How does Denver retool in the offseason (Who wants Murray/MPJ?)

[durden_tyler]

i think Denver will have to settle for something like MPJ for Poole-- he has negative to zero value. More like DeMar DeRozan, he does not really move the needle.

[Wallace_Wallace]

Some gamble I would take:
Jamal Murray & Nnaji for Khris Middleton & Marcus Smart
Two players with championship pedigree both stuck in Washington.
MPJ & filler for CJ McCollum & Herb Jones
MPJ needs a change of scenery, and Zion needs a shooter to space the floor. CJ McCollum will be a one year rental while Herb Jones provides solid defensive versatility.

Sign guys like Bruce Brown, Clint Capela, Brook Lopez or any veteran who can fill a role for 15-20 minutes. Run it back with 10 guys (Jokic, Gordon, Braun, Middleton, Smart, CJ, Jones, Watson, Capela, Strawther) for depth purposes.

[TheShow2021]

i think Denver will have to settle for something like MPJ for Poole-- he has negative to zero value. More like DeMar DeRozan, he does not really move the needle.

Poole would do very well with Jokic, but it would be very embarrassing for Murray, as he would be exposed as a worse player than Poole. So would need to get rid of Murray as well as to not tank his trade value even more.

[CodeBreaker]

MPJ + Strawther + Saric + picks for Kawhi Leonard or KD

[bledredwine]

They have Jokic the best player in the world. He has to get the job done.

Best player in the world don't get excuses. Ask LeBron and MJ they never got excuses.

heh.

heheh.

heheheheahahaHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA phew

[Mamba Mentality]

I hate Murray as much as the next guy, but that's only because I'm still dealing with trauma from the last two postseasons we ran into Denver...

I just find it funny that even neutral fans are treating him like some scrub in some of these trade scenerios. Part of what makes Denver so difficult to defend is his two-man game with Jokic. When it's clicking it's impossible to stop. I don't see a world where Denver breaks that up.

[HMFFL]

Just wait until Jamal Murray makes $64m in 28/29.

[seren]

They should keep their core. They should trade MPJr unless they can get a comparable starter. They should find a way to turn their out of rotation players into one or two rotation players. Not sure how but I don’t see how it is beneficial to trade their starters for measurably worse players

[Liam_Gallagher]

Honestly they're pretty set with their role players - Braun and Strawther are on team-friendly contracts. It's Porter and Murray they're stuck with unless they attach a 1st.

[Rafael122]

Honestly they're pretty set with their role players - Braun and Strawther are on team-friendly contracts. It's Porter and Murray they're stuck with unless they attach a 1st.

Braun is extension eligible and Bobby Marks pegged his next contract at $30 million per. It's not sustainable. My guess is they'll try and trade Porter and Nnaji and attempt to get 2-3 players out of it.

[kodo]

i think Denver will have to settle for something like MPJ for Poole-- he has negative to zero value. More like DeMar DeRozan, he does not really move the needle.

I actually think Derozan would be a lot better than Westbrick. Find a warm body to replace MPJ at SF, as long as that body can shoot 32%/25% they won't be worse than MPJ in the series.

[Liam_Gallagher]

Honestly they're pretty set with their role players - Braun and Strawther are on team-friendly contracts. It's Porter and Murray they're stuck with unless they attach a 1st.

Braun is extension eligible and Bobby Marks pegged his next contract at $30 million per. It's not sustainable. My guess is they'll try and trade Porter and Nnaji and attempt to get 2-3 players out of it.

$30M for Braun? I should've trained harder.

[_NoMas]

Some gamble I would take:
Jamal Murray & Nnaji for Khris Middleton & Marcus Smart
Two players with championship pedigree both stuck in Washington.
MPJ & filler for CJ McCollum & Herb Jones
MPJ needs a change of scenery, and Zion needs a shooter to space the floor. CJ McCollum will be a one year rental while Herb Jones provides solid defensive versatility.

Sign guys like Bruce Brown, Clint Capela, Brook Lopez or any veteran who can fill a role for 15-20 minutes. Run it back with 10 guys (Jokic, Gordon, Braun, Middleton, Smart, CJ, Jones, Watson, Capela, Strawther) for depth purposes.

Herb jones is one of the most valuable role players on the league lol. He’s not being thrown in as part of an MPJ deal

[TinmanZBoy]

They need a legit backup center … Daniel Gafford will do… mpj+picks for Daniel Gafford + Max Christie…

[ForeverTFC]

I can't believe some of these proposals:
1. Murray: he and Jokic run the best PnR in the game today and he is very clearly part of the core. If you insist on moving him, you have to bring back a primary ball-handler
2. MPJ: the contract sucks but he's also their only shooter outside their primary ball-handlers in Jokic and Murray. If you can't get back a shooter in return, is the team getting any better?

