The NBA can be a battle of choices.
How a team approaches the regular season, for example, may require difficult decisions. Do they go all-out and gun for a top seed in their conference? Or does a franchise take a more measured approach and ensure that their top players are healthy for the big postseason dance?
Teams can be put in a bind on the floor, as well. On defense, does a team look to take away certain types of shots? Or do they take a more balanced defensive approach? How does an offense function? Should it be more egalitarian? Or should the coaching staff put the ball in their best player's hands and let them cook?
Even a team's construction can be a collection of complex decisions. There are many ways to go about building the best possible team.
The Denver Nuggets are living out that exact conundrum. They're competing for present-day titles while looking to foster a tunnel of development for the future. The word "dynasty" was thrown around a lot during Denver's Media Day festivities, and to do so, the franchise will need a pathway of sustainability. The Nuggets' roster features two second-year players and three rookies competing for minutes on a night-to-night basis, highly unusual for a team coming off an NBA championship.
That's by design, by the way. The new CBA informed Denver's decision to go the development route, as we wrote about preseason, and the Nuggets' three existing maximum salary-level players—Nikola Jokić, Jamal Murray, and Michael Porter Jr.—will make it very tough for the franchise to sign future free agents to lucrative deals. More than likely, you're looking at a one-year rental scenario with free agents, which is what we saw with Bruce Brown last season. Brown signed with Denver on the tax-paying mid-level exception, won the championship, and immediately reaped the benefits of a big-time payday with the Indiana Pacers.
Still, winning hasn't historically gone hand-in-hand with playing the youth. Typically, teams that give minutes to a bevy of young players have not fared too well in the standings. The Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs had two of the three youngest rosters last season and finished the year tied for the second-worst overall record at 22-60. Meanwhile, teams with a chance at winning it all have, more often than not, opted to house mostly veteran talents. There's a sense of comfort in knowing exactly what you're getting from your roster night-to-night, and that typically comes from experience.
But Denver's thinking long-term. Younger players, for one, cost less, and they're easier to keep on the roster if you develop them properly. Rookie scale extensions are built to ensure continuity.
Denver finished with the best record in their conference in the 2022-23 regular season and had homecourt advantage for every playoff series they played in. From there, the Mile High squad lost just one total home game en route to securing their first NBA title.
Having that many home games played a major role in the most successful playoff run in franchise history. And to do so, they needed to win... Win a lot of regular season games.
And that's where that balance comes in. How does Denver thread the needle of developing players without slipping too far down the standings? And can they find a way to do so without overextending their key players? There's a luxury in boasting what the organization feels is the best starting lineup in the sport. Jamal Murray, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Michael Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon, and Nikola Jokić make this conundrum easier to stomach. Those five guys alone can get you a lot of regular season wins.
The coaching staff has pondered the question of development versus contending since the preseason. Here is what head coach Michael Malone had to say about it during Denver's training camp.
“The reality is we know who our starting group is, and now, we're trying to figure out what our second unit is. That's probably gonna be a work in progress, just like it was last year. And we finally found a group by the end of the year that we felt gave us the best chance," Malone told Nuggets.com. "But everything you mentioned about having the number one seed and going, I think, 10-1 at home in the playoffs, having homecourt with the crowd that we have is important.
"But you have to ask yourself, do you want to win the battle or lose the war? We have a lot of guys that played a lot of basketball last year. So, how do we balance getting those guys some rest?... And then finding a way to bring our young players along, putting them in positions where, yes, they fail, but they learn from those mistakes because that's the best way to have player development, in my opinion.”
Malone elaborated on that last point. Giving guys the opportunity to make mistakes and play is the best way to speed up development. But minutes have to be earned.
“It is tough to win at the highest level and develop so many players. Because we can have the best player development coaches in the NBA, which I think we do, but the best player development coach is playing and playing through your mistakes in a real game. And when you have so many young guys, it's gonna be a challenge," Malone said. "I'm not giving anything out... Those minutes, those opportunities gotta be earned. And I want to see who's going to earn them.”
Having five concrete starting options gives Denver a lot of flexibility, but things can start to look a little different if something unexpected happens. Currently, the Nuggets are without Jamal Murray, who is out with a hamstring strain. Veteran point guard Reggie Jackson has done a fantastic job filling in for Murray, but it puts a microscope on Denver's youngsters.
Malone hasn't balked at giving the young guys opportunities since the beginning of the season, even in spite of Murray's injury. Sophomores Peyton Watson and Christian Braun are rotation fixtures, and each of Denver's three rookies has gotten the chance to play since the preseason.
On certain nights, Denver's youthful bench will show flashes of just how lethal they can become. Julian Strawther, the team's 2023 first-round selection, dropped 21 points off the bench against the New Orleans Pelicans. Two-way player, Collin Gillespie, averaged 16 minutes per game for a four-game stretch. Just this week, second-rounder Jalen Pickett received his first real share of playing time against the LA Clippers and looked comfortable. Hopefully, over a full slate of 82 regular season games, that young group can continue to evolve, develop, improve, and build comfortability with each other.
But there will be nights when things don't go to plan and going young comes at a cost. The young bench scored just 8 total points during Denver's road loss to the Houston Rockets on Sunday. In spite of that, there was no course correction from Malone. In fact, the very next game, he gave the rookie, Pickett, a shot and trusted the sophomores on his bench. Braun rewarded him accordingly with a 10-point outing on 83.3 percent shooting.
"Who can we change it to? I mean, like, I'm playing five guys right now," said Malone before Tuesday's win against the Clippers. "And I think that's the greatest challenge, and I have to hold myself accountable. They're young players, and obviously, young players equal growing pains. The first eight games, they were pretty good. The last two games, not probably as great as we would want, and not as great as they would want, individually and collectively.
"So, I have to help them in terms of maybe who's on the floor with them. But if Julian has a bad game, I just can't say, 'Okay, I'm not playing him for the rest of the season.' If Peyton doesn't have a good game, I can't (bench him). Those guys need to play this year... I don't know if it's really been done before in the NBA history."
There will be bumps in the road, though if all goes to plan, Denver's dynastic aspirations could come to fruition. What the franchise is doing is novel, and it's risky. But developing multiple young players could be what cracks the code and continues their reign of terror over the rest of the NBA for the foreseeable future. To do so, they'll need to take chances with their young guys. Malone is committed to that future and is in lockstep with the front office's master plan.
"You win a championship, but our path right now is we have to develop all of these young players," said Malone. "And doing that while not running all of our starters into the ground. That right there is a balance. It's hard, but I have to really remind myself of that and sometimes you have to live with the results. But those experiences, when you stack them up and stack them up, hopefully, by the end of the year, those guys are no longer rookies. They have that confidence, they have those minutes, and they were allowed to play through those mistakes, which as I always say is the greatest tool in player development."