What Will The Nuggets Look Like Next Season?
Hopefully they’ll look better than this…
There’s been a lot of questions about what will become of the Denver Nuggets next season. Many are optimistic about the arrival of Andre Iguodala in Denver. A few Denver fans believe the loss of Arron Afflalo and lack of outside shooting will means this team won’t improve at all. A fun exercise is to do the most naive thing possible. If we take all of the players’ stats from last season, estimate their minute allocations, what will our team look like next year? Here goes! I used the minute allocations by @denbutsu from Roundball Mining Company (Found here) With that, your 2012-2013 Denver Nuggets in standard box score form!
Green is good, red is bad to clarify.
| Player | Min | P2 | P2A | P3 | P3A | FT | FTA | ORB | DRB | AST | PF | ST | TO | BS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ty Lawson | 33.0 | 4.7 | 8.8 | 1.1 | 3.1 | 2.8 | 3.4 | 0.8 | 2.7 | 6.2 | 1.5 | 1.3 | 2.3 | 0.1 |
| Andre Miller | 25.0 | 3.1 | 6.5 | 0.2 | 1.1 | 1.9 | 2.3 | 0.7 | 2.3 | 6.1 | 1.8 | 0.9 | 2.4 | 0.1 |
| Andre Iguodala | 32.0 | 3.1 | 6.4 | 1.1 | 2.8 | 1.8 | 2.8 | 0.8 | 4.7 | 4.9 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1.7 | 0.4 |
| Danilo Gallinari | 32.0 | 3.1 | 6.7 | 1.4 | 4.3 | 4.3 | 4.9 | 0.7 | 4.1 | 2.7 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 1.6 | 0.5 |
| Wilson Chandler | 30.0 | 3.9 | 9.4 | 0.4 | 1.7 | 1.4 | 1.7 | 0.8 | 4.9 | 2.4 | 2.5 | 0.8 | 2.5 | 0.8 |
| Corey Brewer | 12.0 | 1.6 | 3.1 | 0.3 | 1.2 | 0.8 | 1.2 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 0.8 | 1.1 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.2 |
| JaVale McGee | 28.0 | 6.3 | 10.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.3 | 3.5 | 2.5 | 5.4 | 0.4 | 3.3 | 0.7 | 1.3 | 2.1 |
| Kenneth Faried | 28.0 | 4.9 | 8.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 2.9 | 4.4 | 3.8 | 5.7 | 1.0 | 3.1 | 0.9 | 1.5 | 1.3 |
| Kosta Koufos | 10.0 | 1.5 | 2.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.4 | 0.7 | 1.2 | 2.1 | 0.2 | 1.2 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.5 |
| Timofey Mozgov | 10.0 | 1.5 | 2.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 1.8 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 0.2 | 0.8 | 0.6 |
| TOTAL | 240.0 | 33.6 | 64.7 | 4.6 | 14.2 | 18.2 | 25.8 | 12.5 | 34.7 | 25.1 | 19.1 | 8.3 | 15.0 | 6.7 |
Good news, this team looks pretty solid. You’ll notice their points are lower than last year. Here’s why.
In 2011-2012 the Nuggets took 81.9 shots a game and got 26.7 shots from the charity stripe. I currently project them at 78.9 shots a game and 25.8 shots from the line. It looks like we’re probably a few shots shy. Currently the Nuggets have 14.2 three pointers estimated a game. Last season they took about 20 a game and the league average was around 18.4. Basically, someone on the Nuggets is going to have to take more threes. Currently only Lawson and Iguodala look primed for it. However, if Gallinari can get some of his swagger back and Wilson Chandler can improve his shot selection, I don’t see this as a problem.
In fact, we have a pretty simple set of guidelines to improve the Nuggets:
1. Improve on three point shooting (please, please, please let Gallinari bounce back!)
2. Get JaVale McGee a free throw coach, he’s killing you!
3. Keep the ball out of Chandler’s hands or teach him control.
The last part that doesn’t show up in this box score is team defense. Last season the Nuggets were downright terrible at it. Hopefully the addition of Iguodala and a full training camp can help this. The Nuggets actually look in really good shape. Here’s hoping the right players get minutes. With the current roster, Karl has a 3 in 4 shot of picking the right players. We’ll see if he messes it up.
-Dre