[ACMFFL]

They need a legit backup center … Daniel Gafford will do… mpj+picks for Daniel Gafford + Max Christie…

Mavs have no use for MPJ, they won't eat his huge contract for just some 2nds or protected 1st seven years out.

[MarcusBrody]

Do they really need to break things up? They just went 7 games with an excellent OKC team while being the less healthy team. OKC got them in the end, but they were a 68 win team that had every measure to back that up. I was rooting for Denver, but losing to this current Thunder team isn't exactly a big indictment of where they are as a team.

What Denver needs:
1. More depth
2. A player who can penetrate, draw fouls, generate offense without Jokic

The second type of player is going to be in high demand, so you need a team that really likes either Murray or MPJ. Most likely you're getting a player that is better with Jokic off the floor, but has more compromises when he's playing with them. I'm not sure that's an upgrade during the playoffs. I've posted many times on here about Murray and his strengths/weaknesses. I think he's a good player, but not an ideal championship level two as he doesn't have an strong secondary skill outside of shot making (which is variable) and he needs a lot of screens to get into the lane, which limits possible sets and doesn't let Jokic get a breather off ball very often when they're playing together. But Murray is about to be very overpaid, so his value isn't high enough to think they could get better by trading him straight up and they don't have tons of assets to package. MPJ is likely even less valuable, but his replacement could be more of a specialist (if you trade Murray, you need to get someone back who can be a primary ball handler). So maybe something is possible there, but it would probably have to be a tarnished asset that the Nuggets hope would look better with a change of scenery.

Depth seems more possible, partially because they'll really be hoping that they can get something out of DaRon Holmes. It's hard to know what he might look like as he tore his Achilles before his first NBA game, but they seemed high on him pre-injury. If he's serviceable, that could add one more guy to the rotation and possibly make the non-Jokic lineups more effective. He's not a true center, but pair him with the big forwards and that's a pretty sizeable non-Jokic lineup. Whether anyone can generate offense would still be a question.

There's also hope of Watson and Strawther taking steps forward. Watson's going into his fourth year, but was drafted young and was very raw. He has improved offensively each year and if he can keep bumping up his shooting a bit more, he can be a prototypical 3&D guy. He was at 30% his second year, 35% last year, and if he can get that a bit higher, he will be a very valuable player. The caveat is that almost all of his three pointers were wide open. 77% were wide open and only 2% were tightly guarded (0 were very tightly guarded all year). That means that his shooting isn't quite as good as it might appear now, but if he can improve a bit, teams will have to at least guard him and that would open up the offense. He is already one of the better shotblocking forwards in the league, but his defensive positioning could actually still improve a good deal. If he gets that down, he could be a true defensive menace.

Strawther went from absolutely godawful as a rookie to very bad as a sophomore. He's actually slightly older than Watson. His game 6 performance was one of his best all year though, so I hope he builds on that. He has more varied offensive potential than Watson, but often that means he screws more things up. To me the optimistic scenario is that he becomes good enough that he can play a good chunk or regular season minutes to keep the starters fresher. Kind of the same with Jaylen Pickett. He's not as error prone as Watson, but he'll be 26 next year. Most Nuggets fans wanted to see more of him this year and he seemed decent when he played, but unless he figures out something new, I don't see him getting many minutes in a playoff rotation.

Russ was actually really important to the Nuggets this year as he was a rotation guard who could actually get to the rim on his own (once at the rim...roulette). I honestly hope he picks up his player options. If not, they REALLY need to replace his role somehow.


But all in all, the Nuggets aren't in that bad of a spot. They fought the best team in the league to a tough 7 game loss and if the injury luck had broken the other way, who knows what would have happened. I don't think a total rebuild makes sense, nor due most super longshot trades. Unless you find a team that really likes the specific scenario, I think it's better to gamble on injury luck, internal improvement, and Murray/MPJ getting hot than it is to take on a damaged, lower tier all star and hope that works out. I think that Denver became very much a second tier contender the minute that they signed the Murray/MPJ to extensions and used the mid-level on Saric, but if you're a second tier contender, you're still a contender and you can have things fall your way.

[Alatan]

I hate Murray as much as the next guy, but that's only because I'm still dealing with trauma from the last two postseasons we ran into Denver...

I just find it funny that even neutral fans are treating him like some scrub in some of these trade scenerios. Part of what makes Denver so difficult to defend is his two-man game with Jokic. When it's clicking it's impossible to stop. I don't see a world where Denver breaks that up.

You didnt lose because Denver or Murray were great but because the Lakers were trash and lacked perimeter defense.