The Denver Nuggets are once again a top contender in the Western Conference and they draw glaring similarities to the 2008-2009 team that made the Western Conference Finals.
Will Satler | @WillSatler | Thursday, March 7th, 2019
DENVER, COLO. (CO)– It’s been a while since there has been something worth cheering about in the depths of Pepsi Center. Just about ten years after former head coach George Karl, Carmelo Anthony, and Co. lost in 6 games to Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers, the Denver Nuggets are set to make a run for a Western Conference title once again, in 2019.
The Nuggets currently sit just 1 GB of the Western Conference and two-time defending champion, Golden State Warriors, with 17 games to go and a primetime ESPN matchup on the horizon, Friday. Barring a historical late-season melt down (They sit 7 games ahead of the 8th seeded San Antonio Spurs), the Nuggets will return to the playoffs for the first time since 2013, when Karl engineered a Coach of the Year season with 57 wins.
Karl was later fired in the offseason following that, and the Nugs haven’t been back since. Current Nuggets’ coach, Michael Malone, is creeping incredibly close to the success of Karl as we near the end of the NBA regular season. If the NBA awards were put together like the MLB, Malone would take home the honors in 2019. Unfortunately for him, Mike Budenholzer and the Milwaukee Bucks are setting the world on fire out East as Budenholzer and MVP-candidate Antetokounmpo continue to impress.
In 43 NBA seasons, the Nuggets have reached the playoffs a little less than half the time, with 24 playoff appearances. They have failed to reach the NBA finals in their history but have reached the WCFs, three times. They haven’t tasted the top of the West since 2009, when Chauncey Billups and Anthony were tearing up the league.
That team would go on to lose in Game 6 against Kobe and the Lakers after putting together a 54-28 regular season, finishing first in the Northwest Division. This was a different NBA than we live in today undoubtably. Despite that, the two teams, 9 seasons apart, host glaring similarities as well as many instances that create hope for Nuggets fans in 2019.
Arguably, the 2009 Nuggets’ best player was Billups, a U of Colorado (#SkoBuffs) who was acquired the second week of the season from the Detroit Pistons in a trade that, ‘that brings guard Allen Iverson to Detroit and sends Pistons mainstays Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess to Denver.’ (To note: Cheikh Samb was also included in that trade but played in just 6 games and was later traded to the Los Angeles Clippers for cash and a 2015 2nd round draft pick (Nikola Radicevic was later selected).
Billups would go on to lead the team in many statistical categories, including Win Shares (WS) and Assists per Game (APG). A qualified leader with a NBA championship under his belt, Billups continued to put up gaudy numbers, despite the talent of his teammate, Melo, who was 5 years into his career at that point.
Here’s where the similarities seem to come in. Many Nugs continue to say publicly that Nikola Jokic is the leader of the locker room. The stats support that statement strongly. Jokic leads in almost every statistical category for the 2019 Nuggets, and was the first Nugget selected to the NBA all-star game since 2010, when Anthony had his last run in Denver.
Jokic and Billups both are players that hold or held incredibly important dependence on the success of the team. Both players hold identical Win Shares, with 9.9. Billups was the lone all-star that year for Denver, just like Jokic was in 2019, when he played for Team Giannis in Charlotte.
In this situation, here’s where things are looking up for Denver in 2019: Jokic, a ‘generational player in today’s NBA’ is currently averaging more APG with almost 8 assists per game while Billups led the Nuggets with 6.4 APG in 2009. A center for 100% of his minutes (He’s played in all but 1 game this season, when he was suspended by the NBA for leaving the bench for an on-court altercation against the Utah Jazz back in January.
At this point in the season, the 2019 Nuggets have an almost identical Defensive Rating than the 2009 Nugs, in fact they have a better rating (108.8 vs. 106.8, respectfully). That same 2009 Denver team had a Margin of Victory (MOV) of 3.41 while this year’s team has a MOV of 5.08. Again, things are looking up for the current team.
While you can still argue that Billups was the face of the Nuggets in 2009, Carmelo Anthony was the undoubtedly best player on the Nuggets as one of the best scorers in NBA history. Melo was in his 5th year in the league, since he was drafted in the iconic 2003 draft with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and uhm, Darko Millicic.
Melo, who had a 19.0 PER in 2009, was significantly the best player statistically on that team while Jokic currently hosts a PER of 26.9. For reference, the second best PER on the 2019 Nuggets would be lower than Anthony’s PER in 2009.
Jokic, who just signed a massive contract keeping him in Denver for at least the next 5 years, is playing in his 5th year in the NBA, after he was drafted in the 2nd round at pick 41 just 5 years ago in 2013. Jokic, now 23 years old, is just one year younger than Melo was in his 2009 season.
The age of the Nuggets is probably the biggest separation from the two teams. The youngest player on the 2009 Nuggets was Sonny Weems, a rookie who was just 22 years of age. Today’s Nuggets, feature 5 players who are 22 or younger, including Jamal Murray.
Despite that, both teams have 7 players that are currently averaging double digits points per game (Note: Linas Kleiza averaged 9.9 PPG, but I figured for argument sake, we could round that up).
These similarities all make things look golden, no pun intended, going forward but there still are some significant question marks for this Nuggets team here in 2019. For starters to be completely brute, they can’t stay healthy.
Their opening day lineup, often named mimicking the Warriors ‘death lineup’ has played just 4 games together since the start of the season. The biggest reason for that is injuries, minus a suspension that held Jokic out for a game.
The Nugs have toted 15 different lineups so far this year, and this alone could be their downfall. The same goes for the team by the Bay, who has dealt with a plethora of injuries to their impact players. The difference? Experience.
It goes without noting that the Nuggets haven’t been to the playoffs since 2013, and have a built a quality team of young guns. The downside to that is that those young guns don’t have playoff experience. Yes, Isaiah Thomas and Paul Millsap have quality playoff time and Will Barton and Mason Plumlee have seen time in late April in the NBA, but nothing worth noting.
The Warriors, who will host the Nuggets Friday and will host them one more time on April 2nd, have been to 4 straight NBA finals, coming home with 3 of them. Their stretch of playoff success came in 2013, when they knocked out the 1 seeded Nuggets.
This coming game Friday will most likely decide who will have home-court through the Western Conference Playoffs in 2019, with the Warriors holding just a 1 game lead over the Nuggets for the top spot and the Nuggets holding a 4 game lead over the Portland Trail Blazers. With the teams currently tied 1-1 in the season series, the tiebreaker lays with the Nuggets in case the teams split the two games in Oakland.
To put it in perspective, the 2009 Lakers had Kobe as well as a prime Andrew Bynum, Derek Fisher, and Pau Gasol. The 2019 Warriors, have Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, oh and yeah, Demarcus Cousins.
The Nuggets road to the Finals will be beyond difficult going forward but one thing that they have done is put themselves in a great position to be successful. While the national media continues to overlook the Denver basketball team, often for a 10th place Los Angeles Laker team with an aging LeBron James, the Nuggets have put up numbers that have glaringly similarities to a very successful 2009 Nuggets team.
Whether they make the WCFs or get bounced by someone in the first round, this Nuggets team has made a step towards that ever-elusive, NBA Championship.
Yes, the WCFs may be the ceiling for this Nuggets team. I would be out of my mind if I said I expect them to make the Finals. Tim Connelly has built this team just like the successful 2009 Nuggets team and his success with that is showing. One thing is for sure; this Nuggets team is primed to go deeper than ever in the Western Conference.
Statistics and references used in this article were retrieved from Basketball-reference.com.
Will Satler 