty benign, but the team still didn’t want him playing immediately. So it goes. The precautionary measures seemed to help him. Gordon said after scoring 38 points at Golden State that his calf feels the best it’s been in several weeks.
If Gordon misses playoff games, the Nuggets are in serious trouble. They need him at both ends of the floor, especially if — to bring this back to the previous question — Malone doesn’t trust Nnaji to play backup center.
Hi Bennett. My friends aren’t buying my unorthodox theory. The Nuggets have arguably the best player of all time when it comes to making the players around him better. Just look at Zeke Nnaji’s play recently. Look at Russell Westbrook. The examples go on. So here’s my theory: No max contracts for any Denver Nugget not named Jokic. Spread the money around by investing in high-quality role players around him and a talented bench, and let Joker make the starters better, while our bench outplays the opponent’s every night. What do you think? Am I smarter than my friends?
— Daniel, Sloans Lake
It’s a completely valid school of thought to have about Denver’s roster construction in a vacuum. But I don’t want to underestimate the importance of continuity. And I’m not just talking about the ramifications of getting rid of Gordon, Jamal Murray or Michael Porter Jr., all of whom have a good thing going with Jokic.
Committing to your hypothetical approach means recycling players constantly. Let’s say every guy you sign on a cheaper, short-term contract thrives next to Jokic. His value skyrockets; he can no longer be retained for the next contract under the terms of your strategy; he is sacrificed in free agency in order to bring in the next guy. It runs the risk of creating an insecure locker room environment where players don’t feel valued by the organization, Jokic never feels familiar with his surroundings, and free agents grow skeptical of signing with a team that will readily discard them.
Not to mention that on-court chemistry with Jokic isn’t an across-the-board guarantee. If the Nuggets tried this with a larger quantity of players, they could find that the success rate isn’t as close to 100% as it feels right now.
I think there could be a happy medium between the Nuggets’ current salary cap table and your utopian vision. The top-heavy magnitude of their payroll could become problematic this offseason. That’s why they’ve considered some major trades in the last year, and why I think they’ll continue to do so.
Bennett, our offense is as good as we’ve ever had, but we’re ruining it with our trash defensive play. We’re giving up an average of 117 a game. If we could tighten up and be league average, we’re easily that No. 2 seed and looking at contending for another championship. What needs to change? Who needs to step up?
— Mike, Denver
Jokic, Murray and Porter each deserve some blame here. They play a ton of minutes, and none of them are known as stout defenders. Jokic’s effort has appeared to be lacking for games at a time. Porter falls asleep against cutters. Murray just doesn’t make rotations as doggedly as he should sometimes.
Gordon being in and out of the lineup is undoubtedly related to the defensive regression. When he’s been healthy, he hasn’t looked quite as sharp as usual to me. And then there’s Christian Braun, who is already a good point-of-attack defender but is being asked to do a lot while he’s still in his third season. It’s easier to notice that he has room for significant improvement when he’s expected to be the team’s lead defensive guard every night.
When we’re not digging pigs out of snowbanks or breaking ice on water tanks for the cows, we in Mt. Sunflower worry about the Nuggets’ title window. How many years does an elite team truly get before their time is up? Three? Four? What if the first year of the window for the Nuggets wasn’t the year they won it all? What if the first year of their window was the year Jamal Murray tore up his knee? That team was hungry, went deep in the playoffs the year before, got better with the addition of AG, and was on a roll. Now the salary cap and trade rules are tougher. What if it doesn’t get better from here? Are these dreary winter days on the Kansas prairie making me a pessimist?
— Matt, Mt. Sunflower, Kan.
Your pessimism isn’t unfounded. The new collective bargaining agreement is explicitly designed to make it more difficult to sustain title windows. Hence the current six-year run of different champs, the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades. The Nuggets had to make a tough decision on Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. The Celtics might have to make one on a key role player like Jrue Holiday or Kristaps Porzingis this offseason.
The fact that Jokic has gradually gotten better from 2020 to now indicates to me that Denver should have some staying power as a contender for a few more years, even as the roster undergoes more changes. Does that mean the Nuggets will hang another banner? No, but I would be shocked if they suddenly tailed off. The best you can hope for in this landscape is to stay in the mix as long as possible and hope you get the right set of circumstances around the league one of these seasons.
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