The following is a recap of how things have gone under the Connelly era. For myself personally, I am withholding final judgement on a man who has obviously made a lot of good moves. There have, however, also been some serious foibles. This list is not meant as damnation, more of a recount and, a wistful hope to what could have been.
To begin with, Connelly has made some excellent moves, you be the judge of the amount of luck involved in the following acquisitions. Jokic as the best second round pick, possibly ever. Turning Ty Lawson into a first round pick and that pick coming to us which turned into Juancho. This pick was only a game or two from not coming to us. Connelly has also drafted well in the first round, especially Jamal Murray and Gary Harris.
Now, on to the critiques. We’ll start in 2013, right at the very beginning of Connelly’s reign. Ujirii undoubtedly still had a lot of influence over this draft as he had been preparing for it before he got signed by the Raptors, but it was still Connelly that made the pick. Denver picked Rudy Gobert. Wow, well done Connelly! A long skinny kid from France whom it was decided, needed to be traded. What did the Nuggets get in return for the best defender in basketball? Erik Green and cash considerations. It is possible that he was under instructions from above but come on, Erik Green for Rudy Gobert?!?!?
The second is an indictment on the owners more than anyone else. Masai Ujiri was clearly an up and coming genius and deserved to be paid. The Raptors recognized it and cashed in. The Nuggets didn’t and paid the price. In case you didn’t know, the Raptors, contrary to most expectations, are second in the East and tied in losses to first place Boston. Oh, and Ujiri stole Annunoby from under our nose in the draft.
Back to Connelly. How did we not get anything for Danilo Gallinari? The guy is a solid starter in the league and arguably a top fifteen combo forward and fit’s perfectly with where the league is trending. He was also in his prime and on an expiring contract last year. Plenty of teams would have loved him and the chance to be the first to resign him. The Nuggets didn’t trade him on the premise he might get us into the playoffs. He didn’t, we didn’t, and a great asset walked for nothing in return. Gallo could have fetched a young prospect or a first round pick from someone. The other option is that we could have used Gallo to dump Faried or Arthur.
Speaking of Faried, the writing has been on the wall for years and somehow Connelly has missed it. He’s an energy big who can’t shoot and doesn’t defend. The Nuggets have been, and are now, losers when Faried plays big minutes. Connelly signed Faried to a big deal back in 2014 and has been over paying since. In a classic case of over valuing your own players Connelly hasn’t been able to trade Faried and we have been stuck with him cluttering the roster and the salary cap. Malone has been reduced to playing Faried unearned minutes to keep him from pouting, although most are dubious of how long Faried will be content with spot minutes.
So now it’s time for a quick guessing game. Who is fourth in offense this year of all NBA teams. Correct! Pelicans it is. Who is eighth? Right again, Nuggets. Now, for last year. Nuggets, as we all know, were first after December 15th. The Pelicans were 18th. The Pelicans, realizing they couldn’t acquire Jokic did the next best thing and acquired Chris Finch, who immediately helped the Pelicans blow by the Nuggets. Connelly, playing the cheap skate again, waved goodbye to one of the best offensive minds in basketball, leaving Malone to flounder on his own. A flopping fish is probably the best way to describe a Nuggets offense, that despite having very talented offensive players, is under performing.
According to rumors this summer Connelly, wanting to make the team slower and worse defensively, offered Gary Harris as a cornerstone of a Love trade. Thankfully Cleveland backed out of it. Just think, we could all be watching a Love, Jokic, Plumlee big man rotation every night and yelling how every Nuggets game looks like a layup warm up line for the other team.
Kyrie Irving is a fantastic player and should have been pursued with more energy. Commonly accepted is that Cleveland’s base package was Irving for Harris and Murray. What most people don’t know is that Cleveland had been discreetly shopping Irving in June, according to Jackie McMullan of ESPN. The Nuggets could have gone with a package of Harris and Murray for Kyrie and then turned around and drafted Donovan Mitchell. At the time we also had Nelson as an emergency blanket.
The Nuggets acquired Jusuf Nurkic a year before they picked up Nikola Jokic. Nurk quickly showed he belonged in the league but by the end of Jokic’s rookie season, most realized Jokic was better. Nurkic took it personally when demoted to the bench in December of 2016 and began to throw a passive aggressive temper tantrum. The FO immediately panicked and within three months paid Portland a draft pick to take Nurkic. That draft pick turned into Justin Jackson but could have been OG Annunoby, John Collins or Kyle Kuzma, all players the Nuggets could use. The Nuggets absolutely should have reverted to fining Nurkic if necessary for conduct unbecoming and given his agent free reign to look at trades as long as no assets were given up.
In that trade we received a Mason Plumlee in his prime and proceeded to blow any chance at a free agent in 2018 by overpaying Plumlee in the off season. Resigning Mason Plumlee was probably the dumbest thing Connelly has ever done. There are a lot of guys in the league who can give you 90% of whatever Mason Plumlee is giving you. Go get one of them. There are probably 4-5 guys in the D league and 4-5 guys overseas who can give you just as much statistical production as Mason does. Take Andrew Bogut, recently released by the Lakers. Perfect temporary back up center. No way Mason’s worth 40 mil over three years. Slightly above average defender, above average passer, way below average offensively, terrible shooter, horrible free throw shooter, can’t be allowed on the floor in crunch time. Houston can literally find active, bouncy, hustling bigs at any time and throw them on the floor. We can’t do that? I know Plumlee is supposed to be the Jokic insurance policy but that’s like saying Jae Crowder is the LeBron insurance policy. It doesn’t matter, no one is going to replace what he brings.
The final disappointment is the Nuggets not setting themselves up to be players in the free agent market this summer. We have Malone and Jokic, Harris, Murray, Lyles and Millsap. Several major advantages over everyone else. Malone is beloved by all, even making friends with the notoriously distempered Demarcus Cousins. LeBron loves Malone. While Malone might not be an XO genius he is a fantastic people person and that should be exploited. Malone almost got Wade here. That’s crazy in and of itself. The Nuggets aren’t even setting themselves up to use one of their most influential people. I hope the current group of Nuggets, with some tweaks, can bring a championship to Denver. While this critique was written with the benefit of perfect hindsight, it seems that some of these things were obvious in the moment and should have been acted on long before. Hopefully Connelly does well moving forward but it's hard not to dream about what could have been.
