No organization that pushes itself to higher heights does so without sometimes confronting itself with harsh realities, without questioning areas that seemed already answered.
The Nuggets are in a comfortable space. They raised their win total from a year ago. They had good seasons from rookies Emmanuel Mudiay and Nikola Jokic. They got a career season from veteran forward Danilo Gallinari. They have up-and-coming talent in shooting guards Gary Harris and Will Barton.
If the Nuggets did nothing all summer long, they could reasonably expect an improved product next season.
But.
“If we want to be a championship team,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said, “everything we do has to have championship results in the equation.”
To improve the roster, they’ll have to ask themselves some hard questions.
1. Can the Nuggets get the best, most aggressive Emmanuel Mudiay with Danilo Gallinari on the team?
Sneakily, this is a how-much-do-the-Nuggets-need-Gallo question. On the surface. Gallo was the team’s leading scorer, and generally was the player the team leaned on for crucial baskets. But these are the hard numbers: With Gallinari out, Mudiay averaged 16.1 points, 5.0 assists and 3.9 rebounds. He took 15.3 shots per game and made 40.6 percent overall, 38.5 percent from the 3-point line. The Nuggets were 10-13 in those games.
That stands in stark contrast to the games he played with Gallo. Those averages were 11.1 points, 5.7 assists and 3.2 rebounds. He took 12.3 shots per game and made just 33.6 percent of them, and 26.6 percent from the 3-point line. Denver went 19-26 in those games.
The rookie said he looked to be more aggressive when Gallo was out, and he played his best basketball in that situation.
Can Mudiay put those numbers up with Gallinari on the court? Does coach Michael Malone even want Mudiay taking 15 or more shots per game, and if not, will that sap Mudiay’s aggressiveness as well? In short, what kind of Mudiay does the team want: A more Jason Kidd/Rajon Rondo type, who sets players up all game long and doesn’t look for his own shot unless absolutely necessary? Or a Russell Westbrook/Deron Williams type, a player who looks to score, but also averages high assists as well?
As a team, the Nuggets averaged 104.6 points, shot 45.6 percent from the field and averaged 23.9 assists in the 24 games Gallinari missed at the end of the season. Those were all above their season averages. Gallinari has been a core player since being traded to the Nuggets in 2011, but over the course of the whole season there was almost no difference in the team’s offensive and defensive ratings with Gallo on or off the court. That leads to the hard question: Can the Nuggets get along fine without him?
2. Is keeping Jusuf Nurkic still in the Nuggets best interest?
This is an even more difficult question given Jusuf Nurkic either didn’t play or played at less than full strength almost the entire season because of offseason knee surgery.
The Nuggets really couldn’t get a meaningful evaluation of him. Nurkic’s biggest value is on the defensive end. Yet, rookie Nikola Jokic had the best on-off court defensive rating difference of any big man on the roster.
Nurkic became more himself late in the season. That showed up in the raw numbers where he averaged 12.7 points, 9.3 rebounds, 2.3 steals and 2.3 blocks in the last three games.
Still, if he is not going to be the starting center, and if the Nuggets don’t want to play both him and Jokic at the same time, perhaps he becomes more valuable to them in potential trades.
3. Should the Nuggets offer the max to anyone this summer?
The Nuggets are projected to have more than $20 million in cap space in the summer, and as much as $28 million with the rapidly-rising salary cap. That should be good enough to max out one player who has up to nine years of NBA experience. But should they, in a summer with stars seemingly just out of their reach (Kevin Durant) or others not quite worth the cost?
In addition to Durant, the list of free-agent players includes Mike Conley, Al Horford, Hassan Whiteside, Dwyane Wade, Nicolas Batum, Andre Drummond (restricted), Harrison Barnes (restricted), Bradley Beal (restricted), Ryan Anderson, Rajon Rondo and Jordan Clarkson (restricted), among others.
Other players with options could be in the pool as well if they opt out of their deals. Some of those are: LeBron James, DeMar DeRozan, Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, Chandler Parsons, Dirk Nowitzki and Arron Afflalo.
The Nuggets have been fiscally responsible in the general manager Tim Connelly era. They’ll have to weigh if taking a big swing at a big name is worth the risk.
4. Should the Nuggets use all of their draft picks?
The draft is a tempting and reliable place to stockpile talent. But how much youth is too much youth? The Nuggets had one of the youngest starting lineups in the NBA this season.
The Nuggets have five draft picks — three in the first round and two in the second. Does the addition of more young players make sense for a team trying to take the next step of making the playoffs next season? At some point established talent has to become the bulk of the roster. Are the Nuggets at the point now where they need to start making that transition?
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or @dempseypost
