Denver Nuggets: 5 Free Agents To Target This Offseason

Amir Johnson

If there’s one thing that the Nuggets have lacked outside of an identifiable player, it’s attitude.

Most fans don’t understand what the identity of this Nuggets team is and who many of their players are, including Nikola Jokic, one of the best players out there. The Nuggets are a soft spoken team, and they have lost much of the attitude that George Karl‘s teams had.

Enter Amir Johnson, the second curveball whose $12 million salary is non-guaranteed for the 2016-17 season.

Johnson should remind many Nuggets fans of Kenyon Martin. Both guys are enforcer types. Both guys play the power forward position, a place where the Nuggets may have a need. Both guys play excellent defense with a limited offensive game. He wouldn’t wow anyone with his outside shooting or incredible moves, but he’s the kind of player to glue a team together.

Malone needs that kind of guy on his roster. The coach has preached defense ever since arriving in Denver, and Johnson is one of the better defenders on the market who should come at a reasonably cheap price. He finished fifth in Defensive RPM this past season in Boston, who finished as the fourth best team in Defensive Rating.

He may not play any more than 25 minutes per game, but his presence on the roster will be a safety blanket for Malone to use to improve the defense at all times. Combining him with Jusuf Nurkic off the bench would shore up the back line of the Nuggets’ bench defense all season.

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