Wolfgang630 wrote:Zeke naji has the 5TH highest salary on the team and he doesn’t play. This is vastly on Calvin booth. His mentality completely screwed this situation and he put this team in a corner where it’s hard to make moves. It all starts with him because he gave Jamal the extension. Where is the bench??? Where is the backup Center Jokic has never had??? Where is the 3 point shooting?? This is all on him.
Jamal gets the next blame because he is the number 2 guy and has completely regressed. What happened to him? Forget the contract he’s not playing at an even regular season level. And he’s already had arrogance issues. He’s never been a great number 2 and a couple years in the playoffs he managed to pull off looking like Kobe doesn’t speak for who he’s been overall in his career.
The bench is next, but that goes back to Calvin Booth. Malone should be after that for his weak development and getting carried massively by Jokic that he gets little criticism. How is your team barely shooting threes in this era? I don’t like how teams shoot this volume, but it is what it is and this team playing like a team from 15-20 years ago on three point volume ain’t going to cut it.
Nnaji is really bad and always injured anyway, just like Cancar. there's no reason for Booth not to make moves, so yeah, you have to give a pick to get rid of NNaji of Cancar but either you get some1 playable back, or gain some flexibility. if you make a series of small moves with nice gains they can add up to a big move impact, or eventually make such a move possible
its stupid to have those two guys on the roster, there's no excuse for that. not under the current CBA and with such a small margin of error and room to work with
as for 3's, Jokic makes that strategy alot more palatable imo. in their championship season they were 21st in 3PA, in the bottom 3rd. you can def still win taking less 3's but you have to play well, on both ends of the floor. Nuggets had a pretty sturdy defense when they really tried (a couple of seasons ago) but it has fallen off a cliff this year
I wrote that well before these embrassing losses, Murray's extention pretty much killed the Nuggets window because he's unmovable now, maybe they can trade him for some usable spare parts to add depth but that'd be pretty brutal either way
Malone def deserves alot of blame he's a moron who got lucky when they drafted Jokic. I also don't except the fact that it's all on the FO, a coach has a say too, especially a long tenured coach like Malone. how is it possible that the Nuggets don't have a backup C for like 3-4 years now? bang on the table of the GM's office and demand to get some warm bodies, at least
the Huff thing is inexecusable honestly, didn't even get a chance despite DAJ being the only backup
however, Jokic is basically the de-facto coach half of the time and Malone defers to him on and off the court more and more, firing Malone won't really move the needle as they are screwed with Murray anyway (and MPJ, tho he is at least very positive, puts in the effort and is available so he's not the problem, overpaid as he is).
alot of vets would be happy to play with Jokic, some even in Europe but the GM seems to be asleep...