Judging a front office and its effectiveness is not an easy thing to do. Obviously some deals are good and some are bad. However taken in the context of the direction the team is going it certainly puts some of the deals in a different light. So I’ve decided to break down this review of Tim Connelly’s performance into 3 years each beginning with the draft. In each year I will break down each deal and give each one a grade out of ten. Then I will evaluate the state of the team at the end of each year based on culture, talent, and financial flexibility. Then combining all of that I’ll give a single grade for his first three years.

I suspect many will disagree with my assessments, but I will attempt to be as unbiased as possible in my judgments and certainly encourage further debate. So I’ll begin with Year 1.

Year 1

Context

George Karl was fired after winning coach of the year and Masai Ujiri accepted an offer with Toronto after winning executive of the year. These changes marked ownerships desire to put behind them the years of successful regular seasons followed by disappointment in the playoffs. The team was coming off its most successful regular season in its NBA years when they won 57 games, but failed to get past the upstart Warriors team. For years experts everywhere said George Karl’s run and gun style would never succeed in the playoffs when rotations shrank and the games slowed down. Nuggets ownership finally listened and decided to move on from the hall of fame coach.

The team had finished third in the West the year before so Ownership believed themselves to be a contender who just needed a shift of styles to get over the hump and start winning in the regular season. Tim Connelly was hired less than two weeks before the draft with no coach in place. He was tasked with the responsibility of tweaking an already very good team (in the eyes of the Kroenke’s) and put it over the top with a good coach and whatever talent could be had within their budget.

The Coach

The Nuggets really left their coaching hire until the last minute when they hired Brian Shaw a few days before the draft. Brian Shaw had an impressive background as an assistant coach for a variety of teams including his old coach Phil Jackson and was expected to bring along elements of Jackson’s triangle offense with him. He was most recently with the Indiana team that was dominating teams with their smothering defense. Defense and a good half court offense were the two things that many experts and fans alike felt Karl’s Nuggets teams lacked which led to their playoff failures. So clearly Connelly and Josh Kroenke felt like Brian Shaw would bring exactly the kind of philosophy that they were looking for.

The problem with the hiring of a coach with such vastly different basketball ideas as the previous coach was that the roster was built perfectly to play the way George Karl played. It was an odd fit with a half court oriented offense and it was unclear whether many of the players could adapt to such a new system. While the choice made sense for the direction the team wanted to go, it was unclear whether the roster at the time could ever function properly within the new system.

The Draft

The success of the previous season left the Nuggets with just the 27th pick in the draft. Not particularly useful for a time that was looking to win in the moment especially since it came with a guaranteed contract that they would have to pay out. Their starting shooting guard, Andre Iguodala, had just opted out of his deal and was likely to move on. Ownership had also been frustrated with George Karl due to his unwillingness to start Javale McGee, the recent recipient of a hefty contract. This led Tim Connelly into making the following trades:

1. Kosta Koufos (the starting center) was traded to Memphis for Darrell Arthur PF and a second round pick that turned into French big man Joffrey Lauvergne. They traded away Koufos to make room for Javale McGee and managed to bring back a quality power forward who had had recent injury troubles and another pick that turned into a project player that has since come to the league and proven himself to at least be an NBA quality player. Darrell Arthur came back from his injury and proved to be a very capable role player. Kosta Koufos was never as productive as he was the year before, so they clearly sold him at his highest value and received quality pieces in return, while also accomplish their secondary goal of freeing up playing time for Javale McGee. 8/10
2. The 27th pick (which became Rudy Gobert) was trade for the 46th pick (Eric Green) Rudy Gobert was undoubtedly the most talented of those three picks however required some time to develop. The Nuggets were in win now mode and would rather spend money on players that could help them that year, so they traded the first round pick for a second round pick that didn’t come with a guaranteed contract. With that pick they selected Erick Green the most prolific scorer in college basketball the year before and a player who could potentially contribute right away. This trade did not in fact work out, Erick Green is no longer and NBA player and Rudy Gobert is a defensive monster and has probably the best nickname in the NBA "The Stifle Tower." The trade did accomplish what they wanted it to, by freeing up some funds to spend on free agents it’s hard to look at this trade as a success when it’s clear who got the better player. It’s at best neutral which is where I’m going to rank it due to the reasoning behind the trade. 5/10

Free Agency

Both the starting and backup shooting guards became free agents in Andre Iguodala and Corey Brewer. The Russian Center Timofey Mozgov became a restricted free agent as well. It was fairly clear that Iguodala wanted to join the very Warriors team that beat the Nuggets in the playoffs the year before. Many even believe he was feeding them information during the finals whether that was true or not he was at the very least very friendly with the Warriors players and staff. And after a very solid season Corey Brewer was going to get paid more than we could really afford.

1. Denver used their mid level exception (an exception that allowed teams over the salary cap to add talent) to add free agent PF/C JJ Hickson on a 3 year $15M deal. This deal was met with mixed reactions. The former stiff writer, Nate Timmons called him a Faried clone, and was confused by the addition when we already had 3 power forwards. Others saw him as a potential backup C if we couldn’t re-sign Mozgov. Regardless the value they got him at was solid seeing as he was coming off a career year while averaging a double double. Hickson turned into a major liability largely due to Shaw’s insistence on playing him as a Center which became increasingly clear he was not. What Connelly believed to be a solid veteran on a good contract turned into a liability on the court and a contract that was 2 year too long. The fact that we were able to get him for so cheap might just show what other teams truly thought about him and his game. 4/10
2. Denver then used their Bi-Annual salary cap exception to sign free agent PG Nate Robinson. The undersized little big man had just come off and impressive series of playoff games with the Chicago Bulls including a 34 point performance against Brooklyn and a 27 point performance in the Bulls only win against the heat. He was signed on a 2 year deal worth a little more than $4 million. The Nuggets already had two point guards so once again this seemed like an odd signing. They may have thought that Robinson could play off the ball nicely and provide a scoring punch off the bench. It never quite worked out that way and once again the signing seemed a bit ill fitting. However once again the contract was cheap and not ultimately that detrimental to the future of the team. 5/10
3. Denver then signed 7 foot Russian Timofey Mozgov to a 3 year $14M contract that proved to be a steal as he worked his way into becoming the starting center for the Nuggets when Javale McGee’s season ended five games into due to a significant injury. There is little to complain about with this deal as the production was there and he became a great trade chip in the future. 9/10

