One of my favorite Bill Parcells’ sayings is you are what your record says you are, and that saying fits the Nuggets well. At 24-27, they are not a good team. Their play reflects that.
The best thing one can say about the Nuggets is they are a maximum effort team. That’s nice, but that does not get fans excited. It’s about wins and losses. It’s about winning championships. Grit and effort doesn’t exactly sell.
The Nuggets are not a playoff team. Not when Danilo Gallinari and Nate Robinson are out for the season. Not when Ty Lawson has showed he is not the guy that can make the shots when it matters. Not when the Nuggets have guys nursing injuries in Randy Foye, JaVale McGee and Lawson.
Even if the Nuggets make the playoffs, it does no good with the idea they would lose quickly to the Spurs or Thunder. The Nuggets are better off being a lottery team with the NBA Draft being deep with so many potential franchise players.
This thought process is going to make Brian Shaw and Tim Connelly cringe. Shaw does not want all these losses going on his record as Nuggets coach, and understandably so because he does not want Nuggets fans to view him in a negative light. Connelly wants to build a winning culture in his first year as Nuggets general manager.
Those two have to understand there is nothing they can do with their players with the way things are going. They don’t have a superstar who can make shots, and they don’t have a good supporting cast. J.J. Hickson, Jordan Hamilton, Evan Fournier, Anthony Randolph, Kenneth Faried and Foye do not have teams up at night.
At some point, the losses add up to the point the Nuggets are exposed as a bad team. That could be the case with the Nuggets losing four in a row and six of eight to start the All-Star break. Even without injuries, the Nuggets are a mediocre team at best. They may be hard-pressed to keep up for the last two playoff spots with the Suns, Mavericks, Grizzlies and Warriors, who have better offensive firepower than them.
Good thing for the Nuggets that they don’t have to tank to be this bad. They will be bad on merit.
It’s going to be hard to make moves in making the team better. No one on the Nuggets is good enough to get something in value, and that includes Lawson.
The suspended Andre Miller will eventually be traded to playoff contending teams who need him to help them in their chase for the playoffs. Still, he is not going to yield to anything in return. Same can be said for Faried, Dickson, Foye and others who will be trade bait.
Free agents that are available won’t do much to make the Nuggets better, and it’s hard to believe a superstar would want to take his talents to Denver.
The draft is the only way the Nuggets can build a championship team. That’s why it would behoove them to win games and get back in the playoff race. This post-All-Star break should be increasing their odds of getting more ping-pong balls by losing many games and participate in the draft lottery.
Yes, the Nuggets have the Knicks’ draft pick if the Knicks are a lottery team, but there’s no guarantee the Knicks will win the lottery. For all we know, the Knicks may make the playoffs. If the Knicks make the playoffs, their pick is meaningless, so the Nuggets need to be in the lottery to get a chance to get a high pick. The Nuggets need to help themselves, not rely on the Knicks to get them a high pick.
The Nuggets can’t keep both picks if they and the Knicks are in the lottery. The Nuggets have to trade their Knicks’ draft pick to Orlando if they get a higher pick from their pick than the Knicks’ pick. If the Knicks win the lottery, the Nuggets get the Knicks’ pick and they will trade their own draft pick in the lottery to Orlando. Vice versa.
With this situation, the Nuggets are better off losing to be in a position to figure out what pick to trade in getting that high lottery pick. They need to get couple of first-round picks to figure out what to do.
With many players to choose from with Jabari Parker to Andrew Wiggins to Marcus Smart to Aaron Gordon to Dante Exum next season, envisioning them to do their thing for the Nuggets makes losing this season worth it for a better tomorrow.
Shaw and Connelly will say the right things about how the Nuggets are in it to be in the playoffs, but they need to be realistic. Maybe another poor two weeks could change their paradigm in how the team approach the rest of the season.
The Nuggets fans know the score. They know their team is not good. They are being realistic.
The Nuggets should do the same.
Contact or follow Leslie Monteiro at @LightRodWriter.
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Leslie Monteiro
Leslie is a contributor for Lightning Rod Sports. He covered high school sports in Bergen County out in North Jersey, and has written op-ed columns on sports such as Bleacher Report and NY Sports Digest.
