Overall
When building a team, the one trait paramount to all others is vision. You need some sort of cohesive plan, a logical and consistent approach.
Bouncing around, being noncommittal and throwing stuff at the wall in hopes of it sticking is how you wind up as the Orlando Magic or Sacramento Kings.
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The Denver Nuggets exhibited a disturbing lack of vision during the 2018 NBA offseason.
In Michael Porter Jr. and Jarred Vanderbilt, the team prioritized future value at the expense of the present. Meanwhile, the Arthur/Faried salary dump and gargantuan Barton contract depict a team willing to suffer in the future to maximize the present.
By failing to pick one timeline, Denver’s unlikely to succeed in either.
The most consequential transaction of Denver’s summer, without a doubt, was the re-signing of Nikola Jokic. That was a home run, a no-doubt moonshot.
Denver should get credit for getting the biggest move right — that has to be weighted more. Conversely, there’s a limit to how much praise you deserve for doing the obvious, necessary thing, regardless of how well you do it.
And Denver’s other major moves, the non-necessary ones, were really, really bad (though many of the smaller ones were good).
Since July 1, when the league year turned over, the 2018-19 Denver Nuggets have gotten worse. Since July 1, the Denver Nuggets of the future have gotten worse. In my eyes, it’s hard to call Denver’s 2018 offseason anything but a failure.
Final Grade: D+