Is it too early to be concerned about the Denver Nuggets?

If in early October someone told you the Nuggets would be 2-4 to start the season, how do you think you’d respond? I’m guessing with not too much enthusiasm either way. Fast-forward one month and the same applies. It’s early, nobody expects the Nuggets to be anything great this year anyway and there are still 76 games to be played the rest of the season. Yet there have also been certain aspects of the Nuggets’ play and roster construction that are somewhat worrisome, as detailed below…

Rim protection

What’s odd about the Nuggets’ team statistics through six games is how respectable they are across the board. In almost every category the Nuggets are either middle of the pack or somewhere towards the end, yet nowhere are they worst in the NBA or even that close. In blocks per game, for example, the Nuggets come in tied for 10th best in the league, and yet every time they play it’s abundantly clear how inept they are at stifling their opponent inside the paint. Whether it’s Julius Randle, Festus Ezeli or any other up-and-coming role player, the Nuggets seem fully capable of making them look like bona fide All-Stars near the rim.

While I’m not here to say I told you so, it’s also true that at this point there’s just no sugar-coating it: I told you so… three months ago… and three months before that… all the way back in April. That’s when I first suggested the Nuggets needed some rim protection heading into the offseason. And when they didn’t address this concern I noted the availability of Jeff Withey as a last resort in early August. Hell, even this past week the Nuggets had an opportunity to snag a waiver-wire rim protector after dropping Erick Green and they instead went with another wing in Kostas Papanikolaou.

At some point the Nuggets will realize that just because small ball is chic doesn’t mean it fundamentally alters the DNA of how basketball is structured. You can play small, but you still have to have paint protection. The Golden State Warriors play small all the time and even won a title this way — but they still have Ezeli and Andrew Bogut to protect the paint. The Miami Heat did the same thing with LeBron James back when they made four consecutive trips to the NBA Finals — and yet they always had shot blockers in Joel Anthony, Chris Andersen and Chris Bosh.

Having bigs isn’t about blocks. If blocks determined defensive success then the Nuggets would be just fine. Having bigs is instead about deferring your opponent from penetrating the paint at will and initiating the dribble-drive motion offense, a big part of which is dependent on finishing at the rim. It is about preventing easy post-ups, dunks and other forms of “gimme” baskets that galvanize your opponent’s offense. And as much as anything, protecting the paint is about setting a tone, about telling your opponent — as the “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons and Boston Celtics of the ’80s did so effectively — that when you enter our domain you will be punished. Through six games the Nuggets are punishing nobody, and it’s already manifesting in the form of losses.

Identity

One of the hallmarks of the tumultuous Brian Shaw era was lack of identity. The Nuggets had no clue who they were or what type of basketball they wanted to play on a nightly basis: slow and methodical one evening (because that’s how you win in the playoffs!), frenetic and irresponsible the next, often combining each into one game. The Nuggets never had any grip on a personality and midway through Shaw’s first year it began to eat away at the core of the team.

Despite all the optimism surrounding Michael Malone and his defensive-minded philosophy, the Nuggets haven’t been much different this year than they were under Shaw. Starting in Houston and ending in their most recent matchup with the Warriors in Oakland, the Nuggets have scored 105, 78, 93, 120, 84 and 104 while giving up 85, 95, 117, 109, 96 and 119. Compare this disparity to teams with winning records and bedrock identities like the Jazz — who’ve scored 92, 99, 97 and 92 — or the Warriors — 111, 112, 134, 119, 112, 119 — and it becomes obvious just how vital identity is to the overall success of a basketball battalion.

Though fledgling, and though rough times are to be expected, the Nuggets nevertheless need some form of consistency when under pressure and susceptible to a crumbling infrastructure. They need a foundation when their opponent inevitably goes on a tear. Good teams have this; the worst teams do not. And the longer the Nuggets go without an identity the more the losses will pile up.

Intensity

I was tempted to write “Effort” as the category for this section, but I think that’s misleading. The Nuggets have shown effort this season but not always as uniformly distributed as need be to win games. Nevertheless, the effort is there. What’s missing, however, is intensity. The Nuggets have opened up games, quarters and halves entirely too blase for much of the first part of this season. There seems to be a general sense of complacency, or a lack of urgency, in the way the Nuggets carry themselves through long stretches of games. And though coach Michael Malone has been vocal about this being the players’ responsibility, the fact is that in 2015 it is unfortunately as much the coach’s responsibility as it is the players’.

While he cannot physically inject his players with energy and enthusiasm, Malone is fully capable of lighting a proverbial fire beneath them using his tone and diction. He needs to let his players know that nonchalant demeanors will not be tolerated, that you must give it your all every time you step on the floor and that what matters most isn’t the final score but the amount of heart you exert whenever you have an opportunity to help your team. It is a largely emotional vaccination, one not entirely conveyed well in an article of this sort, but one that is needed nonetheless.

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To echo what was stated in my opening, it is still very early. In fact, so few games have been played it’s almost pointless writing anything about the NBA right now. Stephen Curry looks great — surprise, surprise. The Brooklyn Nets look terrible — shocking. And the Nuggets are 2-4 — pretty much what we expected considering their early Western Conference foes. Yet there are areas of concern for the Nuggets because of how negatively those pitfalls have affected the team’s play already. The Nuggets need rim protectors and they need a more grounded identity. They also need better effort, while health and a more consistent rotation wouldn’t hurt either.

The good news is the Nuggets have 76 more games to correct these concerns, and if we’re to trust what coach Malone has preached since his arrival in Denver, the Nuggets will certainly take every opportunity imaginable to do so.