In a Very Crazy Offseason, the Nuggets have been Quiet

The West continues to improve, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  The Lakers have brought in Steve Nash and are working to get Dwight Howard, regardless of whether he resigns with the team after the season or not.  The Thunder brought in depth in the low-post with the signing of Hasheem Thabeet.  The L.A. Clippers front office finally figured out how to manage a professional team and have made solid signings to go on the bench in Grant Hill and Lamar Odom.  Memphis is still a dangerous team even with the loss of shooting guard O.J. Mayo.  Dallas will be back in the hunt next season assuming that one of three with Elton Brand, Chris Kaman and O.J. Mayo pan out.  The rest of the teams in the west can't seem to hold on to their good players and are going south right now.

Then there is the Denver Nuggets.  Since the Carmelo trade, the Nuggets have been well above .500 (56-35).  They have been a good regular season team and have continued to develop young players such as Ty Lawson and Danilo Gallinari to be the future faces of the franchise.  But since the trade, they have been oust out of the playoffs in the first round, some thing that Denver has become very familiar with, having advanced beyond the first round only once since 2003. 

The Nuggets did just come off a very entertaining series with the Lakers in which the series went the full distance of seven games.  Nugget fans will argue that their team should have won that series and Laker fans will argue that Denver should have never been able to take it to seven games. 

We did see some players for the Nuggets make a name for themselves in this playoff run, such as JaVale McGee.  McGee emerged, he was good for just under 11 points and rebounds per a game and chipping in three block shots per a game as well. 

The Nuggets went into this offseason with only a couple of players that were free agents, most notably guard Andre Miller and McGee.  Miller re-up'ed with the Nuggets with a three year deal while they looked to fortify the front court with the massive signing of a 4 year/44 mil. dollar deal with McGee and recently signed PF Anthony Randolph to a deal.  This was a bad signing and this just reflects teams willing to keep a big off the market.  Denver has done this in the past with most notably Chris "The Birdman" Anderson and Nene Hilario.  Denver has done this again with McGee and are paying to keep another big of the street and are paying for "the potential to be a 'big player'".

The Nuggets in theory haven't done much to make themselves a dangerous team moving forward.  Other than signing Rudolph, they have been quiet to say the least.  The Nuggets needed a solid run to end the regular season to get into the playoffs as a six seed.  Yes, the playoffs is a "new" season and anything can happen, but we have seen it with this team.  Lots of "good" players, but the one thing this team lacks that makes the difference from being a mirror image of the 2000's Minnesota Timberwolves and team contending for a title is a player with the "killer instinct".

For the Nuggets, Carmelo Anthony was that guy, he wasn't afraid to take the last shot.  He may have had some plenty of flaws as a player, and he would not fit in with this current squad and style of play under Karl.  But the one thing that would fit into this team is his will to take over a game and have "ice running through his veins" during the last five to six minutes of a game.

The Nuggets currently are lacking the player to take control of a game on a consistent basis.  We have seen Lawson at times own games in the fourth quarter, we have seen Galinari and Wilson Chandler do it as well.  But it does happen to few and far between for this team to be a threat on a nightly basis. 

Denver had been in talks to trade Chandler and their first round pick to move up into lottery territory with this past NBA Draft.  Should Denver had done so, rumor had been spreading around that they were eyeing UConn Center Andre Drummond.  Just given how frequent draft picks actually seem to work out and how teams overpay for a premium, Denver might have been better off trading Wilson and a pick to get the center and hope he pans out.  Instead, Denver stood still and let the draft come to them and drafted guard Evan Fourier from France.  The European talent is a real crap shoot and seems to be more a gamble than taking a high school here in the states. 

But, having said all that, many experts would agree that the Nuggets may have the best 12 man squad in the NBA.  If the Nuggets now had to pair their starting 5 against any team in the west, the Lakers, Clippers, Mav's, Thunder and Grizzlies would be better than the Nuggets. 

The top teams in the west have either reloaded or upgraded to try and take down the defending western conference champs in the Oklahoma City Thunder.  But with the recent moves made by other teams, and the Nuggets actions to stand pat could back fire.  The Nuggets may be hoping that staying under the luxury tax and trying to develop talent while other teams spend big money to upgrade their rosters don't work out.  But if these moves going down in the west do appear to work out, Denver could be fighting again to get into the sixth slot of the playoffs, and another first round exit...or even worse...a season ending in late April and the Nuggets missing the playoffs for the first time since 2003.