Hoops Habit
Fansided

NBA’s Future: Which Teams Shine Brightest

By Zack Geoghegan

The Timberwolves boast a trio of young stars in Zach LaVine, Andrew Wiggins, and Karl Anthony-Towns. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
The Timberwolves boast a trio of young stars in Zach LaVine, Andrew Wiggins, and Karl Anthony-Towns. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 6
Next
NBA: San Antonio Spurs at Denver Nuggets
NBA: San Antonio Spurs at Denver Nuggets /

5. Denver Nuggets

The Denver Nuggets actually have a decent number of productive veteran guys on their roster such as Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari and Jameer Nelson, along with Kenneth Faried, who is in his sixth season.

What makes the Nuggets so interesting is how many young and talented players they have to complement those veterans.

Rookies Jamal Murray and Juan Hernangomez have provided some good minutes for the Nuggets. but Hernangomez hasn’t had much opportunity to display his true talents, unlike Murray.

Murray has scored 10 or more points in 10 of his 38 games played, including a four-game stretch where he scored 18, 24, 23, and 20 respectively. Murray is a pure sniper, but his game is still very raw; luckily he’s only 19 years old.

The young backcourt duo of Emmanuel Mudiay and Gary Harris is one the Nuggets can ride for the next few years.

There have been some questions regarding Mudiay’s decision-making as a point guard, but he has the potential to become a capable scorer (Mudiay has six games of at least 20 points this season including a 30-point showing against the Celtics) with plenty of time to learn.

Gary Harris may be one of the more underrated players in the NBA, which may be due to his injury issues, but when he’s healthy he becomes an excellent shooter and an above average face-up defender.

Will Barton is freaky athletic and may be a valuable trade asset in the future.

The two big bodies, Nikola Jokic and Jusuf Nurkic, are poised to be great players in this league, especially Jokic, who is a point guard living in a giant’s body with some definite possibility of becoming an All-Star one day.

So many young guys makes it understandable as to why the Nuggets haven’t shown much this year, but with more veteran players than the rest of the teams on this list, it’s concerning that they have a 15-23 record and one of the worst defenses in the league (if not the worst), ranking 29th in Defensive Rating (112.4) and 28th in Opponents Points Per Game (111.2).

Going forward plenty of young talent, veterans and trade assets such as Faried and Barton could make the Nuggets a Western Conference threat in the coming years.