Denver Nuggets young core faces greatest challenge yet against reigning champs

The Rundown

The Denver Nuggets are off to a swimmingly solid start to the 2015 NBA preseason, thanks mostly to the play of their young core. Joffrey Lauvergne has been the most productive of the underclassmen, logging serious minutes through the first few weeks of preseason play, while Nikola Jokic, Emmanuel Mudiay and Gary Harris have impressed each in their own way as well. At 2-1, Denver has already faced three teams that made the playoffs last season, yet none have been near as challenging as the reigning NBA champion Golden State Warriors figure to be this evening.

When

Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 8:30 p.m. MST

Where

Oracle Arena in Oakland, CA

Who (to watch)

Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala are the main cogs that spur the Warriors to fire on all cylinders. As most of us are well aware, Curry is the NBA’s reigning MVP and undisputed 3-point shooting monarch (see below). Thompson, meanwhile, isn’t far behind in this area and is one of the better two-way players and midrange specialists in the game. Green and Iguodala just do it all, filling the stat sheet in every category imaginable all while playing some of the best wing defense in the league.

What makes the Warriors so potent isn’t just a few star players, but rather how well they function as a group. The Warriors, like the New England Patriots of the NFL, are a finely tuned machine. Each player has a role and each player executes his role to near perfection. And when this machine is rolling in high gear, which it quite often is, they are virtually unstoppable (see: NBA Playoffs, 2015, champions).

That said, because it’s preseason the Warriors will likely try and play many of their younger guys as well as their new free-agent signings, just as the Nuggets have done through three games this October. Jason Thompson, James Michael McAdoo, Ian Clark, Brandon Rush and Ben G0rdon all saw at least 10 minutes in the Warriors most recent preseason outing against the Portland Trailblazers and there’s no reason to believe that won’t happen against the Nuggets. How well Lauvergne and Jokic handle Thompson, Andrew Bogut and Festus Ezeli is something to keep an eye on and same goes for Mudiay when guarding Curry. Lastly, don’t forget about Clark who’s had ties with the Nuggets over the last few years both in Summer League and the regular season.

Nuggets Narrative

Through three games this preseason it’s become abundantly clear how important the Nuggets’ young core will be not only this upcoming season but in the many years to come.

Jusuf Nurkic, though currently injured, displayed enough promise last year for fans to rest assured knowing he’ll be one of the better centers in the league moving forward, just as long as his health holds up. If he continues on his current pathway Nurkic could very well end up as a carbon copy of Marc Gasol. And of course between Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler and Kenneth Faried — three young players who’ve already spent the majority of their careers in Denver — the Nuggets have a trio of talented athletes locked down for the foreseeable future. But where the Nuggets will really see an uptick in their overall longterm success is where we’re already seeing it this preseason: the role players.

Joffrey Lauvergne is probably never going to be a certified starter in the NBA. The crop of big men that enters the league every year is just too elite. But what Lauvergne could be is a really good role player — something that’s actually somewhat rare in the NBA. And for a team like the Nuggets looking to build toward a future that includes playoff appearances, this is an essential aspect of the equation.

In three games this October, Lauvergne is averaging 16 points and 10 rebounds while shooting over 75 percent from the field, all in only 24 minutes per game. He ranks top 20 in points per game, second-chance points, offensive rebounds and true-shooting percentage, as well as 10th in defensive rebounds and sixth in total rebounds collected this preseason. Lauvergne has been, without question, one of the best players in the NBA so far this year despite having only touched the court briefly for a few months in the 2014-15 regular season.

Meanwhile, other youngsters like Jokic, Harris and Mudiay aren’t too far behind Lauvergne’s pace. At only 20 years of age and having never played in a regular-season NBA match, Jokic remains 21st in offensive rebounds per game, 11th in second-chance points and sixth in field goal percentage this preseason while Harris is averaging a very respectable 11 points and two steals while shooting 50 percent from downtown. And Mudiay, though less efficient than his contemporaries, is still putting on quite a show at the ripe age of 19, ranking top 20 in assists per game while regularly dropping dimes as well as maws of fans everywhere.

The upshot of the Nuggets’ preseason play thus far, thanks to their impressive young nucleus, essentially boils down to two very important points: (A) That this team is going to be pretty good for quite a long ways into the future, even if this year is somewhat of a struggle, and (B) that because of point (A) you, the fans, are going to be treated to some pretty entertaining basketball for the entirely of the 2015 NBA preseason as well as the 2015-16 regular season.

For all this, and for as much grief as I’ve given the Nuggets’ front office over the Ty Lawson trade as well as the signings of J.J. Hickson and Nate Robinson, there’s really no escaping just how on-point Tim Connelly and Co. have been when it comes to building through the draft — the single-most important aspect of the proverbial “rebuilding” process. The Nuggets have an outstanding crop of first and second-year players who have made this preseason a thrill to watch, which will carry over even more so into the regular season. Tim Connelly and his staff deserves all the credit in the world for engendering this level of success and entertainment.

So when the Nuggets face off against the Warriors later this evening, be sure and take a moment to acknowledge how intriguing this team has become over the past few weeks as we’ve finally gotten to see just how innately talented many of Connelly’s draft picks truly are. And who knows, perhaps in a few more years after a few more drafts you might even be able to root for a team like the one the Nuggets will be facing off against tonight.