Denver Nuggets: No National Love For The Nuggets
We are only TWO days away from the 2014 season opener for the Denver Nuggets. I feel like I’ve been waiting forever, and it’s going to be amazing watching the Nuggets start their mission to make the playoffs against the Detroit Pistons at the Pepsi Center on Wednesday night. Basketball is back, and the Nuggets are healthy.
Watch out, NBA. A team that won 57 games and finished as the third seed in the Western Conference just two years ago is back to full strength and reloaded. The team added a defensive specialist at shooting guard to replace Andre Iguodala in Arron Afflalo, and that addition combined with a point guard who’s improved every season he’s been in the NBA — Ty Lawson — and a forward coming off leading Team USA to a gold medal in the FIBA World Cup — Kenneth Faried — means the Nuggets are built to make the playoffs this season.
Kenneth Faried is a frequent contributor to ESPN’s top 10 plays, but the national media missed the memo that the Nuggets are headed back to the Western Conference playoffs this season. From Sheridanhoops to fivethirtyeight, the national media is not only predicting that the team will miss the playoffs — they’re saying that the 2014-15 Denver Nuggets will be under .500.
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Yes, the Nuggets are coming off a season where they finished 10 games under .500. And yes, they haven’t had an All-Star on the roster since Carmelo Anthony was rocking a powder blue headband every game. And it’s true that the Nuggets are playing in a tough division where they have to play the Oklahoma City Thunder and Portland Trail Blazers four times each this season (wow, the home court advantage in this division is crazy).
But still, national media, you’re off. The Denver Nuggets are not missing the playoffs this season, and the Nuggets’ front office will be the first ones to let you know.
“[Owner] Josh (Kroenke) didn’t instill faith in myself and Brian to rebuild this team,”general manager Tim Connelly told Nuggets.com. “This team’s ready to win. Our success is based on wins and losses, and we should be a playoff team.”
That confidence trickles all the way down to the starting point guard Ty Lawson. Lawson is publicly saying that the Nuggets are going to finish no worse than fourth in the Western Conference this season, and although that is a little ambitious, it shows that the Nuggets’ confidence and chemistry is where it needs to be for the team to make the playoffs,.
“I see a top-four team in the West,” Lawson told the Denver Post, “If everybody stays healthy and we’re all playing together, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be in a playoff run. Nobody thought we were going to be a top-four team the year we won 57 games (two years ago).”
Lawson brings up a great point in that the Nuggets need to stay healthy in order to exceed expectations. The Nuggets were the second most injured team last season, according to mangameslost.com, Nuggets’ players missed a combined 264 games because of injury last season, and it got so bad Randy Foye started at point guard for a couple games. The reutrn of the injured means that the Nuggets, even tough they didn’t make a huge free agent move, add a lot to the roster going into the new season.
Not many teams can say they added four players to their rosters as good as the four players thee Nuggets get back from injury – Nate Robinson, J.J Hickson, JaVale McGee, and Danilo Gallinari. The quartet’s combined stats in the 2012-13 represent 51 points, 23 rebounds and 17.6 assists a game. Not to mention giving starting Arron Afflalo over Randy Foye means the Nuggets are 5.0 points and 0.3 rebounds better a game this season at shooting guard, and the extra scoring from Afflalo pushes the Nuggets into the positive when it comes to average points scored vs average points against.
Head coach Brian Shaw says it best, though.
“I like the fact that nobody is really mentioning us when they talk about teams that are going to contend in the West,” Shaw said. “I’m okay with that because we still have to get together and make it happen on the floor. But I’m confident that we not only can do that but we will do that.”