{"id":92604,"date":"2025-07-25T23:24:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T23:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/92604\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T23:24:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T23:24:09","slug":"nuggets-most-intriguing-offseason-question-still-remains-to-be-answered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/92604\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets’ most intriguing offseason question still remains to be answered"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Nuggets have gone and transformed their roster this offseason, bringing in four players plus a rookie who all figure to play immediately<\/a>. But the surplus of talent alone doesn\u2019t mean it will be maximized. What remains to be seen is how exactly David Adelman and his staff handle the lineups and rotations.<\/p>\n

A point of agony for years with Michael Malone was his insistence on sticking to his rotations, which generally meant playing Nikola Jokic for the entire first quarter and third quarter, then playing lineups featuring all of the bench players at once.<\/p>\n

There was very little mixing and matching and very little creativity<\/a>. At a certain point, it became a bit of a chicken and the egg, eye of the beholder situation. Was Malone handling rotations his way because of a lack of talent, or was the talent failing to develop because of Malone\u2019s rotations?<\/p>\n

We all assume that with Malone gone and new players in the door, things will change<\/a>. But how can we know that?<\/p>\n

Adelman must be creative with lineups<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where Adelman comes in. He now has the luxury to rest his stars more, especially Jokic. Minutes for all of the starters should be lower and staggered more. We assume that Jokic, Jamal Murray, Christian Braun, Cam Johnson, and Aaron Gordon will start, but hopefully, we will see every imaginable lineup combination.<\/p>\n

Adelman can experiment with all the different ideas; he can load up on shooting with Johnson, Murray, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Strawther playing together. He can load up on size by playing Jokic alongside Jonas Valanciunas or Daron Holmes. He can emphasize perimeter defense with Gordon, Braun, Peyton Watson, and Bruce Brown all out there together.<\/p>\n

The point is, there are options. Last season, there really weren\u2019t. Whether it was Malone\u2019s fault or not, the team didn\u2019t have a deep enough rotation. They had five or six reliable players, and the team basically had one avenue to victory<\/p>\n

This season, things have to be different. Adelman must use the regular season to play around and find different ways for the Nuggets to win games. Once they get to the playoffs, things won\u2019t always be easy. There will be nights when plan A doesn\u2019t work. There may even be nights when plan B doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

But if Adleman and his staff handle things correctly, the Nuggets will have many counterpunches. They\u2019ll be able to rely on plan C or D if needed. They will have optionality, versatility, and flexibility. And in today\u2019s NBA, that\u2019s what it takes to win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nuggets have gone and transformed their roster this offseason, bringing in four players plus a rookie who…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":92605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1260,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-92604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114916456084033633","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}