Denver Nuggets: Just Shaking Off The Rust
The Denver Nuggets have one single win and three bad losses to start the 2014-15 season, and it’s been real tough to watch. Expectations were high that this is a Western Conference playoff team, coming into the new season, and we all thought this Nuggets team would show that right out of the gates.
One and three is definitely not the start we had in mind Nugget nation.
The expectations for the Nuggets may have been too high, though. I’m not talking about expectations around a Western Conference playoff birth, too much hoops left for that. Rather, the expectations were too high that the Nuggets were going to be playing well from game one, and the team’s early struggles should be attributed to overall RUST.
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Rust is the real reason behind the Denver Nuggets straight up STINKING on offense right now. They rank 28th in the league in field goal percentage (40.6 percent), the Nuggets have yet to shoot at least 45 percent from the floor, and they couldn’t throw a brick into the ocean from beyond the 3-point line as they are only shooting 26.5 percent from 3.
Not to mention, no Nuggets player has scored more than 25 points in a game.
Yup. Pretty much every game so far has been an embarrassment on the offensive end of the floor, and both Sacramento games were just an overall embarrassment. BUT! It’s not time to panic yet! Keep your hand away from that panic button everyone.
Most of the headlines out of the Nuggets blogsophere will be calling for Brian Shaw‘s head, and it’s understandable. We all can’t stand to see them lose like 131-109. However, the expectations that this team was going to blast out of the gate hot was misguided.
We cannot forget that, even though the injury report looks smaller, this is still a team that needs some serious recovery time.
With four rotation players, including the Nuggets’ two best bench players in Nate Robinson and Danilo Gallinari, returning from season-ending injuries, we all knew that this team was going to need to shake the rust off before looking like the playoff team they CAN be. Even when we didn’t want to admit it.
Boy, they are really rusty though. Gallinari is averaging 4.7 points on 20 percent shooting so far this year. Nate Robinson? He’s shooting 54 percent, which is good, but is still only managing to score 5.3 points a game.
That’s an overall decrease of 16.6 points a game between the pair, compared to their combined average for each players last healthy season (according to NBA.com’s stats).
Getting that duo back into playing shape will do wonders for the Nuggets, but they’ll still need star duo to return to form as well. Ty Lawson and Kenneth Faried haven’t been the leaders this team needs. Neither player is close to averaging 20 points and 10 assists/rebounds as they are capable of, and neither looks like an All-Star.
However, it’s still early, and getting their teammates to shake off the rust will help Lawson and Faried do the same.
The Nuggets overall will need some time to adjust to all the roster changes, just like Lawson and Faried will. It takes time for any player to learn how new teammates play, and the Nuggets have FIVE new rotation players, Arron Afflalo, JaVale McGee, Jusuf Nurkic, Alonzo Gee, and Danilo Gallinari, compared to last year.
A year ago I was livid at the way the Nuggets started the season. The squad faced a disappointing start to the 2013-14 season, only winning one of their first four games, just like this year.
Yet, after they figured each other out, the Nuggets rattled off 10 wins in 12 games and looked the playoff team we know they can be. We can’t panic yet, and Brian Shaw’s Nuggets will shake off in the 2014-15 season as well.