Will the Nuggets ever have a prayer of attracting the talent to win an NBA championship?
“What? Can you give me a second?” Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly told me Thursday, as he scurried off an elevator at the Pepsi Center, still running on the pure adrenaline of closing two deals at the NBA’s trade deadline. Connelly stared at a text message from his 8½-month pregnant wife, as he marched in double time down the hall of the team’s executive offices, where rookie forward Joffrey Lauvergne of France was waiting to sign a contract.
“OK, what have you got?” Connelly said, turning his attention back to me from the basketball business at hand. “What was the question?”
Well, it’s the only question that matters if the Nuggets are going to have any shot of winning a championship in the lifetime of anybody old enough to read this paragraph: Thanks to a rich, new television deal, the NBA salary cap is about to explode, from $63 million this season to as much as a jaw-dropping $90 million in 2016.
By trading savvy veteran Arron Afflalo and goofball center JaVale McGee in the hectic hours before the trade deadline expired, the Nuggets demonstrated a clear strategy understandably frustrated Denver fans have been waiting to see. Connelly is collecting as many future first-round draft choices as humanly possible and clearing bundles of money to spend under the salary cap, with a wide variety of attractive free agents, from rising Chicago star Jimmy Butler to proven Memphis center Marc Gasol possibly hitting the market within the next two years.
But the big question: Will any NBA player truly worthy of his star status ever take $12 million or $15 million or $20 million per year from the Nuggets, if it means having to work in Denver?
“Our basketball market is not a flyover city,” Connelly insisted. “I look forward to selling the city to players, selling the organization and selling our great ownership. Denver is a great city, and we have to let the rest of the NBA know it.”
By shipping out Afflalo and McGee, Denver management finally came to grips with the reality of a sorely needed rebuilding project. The Nuggets also kissed goodbye the pretty, little lie of a 57-victory season in 2013. That team of overachievers earned George Karl the coach of the year trophy, and it also got Karl fired, in part, because, even two years ago, soon-to-depart franchise executive Masai Ujiri and Kroenke family ownership both instinctively knew their all-for-one, whole-greater-than-sum-of-its-parts theory of team basketball sold tickets to a naive public, but almost certainly was never going to lead to a victory parade through downtown Denver.
At the outset of the season, Connelly honestly believed the Nuggets would make the playoffs in the rugged Western Conference. While loathe to criticize Ujiri, Connelly now is tasked with trying to take apart a roster assembled by his longtime friend to keep the team competitive in the wake of dealing Carmelo Anthony to the New York Knicks. Unloading McGee, beneficiary of what might be one of the worst contracts in the history of Denver sports, to the Philadelphia 76ers was a start.
“We’re always looking for way to reinvent ourselves,” said Connelly, eager to end our conversation so he could roll up his sleeves and get back to work. “The reality is our roster as previously constructed wasn’t working. We can’t ignore the results, and we have to be proactive to try to figure out ways to make it work.”
Let the serious overhaul of the Denver roster begin. With Afflalo gone, coach Brian Shaw said he would like to return Danilo Gallinari to the starting lineup in order to “give him an opportunity as a starter, as least for now, to see what that looks like and see if that helps his confidence and his timing.” It is now the mission of Shaw to get point guard Ty Lawson — whose reputation for professionalism took a hit when he showed up a day late from the all-star break — and forward Kenneth Faried — whose energy has been spotty at best — back on track, so one or both can be attractive trade bait as the NBA draft approaches.
The Nuggets have been without a legit star since Melo left for the Big Apple.
Many fans believe the myth that Anthony was a hen-pecked superstar whose spouse hated Denver.
The truth is, Anthony lost the faith the Nuggets could or would ever build a championship team around him.
Connelly must find one big star to turn around that nasty perception.
Now you know the cornerstone idea if the rebuilding project of the Nuggets is to have any chance to succeed.
Mark Kiszla: mkiszla@denverpost.com or
