Listen, I get it: It's been a tough couple of seasons for Nuggets fans, and we all want our team to be better.

It is very tempting to call for a complete rebuilt, and we have all read the many calls to trade Lawson and Faried (in particular)

FiveThirtyEight has compiled the Elo ratings for all NBA teams ever, and while the Nuggets are not among the elite (not surprising), it does show what I thought is an interesting point:

The 2012-13 Nuggets is the best Nuggets team ever.

Obviously, we know that that team was not good enough to win against Golden State in the first round. That is why George Karl was fired and Brian Shaw hired. (It is fair to say that decision didn't pan out the way the FO wanted.)

Let's look back at the starting five of that team again:

PG: Lawson

SG: Iguodala

SF: Gallinari

PF: Faried

C: Koufos/Mozgov

Three of these guys are still on our team. Doesn't it seem reasonable to capitalize on that nucleus that we know is one of the best we ever had and build around these guys?

I understand that there is a lot of resentment, especially towards Lawson, because of various tweets and off-court issues, but I believe a strong case can be made that we can still use these guys to build a more successful incarnation of that 12-13 team. After all, Nurkic seems like an upgrade at the center position (or at least has shown the potential to be), Jameer Nelson is as good a backup PG as you can get and we are getting promising talent in Jokic and the #7 draft pick.

The bottomline is: We still have some of the building blocks of the best team we ever had. It seems to me that it would be the rational choice to capitalize on them. Let's not get carried away by the frustrations accumulated through two lost seasons and throw everything under the bus. And let's not get caught in the excitement of the draft too much: no player in their rookie year is gonna save the day, and I would not jeopardize what we have for unproven quantities.

What do you guys think?