The Denver Nuggets are having an up-and-down year, but Danilo Gallinari and Kenneth Faried are starting to play the part of veteran.
The Denver Nuggets‘ rebuilding process may be a bit of a head-scratcher right now, but at the very least, the veterans they re-signed over the summer are finally starting to set an example for the younger players expected to lay the foundation for the future.
Coming off Brian Shaw‘s termination and a 30-win season, it was pretty clear the Nuggets were ready for some major roster changes. A few of the most necessary changes came, including the drafting of Emmanuel Mudiay and the subsequent trade of Ty Lawson, who had been arrested for two DUIs in less than a year.
But rather than blow the team up and build around a core Mudiay and Jusuf Turkic, as some expected they might, the Nuggets brought virtually everyone back for another go-round under new head coach Michael Malone.
Over the summer, Denver re-signed Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Jameer Nelson, Will Barton AND Darrell Arthur, while also keeping Kenneth Faried, a trade candidate who had been re-signed the summer before. Hell, even J.J. Hickson and Randy Foye are back.
For a team looking to rebuild around their shiny new centerpiece in Mudiay, it seemed odd that the Nuggets were willing to let him earn his lumps as the starter, but didn’t want to start completely fresh, blow the roster up and aim for top draft picks.
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Whether or not that method pans out remains to be seen, but as we’ve seen with the Philadelphia 76ers, not having a couple of veterans around to shepherd the rookies and younger talents can be a very ugly thing.
To start the season, the Nuggets were still expected to be a bad team despite the returns of Gallo, Chandler and pleasant surprise Will Barton. But with the Western Conference half-asleep to start the 2015-16 campaign, the Nuggets find themselves 5-2 over their last seven games and only half a game out of a playoff spot.
Will it last? Probably not. But for the time being, it’s been good to see Kenneth Faried and Danilo Gallinari shake off rocky starts and begin to lead by example.
In the case of Faried, the Manimal is averaging 12.2 points and 9.0 rebounds per game on 55.4 percent on shooting for the season. He’s also recently stepped up his efforts on the defensive end, averaging 1.6 blocks per game so far in the month of December.
Faried has been close to a nightly double-double over the last few weeks and although he isn’t quite having a career year, he’s been quietly solid for the Nuggets ever since returning from a left ankle sprain that sidelined him for three games.
As for Gallo, his start to the 2015-16 season was a pretty major disappointment considering the way he ripped through the end of the 2014-15 season and EuroBasket over the summer. Through the end of November, Gallo was averaging 17.4 points and 6.6 rebounds per game, but shot an abysmal 38 percent from the floor.
There were flashes of his former brilliance, like a 27-point, 7-for-9 performance in a win over the Houston Rockets, or his season high 32 points on 12-of-19 shooting (to go with eight boards and eight assists) in a win against the New Orleans Pelicans.
But for every game where it looked like Gallo had righted the ship, he’d follow it up with something like his 2-for-9 performance against the San Antonio Spurs or a 2-for-12 outing against the Phoenix Suns. The Nuggets were also outscored by 9.3 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor during that span, per NBA.com.
Through his first eight games in December, however, it appears as though Gallinari has finally found his footing, especially now that he’s spending more time at power forward. His raw numbers have decreased to 16.9 points and 4.9 rebounds per game in that span, but he’s shooting a more efficient 42.1 percent from the floor and 37.8 percent from three-point range.
He also recently stuck a dagger in the belly of the Minnesota Timberwolves:
Gallo has reached double figures in 14 consecutive games now and despite Friday night’s ugly loss to the Utah Jazz, he’s reached the 20-point plateau four times in that span. He may never be the same as he was before his 2013 ACL tear, but he still has some of that life left in him.
With both Faried and Gallinari, you can see that they haven’t increased their numbers by leaps and bounds, but they’ve still been solid as they start to cede minutes, shots and control to the younger generation of Nuggets basketball.
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The line between success and failure is razor thin in the NBA, and with the Nuggets going 5-3 so far this month despite Mudiay missing the last three games due to an ankle injury, the slight steps forward that Faried and Gallinari have taken set a good example for a team that’s been far more successful than expected.