I am from Serbia so I can’t watch much of the Nuggets games. I read box scores, follow nba.com, espn.com, watch highlights, and read all articles from Denver Stiffs. I also listen to Adam Mares great podcasts.

From what I could get this way is that our offense works the best, when we ran it through Nikola Jokic. When the ball comes into his hands early on the shot clock, everyone starts moving, cutting to the basket and setting picks. If his first pass doesn’t create scoring opportunity, it creates advantage over defense so second, third (or ninth like in the game against Sacramento) pass can create god look. This offense is efficient and also beautiful to watch, unlike point guard heavy offense, with pick and roll after pick and rol, and from time to time dump to the wing standing in the corner and touching the ball every 5 mins.

In the least 25 years there have been a number of great teams that didn’t run their offense through point guards. That left them with opportunities to construct the team different way. 1995-1998 Chicago Bulls played through Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen so they played Ron Harper at their starting PG. He was typical scoring SG, but he adjusted his game to blend in with the other players in their lineup. The Lakers of the 2000’s become contenders when they traded All-star Nick Van Exel, point guard, for combo guard Derek Fisher. Sacramento traded great passer Jason Williams for great shooter Mike Bibby since they played through Vlade Divac and Chris Webber. Miami used Mario Chalmers as 3 and D player since they played through LeBron and Wade. The latest example is Huston Rockets who plays through James Harden. Patrick Beverly is their 3 and D who greatly complements their star in the backcourt.

Now back to Denver Nuggets. This year as starting point guards, we played Emmanuel Mudiay and Jameer Nelson. Both of them are terrible defenders (by Adam Mares, Mudiay is one of the worst in the NBA). So since we don’t rely on typical point guard play offensively I would define our players positions by the positions they can defend.

My starting lineup would be: 1. Gary Harris, 2. Wilson Chandler, 3. Danilo Gallinari, 4. Kenneth Faried 5. Nikola Jokic

Defense

Gary Harris is our best guard defender. His only problem with guarding SG is that he is a little bit undersized. This way instead of him giving up 2-3 inches in hight, he would have 2-3 inches advantage, and also 10-15 pounds on opposing PGs. He is also great at poking the ball from the dribbler, which if can’t create a steel, can disrupt opponents PGs in creating offense. He would fight through screens much better than Mudiay or Nelson.

Wilson Chandler is our best wing defender as he showed guarding Butler, Giannis, Wiggins etc. (Our best defensive play of the year, so far, was his block on Wiggins shot for the win). He would guard opposing team’s best wings, and if he loses some in quickness against SGs he gets back with length, strength and experience.

Other three starters would stay the same so we would basically have combo of Harris/Chandler instead of Mudiay (or Nelson)/Harris. The greater improvement would come on PG, and if you listen to Adam Mares analysis the PGs defense is at least as important as having a great rim protector. Utah defence is not only about Rudy Gobert but George Hill too, which people tend to forget.

This would improve our team defense too, because we could be able to switch a lot which gives an advantage to the defenders. Gary can switch to 1-2, Wilson 2-3-4, Gallo 3-4, and Kennet 2-3-4.

Also if Gary gets couth in screen Nikola can come to cover PG, and one of 6-8 Chandler 6-10 Gallo or 6-8 Kenneth would cover his back taking over opposing C and protecting him from receiving easy pass for dunk. If Nikola hedges screen and can’t recover, his back is also covered by big player.

Also one important thing is to let Nikola play defense. Coaches in the NBA are like robots sometimes. Two PF in first quarter and you go out. One more in second quarter, bench. And since Nikola is so important for our offense, coaches put greater importance on him not to foul, than to play aggressive defense. Let him play aggressively, and if he makes 2 fouls in the 1st then tell him to be careful. If he makes one more in the 2nd let him play but a little less aggressive. It would be better if we lost Nikola with 6 fouls in the close game and 3 mins to play instead of taking him out in the first half with 2 fouls and us falling behind 20 points.

Of course if all of this doesn’t work we can always draft 7’7 player with 60 inch vertical, 11’ wingspan and 4 hands, to swat all shots at the rim (which is the way that 90% of fans, of poor defending teams, see as their only solution).

Offensive improvement

In our offense, players must be god cutters and shooters. Emmanuel Mudiay is a poor shooter; Jameer can’t finish around the rim because of his size. With starting line up of Gary, Wilson, Gallo, Faried with Nikola, we would have players that compliment Nikola’s passing skills the best way.

Gary is our best fast break runner. By guarding opposing teams SGs he is very often in the corner when we secure defensive rebound so he has to overrun 2-3 opposing players. If he guards PGs he would be mostly on the top of the key, so if he runs he would have to beat only his player in fast break.

Also we would have a mismatch offensively from the start of the game. Players like JJ Redick, CJ McCollum, Seth Curry, Bradley Beal would have to guard Wilson and he can post them all night long.

In this lineup, any of our players can bring the ball up court (Gary would be the first choice because of his ballhandling and unselfishness), pass it to Nikola and then the fan starts.

The bench and minute distribution

I would play Nikola around 32 mins., Kenneth 24, Plumlee 24 and DA 16. Plumlee would play 16 mins. at C and 8 with Nikola at PF. Kenneth would play all of his minutes with Nikola, DA with Plumlee. This way we would always have 4 players on the court that can shoot 3s.

I would play Gallo 28-30 mins. and Juancho behind him. Teams usually forget that they must develop their role players too, so they give minutes only to their future "stars". And Juancho is our future great role player, so we must play him as much as we can. He is also good player who won’t hurt us with playing his role right now.

On guards I would play Gary and Wilson for 30-32 mins., and Murray 20 mins. behind them. The rest of minutes I would give to Jameer or Barton. In one of Nikola’s interviews he said that Jameer is their lider with his experience, and Barton is better individual defender because of his size and quickness, so I would try what works the best. Either way I would trade them bout with Mudiay after the season ends, and give a chance to Beasley next year.

This way the roles for our players would be beater defined and I think Wilson would be happier fighting with JJ Redick’s and CJ Mcollum’s, than getting kick every night by opposing PFs.

The Future

I would try to resign Gallo and Plumlee. I don’t think teams will throw money on them since Gallo plays an average of 49 games per season, has only 2 seasons that he played more than 62 games, and will be 29 years old at the end of the season. He wouldn’t change any franchise as much and could probably be 6 men for a good team. If he doesn’t decide to go ring chasing, I would try to resign him for reasonable price to be our starting wing next year or two, and then come off the bench as the 6 man.

Mason Plumlee is good bench player, borderline starter, so I don’t see a lot of teams trying to sign him to be their starting C.

I would Trade Jameer, Barton and Mudiay. Some people think that we would give up on Mudiay too early. Did the Timberwolves gave up on Deron Williams (2 pick), and Antonie Bennet (1 pick) too early. Grizlies with Hasheem Tabeet (2 pick), Sixers with MCW, or Kings with Tyreke Evans (Rookies of the year). People see the way Nurkic is playing and ask did we give up on him too early? I think experimenting with Jokic and Nurkic at the start of the year was good because we know that Nurkic could never develop in a player we need. Same thing goes with Mudiay. If he makes great improvement in defense he would be an average defender. If he makes great improvement in shooting he would be an average shooter. Maybe he can develop good point guard skills but we don’t need that. Trade him while his value is high (It can only drop in time). And of corse draft another superstar in the second round.