Trades

A few things forced the hand of Tim Connelly in the trades that were made in 2013-2014. Iggy’s insistence about moving to Golden State. A feud between Andre Miller and Brian Shaw and then a lack of a backup Point Guard after said feud.

1. Iguodala was going to be a Warrior, that was clear. The Warriors first had to figure out how to get enough cap space to sign him. The had agreed in principle to a salary dumping trade that would have sent multiple bad contracts and some draft picks to Utah for virtually nothing in return. Seeing this as an inevitability, Connelly decided to reach out and see whether we could benefit in anyway from the arrangement. What resulted was a three team sign and trade that had Iguodala going to Golden State and sharpshooting Randy Foye to Denver to fill their need at starting Shooting Guard. Instead of losing Iguodala for nothing, he managed to find his replacement on a decent contract. Foye was never going to be a star, but he was a good character vet who could shoot at a position of need. 8/10
2. After Miller and Shaw’s confrontation Shaw permanently benched Miller and he was clearly unhappy. Tim did the right thing in seeking out a trade for the well respected vet so that he could get playing time elsewhere. He traded Miller to the Wizards for a Jan Vesely who had never shown up as a quality player but who was young enough he might improve, he didn’t, but Miller was unhappy and needed to be moved, so Tim got what he could for him. 3/10
3. On the same day Tim managed to replace Andre Miller backup up PG minutes with Aaron Brooks from Houston. He provided quality minutes for the Nuggets the remainder of the season and all it cost the Nuggets was Jordan Hamilton, a talented but incomplete player who never managed to earn much trust from any of his coaches. This was a savvy move that kept the Nuggets afloat throughout the rest of the season. 7/10

Culture

By the end of the season it became pretty clear that the fears about Brian Shaw’s fit with this roster were absolutely right, it never quite worked and the very public feud between Miller and Shaw was very bad for the locker room. Injuries also continued to plague the team with two key contributors from he 57 win season in Gallo and Javale missing all but 5 games and Ty Lawson missing 20 games himself. Due to all of this it actually seemed like the right decision to give Brian Shaw a bit more time to try and get his system in place and win with a healthier team.

Talent

The Nuggets were coming off a 57-win season where they were praised for the depth of talent they had on their team, but were lauded as a starless team. The 57-win team didn’t have a clear star. Iguodala, Gallinari, and Lawson were clearly the best players on the team, but none of them really stood out as the go to guys. Gallinari’s knee injury at the end of the regular season is looked back on as the reason for our first round loss, which may be true. Regardless the talent level the following year was severely diminished. Iguodala’s departure hurt and while Randy Foye played well he was not anywhere near as versatile or talented as Iguodala. Java McGee was supposed to be the exciting Center of the future, but instead he played five games and then missed the better part of two seasons to a stress fracture. Gallinari missed the entire season with that knee injury. In their absence Ty Lawson excelled and it was clear he was the Nuggets best player, but even he missed 20 games. Faried played well especially towards the end of the season, but beyond those two players the talent was just not there. Mozgov played all 82 games and provided quality play at the center position when Shaw finally stuck him in the starting lineup. JJ Hickson provided lots of empty stats, Wilson Chandler played well, but missed 20 games. Evan Fournier came on strong late, but it was clear he wasn’t quite ready for a starring role in the NBA. The team was forced to play Quincy Miller and Jordan Hamilton more minutes than they should have gotten. The resulting season was a big disappointment only reaching 36 wins, 21 fewer than they’d won the season before.

Financial Flexibility

Tim Connelly inherited a team already above the salary cap with little means to drop back under it due to big contracts owed to 3 different players in McGee, Lawson and Gallinari which soaked up roughly half of the available salary and most of the rest of the roster on multi-year deals. There was little wiggle room to work with following the season to improve the team through free agency. This is not really Connelly’s fault however it remains true.

All in all Tim Connelly’s first year was very much a mixed bag. He was thrust into a difficult situation on a team with high expectations. It was clear he had his bosses breathing down his neck and was pushed into decisions that didn’t end up working out well. It was his first time in the captain’s chair and it certainly could have gone better. In the same way it was difficult to judge Shaw in his first season due to all the injuries, its difficult to judge Connelly because of the expectations ownership had for the team. He was expected to make moves to try and help the team win now and somehow do so while also trying to factor in the fit of players with a new coach who already didn’t fit with the rest of the roster. The signings of Hickson and Robinson were puzzling and redundant, but were in the long run inexpensive deals that didn’t hurt their future flexibility much. The draft could have gone better, but they picked up a quality vet role player in Arthur, a couple of nice prospects that they didn’t have to pay right away because they were taken in the second round. Mozgov ended up being a great value on the contract Tim signed him on and following the season it became clear to all that the team needed an injection of fresh talent.

Based on his the context of the situation he was put in I think Tim’s first year was fairly mediocre. There were a lot of growing pains for him, but none were fatal and a few good things came out of it. For that reason i give his first year a solid C+.