Is there a shift already happening ?

[skywalker33]

Watching the Nuggets offseason, both this year and last, I've noticed we've been less reluctant to part ways with our draft choices. Last year it was about ridding ourselves of unwanted players/salary which also opened up more PT for our developing youth. It started with the Mo Williams trade in 2016, who was promptly waive. We also had to deal one of our 1st to POR to rid ourselves of Nurkic for Plumlee and a 2nd ( a trade which has turned out better than it looked at the time). Next trade has been a disaster which will probably become the worst in franchise history, the Mitchell/Lyles+Lydon trade. Several other picks, including the 2019 and now 2020 1st are gone and we don't have a 2nd round pick until 2023.

Why I bring this up is this teams has been built on the strength of their drafting skill. We are not one of the top tier FA destinations spots and are trades have been spotty at best. While I concede the value of our draft positioning has devalued with our success, it seems we are veering from what has made this team successful. Even our drafting has changed, were taking bigger chance with injured players like MPJ, Bol and Vanderbilt.

I believe we have some assets to move to replenish out draft choices, especially at this deadline but the way our FO loves ALL our players, seems a bit unlikely (yet they'll let guys walk for free ???) Juancho, Barton, Cancar, Craig and Plumlee are all on this list, perhaps even Beasley and Vandy for the right offers.

[TunaFish]

There has been a shift in Denver's drafting to take advantage of players dropping in the draft due to injury. If anything, TC is an opportunist. Lydon was not a good pick (and low) but otherwise, they have hit on plenty of picks and now have 14 players any of which could be regular rotation pieces. The advantage here is the ability to absorb injury with extra depth. I doubt they will give that up unless they are blown away by an offer they couldn't refuse. Often, contenders (thinking Miami in the past) will have little use for low draft picks.

They did acquire one key free agent, Millsap, so I won't say that no free agents will come to Denver. Now that Millsap is expiring we will see how they plan to use his max salary slot at the end of the season.

This NBA off season has been like no other. So many tier 1 free agents moving that you have to wonder if this is the start or end of something. Denver is going to go with the young players and will watch from the sidelines the frenzy that has developed due to the stars picking their spots. They have two young max players on their roster and both are under 25. We will see if this is the right strategy.

Paul George and Kawhi Leonard do look formidable in LA. Don't forget, Denver beat the Raptors twice and OKC four times with those star players in opposition.

I think they will hit a home run with MPJ but that remains to be seen. Undoubtedly TC is carving out his own method for building a team and their recent success only fortifies his plan.

[Mac1958]

Given the team's draft positions in the last two years, I think that the potential of Porter, Vanderbilt and Bol is pretty spectacular.

Yes, their injuries are clearly a concern, but at those draft positions? Yeah, no problem.

Plus, injuries can happen anywhere at any time to any player, regardless of where they were drafted.

[THE J0KER]

We have no time to develop young players anymore anyway. We are not the same rebuilding young team from the 2013-17 period, perfect for young players development.

Lyles has a good 2017-18 season, have a bad start of 2018-19 and we have no time nor patience to wait on him. Juancho for two months looks like our best SF option, but when he started once again to be inconsistent, he was done even as serious backup solution last season. The biggest patience we showed toward Will Barton, but he is veteran under a big contract which playing on SF spot where we didn't have too many alternatives. But even in Barton case, once playoff started he lose his starting job after just three games. Even Monte Morris, after the amazing regular season, loses rapidly his minutes in a playoff after couple bad games, despite we played in PO with just 9 player rotation. The only player with unlimited patience for a youngster, just like in the good old 2013-17 days was Jamal Murray, but he is arguably already our 2nd best player, and that is the only reason for that exception.

I know, technically we are still among youngest teams in the league, but Jokic is a member of all-NBA first team, Harris and Grant are already established NBA players, Murray is the 2nd best player in an elite playoff team, and Morris and Beasley which are still developing players are already one of best backcourt backups last season. We are not that perfect NBA kindergarten we used to be 2013-17 anymore, we are contenders now! This new chapter started actually already last season, and without that utter-competitive new mindset, we would never be #2 seed on stacked West last season.

And also don't forget that as we are an elite team now, our 1st round picks are late 20's trash where players like Lydon is not the exception but the majority. We used it in a good way to get rid of Faried+Arthur contracts, we used it on a good way to get so needed forward under friendly contract like in the latest Grant case. And talking about 2nd round picks we should not become delusional about their value just because we are lucky in a few years to get probably best ever non-first round player, followed with a useful Monte Morris and potentially useful Bol Bol and Jarred Vanderbilt. There is no guarantee we will take from the late '50s (our new 2nd round pick range as an elite team) in next 5 years any player useful as Monte Morris.

[Coeur]

I was really glad to see the asset traded away was a future pick. I believe in the young guys that have gotten started yet and believe trading Vanderbilt, Bolbol or mpj now would be giving up potential value growth

[NuggetsWY]

I think that shift started prior to Malone learning how to use Jokic.
I think the shift gained momentum after Malone learned how to use Jokic.
I think the shift became more noticeable with the drafting of injured players, but yeah, the best teams tend to develop young players slowly simply because the games mean more when you are looking towards the playoffs. (Which is why Malone's first couple of years frustrated me so much with his tendency to avoid playing young players. To me, knowing we would make the playoffs, we should have been developing our young guys more than we did. But who knows, I might have been wrong, I've been wrong before.)

[_Joker]

IMO we move forward with the young core that we have.

If we need to get back in to the draft then we can always move some players on. We have enough young developing players that teams will likely be interested in at some point.