DENVER — With a fully healthy roster for the first time all season, coach Michael Malone is asking his players to sacrifice playing time for the betterment of the team.
The Nuggets arguably have 12 players deserving of rotation minutes, but playing them all while establishing a consistent rotation and rhythm game in and game out is simply not feasible.
“When you have a guy like Darrell Arthur, who I spoke to before the game to inform him that he wouldn’t be playing that night in all likelihood, and he receives that with just class, that makes my job easier,” Malone said before the Nuggets took on the Knicks Saturday night. “The word that Darrell used and I think it hits the point is sacrifice. You can’t play 15 guys and Darrell Arthur is a guy who’s proven to be a very good player in this league but he sacrifices for our team and supports everyone who is playing.”
With Wilson Chandler moving into the starting lineup and playing almost exclusively at power forward this year, and Kenneth Faried backing him up at the four, there aren’t available minutes for Arthur. Granted, you can make the argument that Arthur, who has played in just 12 games this season due mostly to injury, deserves a role on the court for Denver, but Malone wants to establish a consistent rotation when healthy meaning Arthur could consistently sit.
“I’m hoping it’s not somebody different every game. I’d like to try and get in a little bit of a rhythm with our rotation; starters and guys off the bench,” Malone said. “But we all know over the course of an 82 game season, things are going to change.”
Footnotes
Derrick Rose (back spasms) will not play tonight. Rose practiced Friday but struggled to get through shootaround Saturday morning.
Carmelo Anthony, who has yet to win a game in Denver since getting traded from the Nuggets to New York in 2011, was held out of the Knicks’ with a sore shoulder 103-90 loss to Golden State Thursday but will play tonight in Denver.
0 Comments (1 conversation)
Harrison, add your thoughts, it looks like Faried at backup center is here to stay in Denver. I know we need an additional rim protector against the top teams, but it is like we can have two different versions of the Death Lineup with Jokic starting at center and Faried killing it off the bench. Why would we want to trade for a older, more traditional PF like Milsap when it would take away the strength of the Gallo/Chandler duo in the starting Death Lineup? It seems like no one would likely be available at the trade deadline who could break into our starting lineup without giving up too much in return. It looks
like Denver has the talent to be one of the best offensive teams in the NBA and that the defense just has to be good enough to ride along. Tops in rebounding, tops in bench and maybe now able to be a small ball force. Can this be a long term winning formula, Harrison?
Don’t have a good answer for you. Haven’t seen enough of this lineup to determine if this is a long-term formula for winning. Winning a championship or making a run to the finals with this group as is? Probably not, but is making the playoffs with how this team is constructed? Definitely. This group has the ability to be a terror on offense but will struggle defensively. Faried has been killing it these past two games and has been huge on the second unit. In terms of adding a guy like Millsap, he’d bring a boost defensively to the starting group and wouldn’t hinder their ability to put the ball in the hoop.
Yeah…good answer…Doug Moe used to say that most good NBA teams became great after finalizing their roster through making a great trade. The dynasty teams of the 80’s Lakers (Kareem and Magic, technically 1st rd compensation-ditto Worthy), 80’s Celtics (Parish and McHale trade with Warriors) and the 90’s Bulls (Pippen trade with Sonics) come to mind and even Moe’s best Nugget teams came after the Kiki trade to Portland. Even though Shaq was the biggest difference maker for the return of Laker dominance via free agency, L.A. still got Kobe and Gasol via trade(the Memphis trade was absolutely ridiculous). The only real exception on the Dynasty Team list is the Spurs who drafted Robinson and Duncan and the rest…and later even they stole Kawhi Leonard from the Pacers.
My point is most of the dynasty teams drafted their superstar with their own pick or by utilizing trades to move up within the draft. With the recent success of Connelly’s picks, I hope the next big move arrives at the 2017 draft.