Denver Nuggets: What We’ve Learned in Preseason So Far
First impressions don’t always translate into future results, and that’s especially true when it comes to the NBA’s grueling 82-game schedule. Three games into the preseason, we have our first impressions of this year’s Denver Nuggets.
The same team that’s tasked with returning to the playoffs after missing them last season. Preseason games don’t count so it’s always hard to put much merit into what’s on the floor, but the Nuggets have thought us a couple important things about this years team already.
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The Nuggets are 1-2 with the only win coming against the Oklahoma City Thunder, 114-101, and the two losses coming against the Phoenix Suns (97-89) and Los Angeles Lakers (98-95). To prove that preseason news needs to be taken with a grain of salt, rookies Jusuf Nurkic and Gary Harris led the team in minutes in their loss against the Suns Friday.
However, the Nuggets’ three games did teach us the two important lessons below.
1) Timofey Mozgov is the Nuggets’ starting center.
I was expecting a battle going into Denver Nuggets training camp for the starting center job. It appeared that the starting center role was one that could have truly gone to either 7-footer, Timofey Mozgov or JaVale McGee, this summer. Mozgov is coming off his best season yet, and the Nuggets have been excited about McGee for years, and it sounded like McGee would be fully healed from his stress fracture.
Three games into the preseason, McGee has seen ZERO minutes on the court, so reports of him being ready to earn his starting role back after only playing five games last season may have been a bit premature. McGee has been practicing with the team as normal, but head coach Brian Shaw has kept him out of the preseason games in order to make sure he’s not rushed back too soon, and to prevent further injury.
So, the uninjured Mozgov wins by default. However, there are signs he would have won the job even with McGee at 100 percent. The Russian has scored more than 10 points in all three preseason games, and in the Nuggets’ only win he had the best plus/minus rating of any starter at plus-11.
Mozgov also got the highlight of the preseason so far by stuffing Kevin Durant in the win, and considering he finished last season averaging 15.9 points and 9.1 rebounds a game in April, the starting center job belongs to him.
2) Danilo Gallinari is back and appears ready.
Danilo Gallinari has FINALLY returned. We forget that Gallinari was the Nuggets second–leading scorer two seasons ago when he tore his ACL, but we haven’t seen him in a Nuggets jersey since April 4, 2013. The forward had to sit out the entire 2013-14 season after knee surgery to repair his torn ACL didn’t go well, and he had to do it again.
The bad surgery didn’t spoil his return last Friday against Phoenix, though. The forward came out firing against the Suns in his first game in more than a year, and he finished with 17 points in 14 minutes. Gallinari shot 5-for-7 from the floor in the game, and his 3-point shot looked as crisp as ever as he shot 50 percent from downtown against the Suns. Even in limited minutes, he led the team in scoring.
The best part was that he showed the same style of play we are used to as Nuggets fans. I was sitting in the stands, and Gallinari was still using the same jab steps, crossovers, fadeaway shots and headstrong drives to the hoop that made him one of the Nuggets best three players two seasons ago.
The biggest scare after an injury like Gallo’s is that the player was so effected mentally that he changed his style of play. Luckily for Nuggets fans, Gallinari looks ready to dazzle us just like he used to in 2014.