BSN Nuggets weekend mailbag: Who sacrifices minutes for Jamal Murray, how Denver uses Wilson Chandler

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Training camp from Omaha has officially wrapped up and the Nuggets are set to fly to Calgary for their preseason game against Toronto Monday. Camp was a success for the Nuggets. No injuries were reported, this team seems to be building a tight-knit bond and the chemistry they showed throughout the week on the University of Creighton campus was evident. Here’s this weekend’s mailbag:

Is Jamal Murray going to push Emmanuel Mudiay or Gary Harris for minutes? – @treesntreesntre

The short answer is no. Mudiay and Harris will both be in the starting five opening night and play around the 30 minutes per game they each logged last year. Their minutes are not in jeopardy with Murray coming aboard. The bench players on the Nuggets, however, will have to deal with the reality that they won’t be playing as much as they did last year.

Most affected by Murray’s arrival will likely be Will Barton who averaged 28.7 minutes last season, the second most on the Nuggets. We could also see Danilo Gallinari, who averaged a career-high 34.7 minutes last year, lose some playing time this season, but that would be because of Wilson Chandler‘s return to the rotation combined with the desire Denver has to keep Gallinari healthy for 82 games.

What lineup are you most looking forward to watching this season? – @11fitzgerald

I’ve talked about this at length on the podcast, but a potential closing lineup of Mudiay, Harris, Gallinari, Chandler and Nikola Jokic is tantalizing. That group includes Denver’s five best players, their most versatile defender, four capable 3-points shooters and multiple high IQ players. That group can score efficiently by playing through Jokic at the elbow or block, Mudiay in ball screens up top with both Gallinari and Chandler, as well as Gallinari on the wing.

Defensively, that lineup could match up with any team’s small-ball five and switch 1-4. On the offensive end, they can spread the floor with five smart basketball players and should be able to score efficiently. As long as the opposition doesn’t deploy a lineup with two traditional bigs, the Nuggets should play that five often down the stretch of games if Chandler stays healthy.

How much of an impact do you see Wilson Chandler having? Nuggets didn’t really have a defender to guard 3’s last year other than Gallinari. – @ctommoli24

Chandler should have a huge impact this season. He’s Denver’s most versatile defender as you mentioned and should routinely draw the assignment of the opposition’s top wing player, relieving Harris of some pressure on that end of the floor. On offense, he shot 34.2 percent from three last year and will help the Nuggets to raise their team 3-point percentage from the dismal 33.8 percent they shot in 2015-16.

In short, Chandler will play a key role for Denver. We’ll see what kind of minutes restrictions he has in preseason, if any, but if he plays 20-25 minutes per game to start the season and is able to get back into the rhythm he had two years ago, Chandler could see those minutes climb into the near 30’s this season.

Who gets the Nuggets 15th and final roster spot? – Mike Sawyer – Denver, Colorado

Ah, the all-important 15th roster spot that we’ve been talking about ad nauseam yet likely won’t matter at all this season and beyond. Axel Toupane is still a guy I like a whole lot as an NBA player on the wing. Nate Wolters is someone who I, and coach Michael Malone feel is an NBA player and think his status on the roster is based on how the Nuggets view Murray this season. Malone and general manager Tim Connelly have been vocal that Murray is a true combo guard and if they think wholeheartedly think he can play minutes at the point this year, there’s no real need for Wolters.

Jarnell Stokes is an interesting camp invite who becomes a whole lot more important if the Nuggets want to play Jokic and Jusuf Nurkic together for large chunks of time. Denver dealt away Joffrey Lauvergne this summer to Oklahoma City leaving Faried, who only played 19.8 percent of his minutes at the five last season as a lone remaining option to play center. Faried played well in that spot last season and produced a 5.4 NetRtg in nearly 331 minutes, per Nylon Calculus.

Would the Nuggets want to keep Stokes in-house with no backup center behind Jokic and Nurkic? The 15th guy will likely come down to how Malone and Connelly view the rest of the roster and how they see playing time distributed throughout the rotation.

In the 1st part of the season, what indicators are you watching for to measure future success? – @RobertPosthumu1

The most important thing for the Nuggets at the start of the season is to keep their head’s above water during a traitorous opening ten games. Seven of Denver’s first ten games come on the road and their three games inside the confines of Pepsi Center are against Portland, Golden State, and Detroit, three playoff teams from last year who also all got better this offseason. Their seven road games during that span are against five playoff teams from last year in Toronto, Detroit, Boston, Memphis, and Boston.

That makes opening night in New Orleans crucial and a road game against the dangerous Timberwolves a focal point on the schedule as well. If the Nuggets can win three or four games during that span they can consider those opening ten a success. Secondly, like I touched on last week, I’ll pay attention to Mudiay, Harris, and Jokic to start the season to try and decipher if they’re set to make a leap this season much like they did last year.

Will the Nuggets play through Jokic more on offense than they did last season? Is Chandler ingratiating himself into the rotation? Is Mudiay more confident and decisive in the pick-and-roll? We’ll likely find out the answers to those questions and more over the Nuggets first ten games of the season. You can read more about how I define success for Denver this season here.

As always, submit your questions on Facebook or Twitter @BSNNuggets, or to me directly @NBAWind.