Yeah, I said it... Championship. That's the goal of any NBA team, and it should be ours as well. In my opinion, the Kroenke/Ujiri team has done a masterful job of putting us in as good of a position as we possibly could be. This may piggyback a bit off of some other posts, and for that I apologize, but I will add a good deal as well. I also wanted to wait until all free agent transactions were done (for the foreseeable future). Apologies in advance for the length...
I think that most people can agree that the Nuggets now have phenomenal depth and a lot of young talent. However, in today's NBA, that is really not as much of an advantage as it should be. You need at least 1 surefire all star caliber player to have a realistic shot of winning in the Playoffs. How does a team get these types of players? The same as any other player I suppose... Free Agency, Draft, or Trade. I've listed a brief description below with the likelihood of the Nugs succeeding in getting one of these such players.
Free Agency: VERY UNLIKELY. Denver is a small NBA market. Big name free agents generally want to go to big markets. We would have to break the bank.
Draft: VERY UNLIKELY. Small market teams who have made the NBA finals with a transcendent player who they drafted: Thunder (KD), Spurs (Duncan), Cavaliers (Lebron, who left). Besides, to get this type of draft pick, we would have to tank for at least 2 years... no thanks.
Trade: VERY POSSIBLE/LIKELY. In this category is where the Nuggets front office have done an absolutely beautiful job. Allow me to explain.
As I stated above, the Nuggets are an incredibly deep team, quite possibly the deepest team I've ever seen in terms of players who could legitimately crack the rotation on a contender (think our 10th best player is better than Mario Chalmers? Me too). That's not necessarily a good thing for winning basketball. What we have done is an unbelievable job of stockpiling assets that are attractive to other teams. We have a lot of athleticism, length, skill and youth on the perimeter. Along our front line.. don't look now, but we now have 4 players at 6'11" or higher, the oldest being 27 I believe. That's a lot of players who I could see teams wanting by these metrics alone, but there's another part to this...
For this to work, you need to have a coaching staff that has proven that they can develop talent. I think our staff is well capable of that. For example, let's say that Randolph through 4 months in the season is averaging around 11 PPG and 8 RPG per in like 20 mins a game while providing good defense (which, by the way, I think he's CAPABLE of, unlikely though). NBA GMs consistently show A. a short memory for players who have underachieved before and B. a willingness to overpay for size and athleticism (athleticism optional (Omer Asik says "Hi")). Or what if Jordan Hamilton makes the jump that he's capable of.. or if Fournier shows flashes of brilliance in limited minutes. That means either some team is going to be willing to part with one big player for a combo of ours such as the above listed... or if they're REALLY good, they make the players in front of them expendable, and also can be traded. What's to say that you don't catch some GM who's willing to do a trade of Randolph, Hamilton, and and say Koufus or one of our expiring contracts for someone like Kevin Love and Wesley Johnson. The fact is, we would probably be ripping the T-Wolves off on that deal.. but if the thing is, there have been worse trades, and if we make our guys attractive enough, who's to say that a trade like this doesn't happen?
I guess what this entire thoughts are leading to is that the Nuggets front office has inserted the players and coaching situation to turn all of this young talent we have into a proven commodity. Bottom line, if we develop the talent that we have in the right way, eventually we will be able to make an offer to a team for a really good player, that they may not be able to say no to. Regardless, because of the long term strategy of our Front Office, I think it's going to be really fun to be a Nuggets fan going forward.
I'll hang up now...
