Isaiah Hartenstein

[Richard Miller]

Don't make me wrong, I'm happy with McGee coming to make our 2nd unit defense tougher and put some winning rings experience into the team, but if Malone gives Hartenstein the opportunity to play extra 5 minutes more wasted on these useless 4-guards small-ball rotations, we would not lose these 2 extra 2nd round picks used in Hartenstein/McGee deal.

Nah, don't kid yourself. McGee is a veteran backup, with experience from several championship winning teams, Hartenstein would not be able to match that in those extra 5 minutes.

[Mickey8]

McGee's role on the championship teams was overrated, he was a role player with not that much of an impact, he would start for the Lakers but he didn't do much, Jokic for example didn't have problems playing against him but with Howard, who was allowed to play dirty , hence Jokic was taken out of his element in that series , got into the foul trouble . Now Hartenstein is not somebody that Denver should cry over either, I guess McGee is the better locker room guy, sometimes that's important too.

[THE J0KER]

Don't make me wrong, I'm happy with McGee coming to make our 2nd unit defense tougher and put some winning rings experience into the team, but if Malone gives Hartenstein the opportunity to play extra 5 minutes more wasted on these useless 4-guards small-ball rotations, we would not lose these 2 extra 2nd round picks used in Hartenstein/McGee deal.

Nah, don't kid yourself. McGee is a veteran backup, with experience from several championship winning teams, Hartenstein would not be able to match that in those extra 5 minutes.

My point is not "we should hold Hartenstein"! My point is that if Malone did not undermine Hartenstein trade value by using him under 10 minutes per game (with many DNP games) despite he clearly overperformed all expectations since the very first day, we would not lose two future 2nd round picks to get McGee, Hartenstein alone would be enough! Isn't the same ZERO trade value Malone previously created for young Juancho Hernangomez and Jarred Vanderbilt, and back in time we even traded Nurkic as a negative asset despite he was still under low rookie contract (to get expiring Plumlee we must add to Nurkic our 1st round pick!)?

Since Malone comes in Denver team has so many very talented young (under-22) prospects to develop, but today we have only two, Nnaji and Bol Bol, but I doubt Malone learned from his old mistakes. At least our FO learned something so we traded talented RJ Hampton until his trade value still not annihilated by extremely restricted playing time (before the trade deadline RJ was #43 among rookies by playing time this season).

[Richard Miller]

My point is not "we should hold Hartenstein"! My point is that if Malone did not undermine Hartenstein trade value by using him under 10 minutes per game (with many DNP games) despite he clearly overperformed all expectations since the very first day,

Huh? He could barely stay on court fouling like no tomorrow, playing him extended minutes in serious games when Denver was hovering around 8th place in the West would've been suicidal. Maybe he could've got more garbage minutes than he did, but that wouldn't really make him more valuable in the trade.

[Maf]

Joker: I think you really overreact to simple fact that in NBA all players are good and if given minutes (especially on very crappy teams) they will produce some numbers. Yesterday Brandon Goodwin had pretty solid game. Does it mean you should add him too? No. Btw one look and I see Juancho and Jarred are 11th and 12th at MPG for worst team in NBA. And you're acting like we lost some all-NBA talent.

Yeah we lost good player in Nurkič. In not so good trade. I am sure someone with better memory can correct me or add more to it but I think there were bad blood about who will be the starting center and Nurkič even walked away in the middle of the game.

[The Rebel]

Nobody was ever going to give 1 2nd round pick for Hartenstein, let alone 2. The guy has the physical talent, but he has to basically relearn his footwork and positioning so that he stops constantly fouling before he gets minutes on a good team. He was out of the league at the end of last year and nobody offered him more than a minimum deal, nothing he did in Denver showed he had improved his largest issues so I don't see how he had any value.

[NuggetsWY]

I do believe he'll be a RFA this year. He's looking pretty good since the trade. Anyone interested in signing him (besides me)?

[skywalker33]

I do believe he'll be a RFA this year. He's looking pretty good since the trade. Anyone interested in signing him (besides me)?

Can he be a RFA ? He hasn't been with a team for 3-yrs and we didn't have Bird rights to send. Not sure we'd have any major interest given Malone's lack of interest in playing him this year. He's more of a finesse player, his lack of toughness didn't allow Jokic any protection

[NuggetsWY]

I do believe he'll be a RFA this year. He's looking pretty good since the trade. Anyone interested in signing him (besides me)?

Can he be a RFA ? He hasn't been with a team for 3-yrs and we didn't have Bird rights to send. Not sure we'd have any major interest given Malone's lack of interest in playing him this year. He's more of a finesse player, his lack of toughness didn't allow Jokic any protection

I see him more as a backup for Jokic than playing with him. But I'm a fan of three centers: Jokic + veteran + young player. We get by with only two mostly because small ball is popular and Jokic is seldom injured. So if we don't go after him, I'm not too upset. But if we don't keep McGee, we'll need someone.

I'm not certain about what his status will be.

[The Rebel]

I do believe he'll be a RFA this year. He's looking pretty good since the trade. Anyone interested in signing him (besides me)?

Can he be a RFA ? He hasn't been with a team for 3-yrs and we didn't have Bird rights to send. Not sure we'd have any major interest given Malone's lack of interest in playing him this year. He's more of a finesse player, his lack of toughness didn't allow Jokic any protection

I see him more as a backup for Jokic than playing with him. But I'm a fan of three centers: Jokic + veteran + young player. We get by with only two mostly because small ball is popular and Jokic is seldom injured. So if we don't go after him, I'm not too upset. But if we don't keep McGee, we'll need someone.

I'm not certain about what his status will be.

I believe he is unrestricted, but he isn't coming back here. Why would he? Malone insists on trying to go small despite this team's big advantage being the size, Hartenstein isn't getting minutes here. Not anytime soon. Malone doesn't want to play a big true C. I am sure that the front office would have preferred to trade Bol or Cancar than Hartenstein, but he either wanted out or the front office did not think Malone was going to play him at all.

One of the big issues I have noticed with the bench this year is our bench struggles to impose their will because we are not playing to our strengths. Malone is trying to matchup against the opposing team's strength, which is something he has always tried to do, and I see as a big problem with Malone. That is why bench guys are constantly having their minutes and roles changed. Hartenstein was never going to be allowed the minutes to improve his footwork, without that Malone was never going to use him.