Should Denver Nuggets Completely Rebuild?
After finishing 30-52 in a tough Western Conference this past season, the Denver Nuggets will certainly be looking at their roster and figuring out if they have pieces that they can keep for the future or if it is time to tear down the roster and begin a complete rebuild.
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That’s not to say the team doesn’t have any at all, as they will have to make decisions on two players that have been viewed as the team’s cornerstones for a number of years now in Ty Lawson and Kenneth Faried.
Both Lawson and Faried are approaching the primes of their careers, and both have put on some dominant performances for the Nuggets over their times with the team.
Lawson has averaged 14.2 points and 6.6 assists per game on 46.6 percent shooting from the field over his career, while Faried has career marks of 12.2 points and 8.7 rebounds on 54.1 percent shooting.
Neither player has put up bad numbers necessarily, but there has been a steady decline in terms of efficiency from the field for both players as they’ve become a greater focus of the offense. A small decline is to be expected of any player that begins to face a more rigorous defensive effort, but their percentages are considerably lower than their career averages this past season.
Even Lawson’s scoring decreased by more than two points per game this season. It’s one thing to not be as efficient scoring, but when your numbers start to drop across the board, it either means there’s something bigger wrong with a player’s game or they simply need a change of scenery.
I don’t see a lot wrong with the games of Lawson or Faried, both have the ability to run up and down the floor at a nice pace, finish inside and make plays for others, but the situation in Denver wasn’t exactly present last season with trade rumors swirling around the deadline that the Nuggets were going to end up getting rid of everyone and looking to start new this upcoming season.
Other players like Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler have had to deal with injuries that have kept them sidelined for a great deal of time while they’ve been with the Nuggets, so those pieces haven’t exactly panned out for the team either.
In fact, a lot of analysts have wondered just how the Nuggets could’ve been had George Karl not been fired and Gallinari would’ve been healthy for some of their playoff runs that they made post-Carmelo Anthony.
Regardless, the team hired Brian Shaw as the head coach after Karl and the team struggled during his tenure, dropping in both offensive and defensive efficiency and looking as if everyone was lost on the floor.
The team still played at the fourth-highest pace in the league, but failed to be among the league’s best in terms of offensive and defensive rating, a testament to there not being a solid game plan when the players actually got to their respective spots on the floor.
A team built solely around transition offense isn’t going to win a lot of games, let alone a championship. Just ask teams like the Philadelphia 76ers from this season.
The lack of offensive cohesion doesn’t make sense with the Nuggets having a number of players that can shoot with range, but the team did average 14.2 turnovers per game, and when you can’t hold onto the basketball it becomes hard to develop a rhythm on offense.
So should the Nuggets tear everything down and begin anew? Unfortunately, I don’t see Lawson and Faried as franchise pieces. Rather they are good players that can be complementary pieces on a playoff team, just not the sole leaders of the squad. Not only that, but the team did get rid of Shaw, meaning that a new coach with a different philosophy has to be found as well.
With a high draft pick coming in this year’s draft, the Nuggets should look at finding their next star for the future right now and build around whoever that player will be along with their draft picks from last season in Gary Harris and Jusuf Nurkic, two players who both showed promise at points during this past season.
Sorry Nuggets fans, but I have a feeling the rebuild is fully under way.
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